Presidents and Their Dogs

Forget the vice president; the president’s best friend and most reliable colleague is his dog. Bet you didn’t know about all of these dogs in the White House. And it was JFK who started the tradition of dogs meeting the presidential helicopter at the White House, after an assistant who cared for the dogs had them line up to greet the president once or twice as a gag. From then on, JFK insisted that they always be there when he got off the helicopter.

Here’s a sampling of presidential dogs:

John Tyler: Le Beau, an Italian greyhound

Theodore Roosevelt: Pete, a bull terrier; Sailor Boy, a Chesapeake Bay retriever: Skip, a Heinz 57; and Manchu, a spaniel

Warren G. Harding: Laddie Boy, an Airedale terrier, had his own chair to sit on at cabinet meetings.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Fala, a Scottish terrier (pictured), even starred in a Hollywood movie on the typical day of a dog in the White House.

John F. Kennedy: Charlie, a Welsh terrier; Pushinka, a gift from Khrushchev; Shannon an Irish cocker spaniel given by the president of Ireland

Lyndon B. Johnson: Him and Her, beagles; J. Edgar, a beagle given to LBJ by J. Edgar Hoover; Blanco, a white collie; and Yuki, a mongrel. Sadly, Him was run over and killed on the White House grounds. Yuki made the front page of the Wall Street Journal

Gerald R. Ford: Liberty, a golden retriever memorialized by Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live.

George H. W. Bush: Millie, a springer spaniel and the author of a book