Presidential Pooches - A Guide to Presidential Dogs

With a new president setting up residence at the White House, there’s one question on everybody’s mind... What kind of dog is the new American President Obama going to have? "It'll probably either be a "Labradoodle" or a "Portuguese water hound,'' Obama told George Stephanopoulos on ABC News' This Week programme. (Ahem. It's actually a Portuguese Water Dog, Mr President.)

Many would argue that it’s merely a figurehead position, the moral support that the First Dog provides the Commander in Chief cannot be overstated.

So, Portuguese Water DOG in the White House, here's some more First Dogs worth a mention.

Okay, if you’re an old stick in the mud, you were probably a little more worried about what President Obama’s going to do about foreign policy and the economy (*yawn*), but the fact remains that many people around the world were wondering who they could expect to see as the President's Dog - or America’s First Pooch for the next four or eight years, so it seems this would be as good a time as any to discuss the history of this esteemed position.

Any resemblance between dog and owner in the below images is purely coincidental. Yeah, right!

Figurehead position or not, the role of First Dog carries quite a few perks. Round the clock executive chef, a huge yard to play in, full time body guards, and a yearly allowance of around four hundred thousand bones a year, although, the First Family usually opts to fritter that money away on things like clothing and furniture.

Presidential dogs date back to George Washington, who introduced the United States to the Foxhound. In 1770, Washington imported a number of Foxhounds from England, and then in 1785, received a group of French Foxhounds from the Marquis de Lafayette. Washington then bred these animals and started the first family of what would eventually become the modern American foxhound breed.

If you look in Washington’s personal journals, he mentions his dogs Drunkard, Tipler, and Tipsy amongst at least thirty hounds.  Hmm I see a pattern emerging here...

The job of being First Dog carries with it a share of stress, so we can probably forgive Washington’s hounds for having a drink or two (or three) now and then.

Thomas Jefferson was always a fan of Briards when serving as minister to France, and it was with “Buzzy”, a pregnant female that he began a breeding program.

Marquis de Lafayette would also send Thomas Jefferson a couple of purebred Briards to help protect his flock of sheep.

I wonder where President Obama will keep his sheep (and is that why the White House has such a big lawn?)

Maybe the first celebrity Presidential Dog would be James Buchanan’s Newfoundland “Lara”, who was very protective of her human, sleeping with one eye open to keep an eye out and keep Buchanan out of trouble.

Another Newfoundland in the White House was “Faithful”, who served under President Ulysses Grant.

Grant actually bought the dog as a gift for his son, and promised his staff “If this dog dies, every employee in the White House will be at once discharged”. Needless to say, Faithful was very well taken care of in his term of office as First Dog!

Calvin Coolidge seems to have had quite a taste for grammatical alliteration, as well as a whole cabinet of First Dogs.

“Black Berry”, “Tiny Tim”, “Rob Roy”, “Ruby Rough”, “Prudence Prim”, “Peter Pan”, “Boston Beans”, “Paul Pry” and... “Calamity Jane”.

Hm, well I guess there were no wild women of the west with the same first and last initials, but you’d think he would’ve at least gone with “Annie Oakley”.

John F. Kennedy kept well over a dozen pets, including a Welsh Terrier “Charlie”, “Shannon”, an Irish Cocker Spaniel, “Wolf”, who was part Wolfhound and part Schnauzer, and “Clipper”, a German Shepherd.

Lyndon B. Johnson was the first president whose dogs would make the cover of Life magazine.

His Beagles were named rather imaginatively (not) “Him”, and “Her”.

He later shared the White House with “Blanco”, a white Border Collie, “Beagle” and “Little Beagle” who were... well, beagles...

You might say Johnson wasn’t very imaginative when it came to naming dogs, though he did take the extra effort to name his Mongrel “Yuki”.

Jimmy Carter gave a Mongrel Dog to his daughter Amy and it was named "Grits".

Ronald Reagan had two dogs, the one shown and another called "Lucky" a Bouvier des Flandres which later was sent to live in California.

George Herbert Walker Bush’s English Springer Spaniel, “Millie”, may be the only First Dog on this list to have the honor of being a published author.

She wrote “Millie’s Book, as Dictated to Barbara Bush”.

Millie has gone on record strongly denying that there were any ghostwriters involved in the process, but the speculation as to Millie’s true veracity as the author continues to persist.

While there’s a lot of talk about Socks the Cat, a lot of people have never even heard of Bill Clinton’s Chocolate Lab Retriever.

“Buddy” gets very little mention. According to our sources, Buddy actually prefers to stay out of the limelight, allowing Socks to get all the attention (because, well, you know how cats can be).

George W. Bush kept an English Springer Spaniel named “Spot Fetcher” for years. Spot Fetcher was actually one of Millie’s puppies.

George W. Bush also kept a couple of Scottish Terriers, “Barney” and “Miss Beazley”.

Barney actually got himself into some hot water when he gave a White House reporter a little nip. Maybe the journalist had been a little too hard on his human, in which case, it’s hard to condone replying to the media in such a manner!

In the coming years, bipartisanship is going to be an important part of getting just about anything done in D.C. Maybe if America’s leaders can take a note from their canine companions, the Twenty First Century will live up to all of its promises.

Well, it’s interesting to note that no one breed is any more common than another, and neither male nor female dogs seem to take precedence. We’ve even seen mutts in the White House. It’s taken hundreds of years for America to see its first President that wasn’t a male of strictly European descent, whereas that racial and gender divide has never existed in the canine political community. The world of First Dogs has always been an inclusive club, rather than an exclusive one.

This, of course, comes down to a dog’s laid back philosophy on life: Eat, sleep, and play with your friends. There’s no room in that attitude for the polarizing politics that have long dominated Washington, nor is there any kind of a cultural divide between poor dogs and rich dogs. There’s no stigma attached to being a single mother dog, and a dog is willing to put political differences aside in order to maintain a strong friendship. For dogs, the world of politics and society is pretty simple and uncomplicated.

by Julie-Ann Amos, professional writer, and owner of international writing agency www.ExquisiteWriting.com

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