Presidential Pets: Animals in the White House

Presidential pets have long doubled as furry diplomats, image-softeners, and windows into the private lives of America’s leaders. Historian Ken Walsh traces two centuries of animals in the White House—from Theodore Roosevelt’s menagerie of dogs, snakes, a badger and a bear, to FDR fiercely defending his dog Fala, to the Kennedy kids doting on their pony Macaroni outside the Oval Office. These stories reveal how animals at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue shape power, personality, and the public’s view of the presidency.