With President's Day happening on February 17th, it got us thinking about presidential pets. Were there more cat lovers or dog lovers in the Oval Office? How many presidents had something other then a cat or dog during their term?
We did some research and thought to share some of our results. Did you know that Donald Trump is the first president since James K. Polk to not have a presidential pet while in office? Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge might win for the most animals while in office!
George Washington: Polly the parrot; 36 hounds; horses
Thomas Jefferson: a mockingbird; two bear cubs, a gift from Lewis and Clark
Martin Van Buren: two tiger cubs
Abraham Lincoln: Jack the turkey; goats named Nanny and Nanko; ponies; cats; dogs; pigs; a white rabbit
Andrew Johnson: white mice
Ulysses S. Grant: Faithful, a Newfoundland; horses named Jeff Davis, Julia, Jennie, Mary, Butcher Boy, Cincinnatus, Egypt, and St. Louis; ponies named Reb and Billy Button; pigs; dogs; a parrot; roosters
Theodore Roosevelt: Sailor Boy, a Chesapeake Bay retriever; Manchu, a Pekingese; Skip, a mutt; terriers named Jack and Pete; cats named Tom Quartz and Slippers; Josiah the badger; Algonquin the pony; Eli the macaw; Jonathan the piebald rat; Emily Spinach, a garter snake; twelve horses; five bears; five guinea pigs; other snakes; two kangaroo rats; lizards; roosters; an owl; a flying squirrel; a raccoon; a coyote; a lion; a hyena; a zebra
Calvin Coolidge: Peter Pan, a terrier; Paul Pry (née Laddie Buck), an Airedale; Calamity Jane, a sheepdog; Boston Beans, a bulldog; King Cole, a shepherd; Palo Alto, a birder; collies named Rob Roy (née Oshkosh), Prudence Prim, Ruby Rough, and Bessie; chows named Blackberry and Tiny Tim; canaries named Nip, Tuck, and Snowflake; cats named Bounder, Tiger, and Blacky; raccoons named Rebecca and Horace; Ebeneezer, a donkey; Smokey, a bobcat; Old Bill, a thrush; Enoch, a goose; a mockingbird; a bear; an antelope; a wallaby; a pygmy hippo; some lion cubs
John F. Kennedy: Tom Kitten the cat; Robin the canary; Zsa Zsa the rabbit; Sardar the horse; ponies named Macaroni, Tex, and Leprechaun; parakeets named Bluebell and Marybelle; hamsters named Debbie and Billie; Charlie, a Welsh terrier, plus dogs named Pushinka, Shannon, Wolf, and Clipper, plus Pushinka and Charlie's pups: Blackie, Butterfly, Streaker, and White Tips
Bill Clinton: Socks the cat; Buddy, a chocolate Labrador retriever
George W. Bush: Spot, a Springer spaniel, born in the White House in 1989 to George H. W. Bush's Millie (died Feb. 21, 2004); Barney, a Scottish terrier; India (“Willie”) the cat. The Bushes' orange-striped polydactyl cat Ernie was judged too wild for White House life and now lives with a family in California. In 2004, the President gave his wife Laura a Scottish terrier puppy named Miss Beazley for the First Lady's birthday.
Barack Obama: Bo, a Portuguese water dog, joined the Obama family on April 14, 2009. The family took its time selecting a breed, which had to be hypoallergenic because Malia has allergies. The Obamas introduced another Portuguese water dog, Sunny, to the family on August 19, 2013.
