Biden Dogs: Return of the White House Animals

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President Donald Trump ran and won by breaking Washington standards in 2016, which included choosing against a pet during his four years in office. But Champ and Major Biden, both German Shepherds, will join the elite ranks of Socks Clinton, Barney Bush, Macaroni Kennedy and Rebecca Raccoon Coolidge, among others, in January when they move to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Champ joined the Biden family during the presidential transition in December 2008, weeks after Biden became vice president-elect.

“With Barack asking if I would be willing to be approved, Jill said, ‘I’m going to make you a deal: if you get the vice-president and get elected you can get a dog,” Biden told reporters at the campaign aboard his plane. on election day 2008.

Major joined the Biden clan almost eight years later. The Bidens welcomed Major from the Delaware Humane Association and formalized its adoption in November 2018.

Major isn’t the first rescue pet to land at the White House. Yuki, a mixed-breed puppy abandoned by her owner at a gas station in Texas, was rescued by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s daughter Luci, and Clinton’s cat Socks was also a rescue.
Jill Biden tweeted a photo with Major and Champ in August 2020.
Champ is predominantly light brown with a dark muzzle, and Major is predominantly black with light brown legs. News of the new first pets has been well received on social media – a post on the popular “We Rate Dogs” account on Saturday, which rated the two dogs 14 out of 10 has received over 355,000 likes. on Instagram.

Pets of the White House: a brief but illustrious history

President Harding and his dog Laddie are pictured outside the White House in June 1922.

The tradition of keeping pets in the White House dates back to Thomas Jefferson, who kept a mockingbird and a few cubs during his presidency. Presidential pets have grown into celebrities over the years.

“It softens their image, it broadens their appeal,” Ed Lengel, former chief historian of the White House Historical Association, told CNN in 2017. “They help create an atmosphere of the White House as a family, a place where people live. and not just a steep museum, but a place where one family lives, plays and enjoys each other’s company. “

The beginnings of White House pet history were not well documented, but included farm animals, hunting dogs and horses in stables on White House grounds, and many animals. offered as a gift.

President James Buchanan is said to have received a herd of elephants and President Martin Van Buren received a pair of little tigers. Congress forced Van Buren to donate the cubs to a local zoo, according to Andrew Hager, historian in residence at the Presidential Pet Museum, a collection of presidential pet memorabilia located outside of Baltimore.

Lengel told CNN that although this has not been confirmed by documents, there is circumstantial evidence that President John Quincy Adams was given an alligator.

“It is reputed that John Quincy Adams received an alligator as a gift and he was not sure what to do with it,” Lengel said. Adams is said to have kept the swamp creature in a tub in the East Room for several months.

Sheep on the White House lawn in 1919.
President Woodrow Wilson kept a flock of sheep and a ram on the White House lawn, and President William Taft had a Holstein cow, Pauline Wayne, who later retired to Wisconsin, according to the DC History Center.

Although Presidents have kept pets for years, Warren Harding’s dog Laddie Boy, an Airedale Terrier, had his own chair in the Roosevelt Room for Cabinet meetings and became the first ‘celebrity pet’. In the early 1920s. Laddie Boy chaired the Easter Egg Roll and once served on a children’s jury at a local nature club that brought White House owls to justice for murder. (The owls have been declared innocent.)

For the sake of intrepid White House journalists and their readers, the Presidential Pet has become a high profile beat. During the 1920s, Americans would send company ambassadors to the White House.

President Calvin Coolidge’s wife Grace got attached to one of those ambassadors, a raccoon she called “Rebecca,” whom she walked on a dazzled leash. She also adopted a possum.

First Lady Grace Coolidge is seen holding her raccoon, Rebecca, in 1927.

President Theodore Roosevelt had nearly 30 pets, including a bulldog named Pete who made headlines and nearly caused an international incident by ripping the pants off a French ambassador.

The Kennedy family’s White House housed Macaroni the pony, several horses, hamsters Debbie and Billy, dogs, parakeets, a canary, Zsa Zsa the rabbit, and a cat.

The modern animal of the White House

President Barack Obama strokes his dog Bo outside the White House Oval Office in 2012.

In recent years, presidential pets have been more traditional, primarily dogs and cats.

George W. and Laura Bush’s Scottish Terrier, Barney, starred in a series of “Barney Cam” videos alongside fellow countryman Miss Beazley. There was so much demand for Barney content that the White House created a website, “Barney.gov”.
President George W. Bush plays with his companion dogs Barney and Mrs. Beazley on the South Lawn of the White House in 2005.

And the Portuguese Water Dogs Bo and Sunny Obama were frequent at White House events.

Trump was the first modern-day president to spend four years in the White House without getting a pet, though the Pence family had a veritable menagerie at the Naval Observatory, including a precocious rabbit, Marlon Bundo, with a book and social media presence.

Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence hold their family bunny Marlon Bundo.

Trump lived with a poodle, Chappy, with his first wife, Ivana, who wrote in her memoir, “Raising Trump,” that “Donald was not a fan of dogs.”

“When I told him I was taking Chappy with me to New York, he said, ‘No’,” she wrote. “It’s me and Chappy or nobody!” I insisted, and that was it. “

Chappy, she later said, “had an equal dislike of Donald.”



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