Years ago, I gave up the frantic Christmas-shopping marathon, having noticed that my children seemed to already have everything they needed and most of the things they might want. I have been content to enjoy the gift of family gatherings and occasional homemade presents that have more meaning than store-bought trinkets. Some of those have been homemade pickles and preserves; original drawings and paintings; little handmade books of stories, reminiscences and poems; or such mundane but useful items as potholders I made from a large collection of leftover yarn.
A family Thanksgiving tradition of an after-dinner quiz with prizes for everyone evolved from quizzes found in magazines to more personalized challenges designed just for the family. Being a great puzzle lover with time to spare, I was probably destined to be a frequent designer of those holiday quizzes and find myself collecting obscure and interesting information and challenging facts for future puzzles. Not all of those topics appeal to only our family and I sometimes share them with my high school classmates in our annual newsletter. Often the information I collect seems interesting enough to include in this column. I hope you find it at least entertaining if not particularly enlightening.
After President Biden was forced to give up two White House pets because of their habits of biting people, I began remembering things about other presidential dogs and searched for lesser-known facts about their predecessors. My first memory of such dogs was of Fala, the popular Scottish terrier belonging to Eleanor and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Fala instigated a great rush of popularity for the spunky little “Scotties” as did nearly every White House breed to follow. I don’t remember hearing much about FDR’s other dog, a Great Dane with the rather self-conscious name of President. Among the most popular were Eisenhower’s Weimaraner, Heidi; Ford’s Golden Retriever, Liberty; Rex, Reagan’s King Charles Spaniel; Grant’s faithful Newfoundland named, appropriately, Faithful and Gritz, Carter’s lively Border Collie mix who shared the family’s affections with an attractive stray cat they named Boots. And who can forget Nixon’s Cocker Spaniel, Checkers? Lyndon Johnson’s Beagles, Him and Her, had us wondering if they really did enjoy having their ears pulled as their master claimed. The Obama family’s Portuguese Water Dogs, Bo and Sunny were of a high-end breed suited for people with dog allergies. President Lincoln settled for mutts which were named Jip and Fido – the latter derived from the Latin word for faithful and is probably the reason that “Fido” became almost a synonym for “dog.” Apparently there have been only three presidents, James Polk, Andrew Johnson and Donald Trump, who did not have pets while in office.
There has been a wide variety of other traditional household pets such as fish, cats, canaries and parrots. Some more interesting examples were the many pets belonging to President Teddy Roosevelt and his six children. These included barnyard animals; a pony, a donkey, a hen, a one-legged rooster and a pig named Maude. Their more unusual pets consisted of a small bear, guinea pigs, a lizard, hyena, badger, blue macaw, barn owl, snakes and a not-so-exotic rabbit named Peter. The family zoo also held tiger cubs and a raccoon. An alligator resided for a time in a White House bathtub, a gift from the Marquis de Lafayette to President Adams. Gifts of exotic animals from other foreign dignitaries, such as pandas, tigers and the herd of elephants presented to President Buchanan by the King of Siam, were sent to zoos to be enjoyed by the American public.
Oddly enough, I didn’t happen upon any reindeer while searching for Presidential livestock, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any. You would think that, if turkeys merit Presidential pardons at Thanksgiving time, then surely reindeer should receive some recognition in December, Christmas being an even more notable occasion in the U.S.A. Americans are a funny lot, though, and we seem to care more about a fictitious reindeer with a glowing red nose.