White House Pets

Truman said, ´If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.´ First families have followed suit with a menagerie of presidential pets. From Martha Washington´s parrot to Jefferson´s bears, meet the animals that have called 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home. Over 200 years...and under 39 presidents the White House has seen more than 400 pets come through its doors. Everything - from bears to hyenas to alligators - has roamed the halls of power.

While many past Leaders of the Free World have opted for more traditional house pets over the years, others took a more rock star-like approach in their choice of animal companionship. One of Woodrow Wilson´s mammalian companions, for example, was a tobacco-eating pet ram. Party animal Ulysses S. Grant loved his horses. John Adams cared for an alligator, and that loveable William Howard Taft brought a cow to the White House. And Theodore Roosevelt...well Teddy unleashed in the famous hallowed halls all manner of dog, macaw, snake, lion, raccoon, hyena, badger, and a kitty-cat named Tom Quartz. And that´s just the tip of the iceberg in this comprehensive history of the hundreds of pets that have graced the White House.

Upplagd i sortimentet: 11 Oktober, 2008