For one, this means that the 100-year-old tradition of presidential dogs will be continued once more. For another, the shepherd dog Major will be the first animal not to come from a breeder, but from a shelter.
It is no secret that many former US presidents were great animal enthusiasts. George Bush Sen., Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter all kept pets while being in office. President Barack Obama’s Portuguese Water Dog Bo was the last pet to have live in the White House.
Donald Trump thus became the first president since Warren G Harding in the 1920s to break with tradition - a fact which Biden tried to use to his advantage, as he featured a Trump quote about his lack of enthusiasm for dogs in one of his campaign ads.
Presidential dogs have been in the centre of the news in the past, most notably when Bush’s dog bit a reporter, or when Theodore Roosevelt’s bullterrier ripped the pants off the French Ambassador. Meanwhile, John F. Kennedy was known to have three ponies, George Washington a donkey, Andrew Jackson a parrot who knew how to curse, and Herbert Hoover even had two pet alligators.
