When sheep and raccoons roamed wild at the White House
As Trump ends pet-less reign, Biden’s dogs will revive tradition of four- (and one-) legged guests
Residents of the White House have had fur and feathers, claws and hooves, scales, stripes and prehensile tails. Some were found on the property, many came with the new tenants, and others were delivered by foreign leaders. But for most of modern U.S. history, the president has had a pet.
President-elect Joe Biden is expected to resume that tradition in January with his two German shepherds, Champ and Major, after President Donald Trump’s term ends as the first in decades without any pets living full time at the residence.
More often than not, presidential pets have been dogs and cats. But many lesstraditional pets have also lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., their quantity and variety depending on each administration, said Matthew Costello, a senior historian for the White House Historical Association.
“If you’re talking about which White House was quite literally a zoo, it was probably Theodore Roosevelt’s White House,” Costello said. “Between the six children that he brought with him to the White House and the assortment of pets — the Roosevelts, they just loved animals.”
Although the list of White House pets is lengthy, according to the Presidential Pet Museum, an organization founded to preserve information and artifacts related to presidential pets, the history is also littered with unverified tales and missing details. Still, records clearly show many strange pets.
Aone-legged rooster and Bill the hyena
Roosevelt, who travelled abroad, hiked at home and led conservation efforts as president from 1901 to 1909, kept a lengthy list of animals at the White House. In his family’s care were horses, dogs, a hyacinth macaw, kangaroo rats, five guinea pigs and a one-legged rooster, according to the Presidential Pet Museum. There was also a short-tempered badger named Josiah and a green garter snake named Emily Spinach.
Republican supporters in West Virginia also gave Roosevelt a bear, which his children named Jonathan Edwards after an ancestor of the first lady, Edith Roosevelt. The president also received exotic animals as gifts from foreign leaders. In 1904, King Menelik of Abyssinia gave Roosevelt a lion cub named Joe and a hyena named Bill that “laughs nearly all the time,” The New York Times reported that year.
(President Dwight Eisenhower also received an unusual gift in 1959, when Prime Minister Fulbert Youlou of the Republic of Congo gave him a baby ele
phant named Dzimbo. The president, later trying to feed the elephant, compared it to his grandchildren: “He doesn’t like carrots.” (Dzimbo eventually moved to the Washington Zoo.)
Aflock of sheep
In an effort to keep costs low and to conserve resources during the First World War, a flock of sheep was brought to the White House to keep the grass neat, according to the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum.
The flock arrived at the White House in 1918 from Maryland and grazed on the property for at least two years. At some point, the flock was sheared, and two pounds of wool was given to each state, where it was auctioned off and ended up raising about $52,000 for the Red Cross. Rebecca the raccoon
President Calvin Coolidge and Grace Coolidge, the first lady while he was in office from1923 to1929, kept a menagerie at the White House, including several dogs, cats, birds, a goose and a donkey. But it was a raccoon, Rebecca, that was among the family’s most famous and beloved pets.
In November 1926, the family received the raccoon from Mississippi, to be served for Thanksgiving dinner. But finding the raccoon to be friendly, the family changed her fate.
Over the years, the former president grew close to Rebecca and sometimes walked her around the grounds on a leash. He even gave Rebecca an embroidered collar with the title “White House Raccoon,” according to the White House Historical Association.
Billy the opossum
President Herbert Hoover had several dogs during his tenure at the White House from 1929 to 1933, but few appeared to attract as much attention as Billy, a wild opossum the family adopted after he strayed onto the property, according to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.
Similarly, before Hoover moved into the White House, President Benjamin Harrison had two opossums during his tenure from 1889 to 1893, which he named Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection, after the Republican platform at the time.