As recognition that Major and Champ, the First Dogs-Elect, will be moving into the White House, today the Times published Derrick Bryson Taylor’s enchanting review of the variety of pets who have taken up residency in the White House, “When the White House Was Full of Claws, Scales, Stripes and Tails.”
A few members of the historical menagerie:
Teddy Roosevelt had lots and lots of WH animals, including a one-legged rooster, a “short-tempered badger named Josiah,” Emily Spinach, a green garter snake, and a “hyena named Bill, who ‘laughs nearly all the time.'”
The Coolidges had many pets but especially loved a raccoon named Rebecca. Who once ran away from home. Or, as the Times reported it then and now:
In 1927, she fled the Coolidge residence in South Dakota, running away from “her attendants in the dead of night” and climbing a tall tree, “which she declines to descend in spite of all entreaties,” The Times reported.
I’m mad about that “which she declines to descend in spite of all entreaties…”
Just a kibble ‘n’ bits to excite your taste buds. For satiation, read the whole article. It is yummy.