Willow Biden is latest pet at White House
Welcome, Willow, to a long line of presidential pets.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden have added a green-eyed tabby from Pennsylvania to the White House family, the first feline tenant since President George W. Bush’s controversially named cat India.
The 2-year-old Willow joins Commander, a recently acquired German shepherd puppy who follows two other German shepherds, Champ and Major. Champ died in June at age 13, while Major, a 3-year-old rescue, was sent off to a quieter life after behaving aggressively.
With Presidents James K. Polk and Donald Trump among the no-pets exceptions, animals have a long history in the White House.
There have been a few ponies and many horses, including the very first pets to occupy the White House with President John Adams and first lady Abigail. They had horses named Cleopatra and Caesar, along with dogs Juno and Satan.
Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of John F. Kennedy, and her friends famously enjoyed riding her pony Macaroni on the South Lawn, along with another one named Tex, but Macaroni was usually stabled at the Kennedy family home in Virginia.
The White House once had stables of its own used by many presidents, the last being Theodore Roosevelt.
There have been plenty of cat people in the White House: The Clintons, the Carters and the Fords to name a few.
It was India, however, who sparked protests in 2004 among nationalists in Kerala, India’s southernmost state. They considered the name an insult.
Caroline Kennedy briefly had a cat, Tom Kitten (aka Tom Terrific) but he made her allergy-prone dad sneeze and was sent off to live with a staffer. There have been oh so many dogs. The Obama’s Bo, a male Portuguese water dog, joined the family at the White House in April 2009. Sunny, a female of the same breed, came along in August 2013.
Among President John Tyler’s pets were a pair of “gentle giant” Irish wolfhounds. He gave them to his second wife, Julia, as a gift. Theodore Roosevelt, an avid animal lover, had a pack of dogs, snakes, guinea pigs and, by one account, a one-legged rooster.
Perhaps the most famous of dogs was Checkers, though he had his coming out before Richard Nixon became president.
William H. Taft had two prize cows: Mooly Wooly and Pauline.