Presidents have kept cows, sheep, raccoons and ponies at the White House, along with the usual dogs and cats. These ten photographs follow the pets from William Howard Taft’s milk cow to the Obamas’ Bo, with stops for a famous raccoon and a Scottish terrier named Fala. They come from the Library of Congress, presidential libraries and other archives, and every one is in the public domain.
Taft’s cow, Pauline Wayne
President William Howard Taft kept a Holstein named Pauline Wayne, who gave the White House fresh milk and butter. A Wisconsin senator sent her after the Tafts’ first cow died. She is still described as the last cow to serve a president, and she went back to a Wisconsin farm when Taft left office in 1913.
Wilson’s sheep trim the lawn
In 1917 President Woodrow Wilson put sheep on the White House lawns to save labor for the war effort. The flock reached 48 at its peak. Their wool was auctioned for the Red Cross, which raised $52,823 by the end of the war.
Laddie Boy gets a birthday cake
Warren Harding’s Airedale, Laddie Boy, was the first White House dog to get regular newspaper coverage. This 1922 photograph shows his birthday cake, with three candles each tipped with a tiny American flag. He had his own hand-carved chair at Cabinet meetings, and newsboys later collected 19,134 pennies for a statue of him.
Rebecca the raccoon at the egg roll
A Mississippi supporter sent Rebecca in 1926 to be the Coolidges’ Thanksgiving dinner. Calvin Coolidge had never eaten raccoon and did not want to start, so she became a pet with her own tree house and a leash for walks. Here Grace Coolidge shows her to children at the 1927 Easter egg roll.
King Tut works the night shift
A 1929 press caption said King Tut, President Hoover’s Belgian police dog, made nightly rounds to check that the guards were at their posts. Here he sits beside Officer Newton. Tut was Hoover’s favorite but unhappy at the White House, so he was sent back to the family’s old house. He died in October 1929.
Fala, the dog who got a speech
Margaret Suckley, a distant cousin, gave Franklin Roosevelt the Scottish terrier in 1940, and Fala soon went almost everywhere with him. In 1944 Roosevelt mocked the claim that he had left Fala on an Aleutian island and sent a destroyer back for him. A statue of Fala sits beside Roosevelt’s at the FDR Memorial in Washington.
Macaroni, the pony on the grounds
Macaroni was Caroline Kennedy’s pony, and he had the run of the White House grounds. President Kennedy is shown here with the pony, Caroline and John Jr. on the West Wing colonnade on June 22, 1962. By September that year Macaroni and Caroline were on the cover of Life.
Him and Her, the Johnson beagles
Lyndon Johnson’s beagles Him and Her became famous in 1964, when he lifted Him by the ears for photographers and dog lovers protested. Yoichi Okamoto took this picture of the beagles greeting the president on March 18, 1966. Johnson also howled duets with Yuki, a stray his daughter Luci found at a Texas gas station.
Socks, the stray who moved in
Socks was a stray in Little Rock who jumped into Chelsea Clinton’s arms outside her piano teacher’s house, and the family adopted him in 1991. In Washington he received hundreds of letters, cards and photographs a month. The White House photograph office took this picture beside the Christmas decorations on December 5, 1993.
Bo, the dog with an official portrait
Bo, a Portuguese water dog, was a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy, announced on April 12, 2009. Malia and Sasha Obama named him after their cousins’ cat, with a nod to the musician Bo Diddley. White House photographer Chuck Kennedy took this official portrait on the South Lawn on May 20, 2009.
