Conversely, presidents who seem to mistreat their canine companions go straight to the doghouse. Lyndon B. Johnson cherished his canine—and even “sang” duets with Yuki, a stray that LBJ’s daughter Luci discovered deserted at a fuel station in Texas. However the hounds have been let unfastened when Life journal ran a narrative on LBJ discussing his relationship along with his beagles, Him and Her. One {photograph} confirmed the president lifting Him up by his ears. Johnson insisted, “I’ve been pulling Him’s ears since he was a pup, and he appeared to love it.” However howls of protest erupted from pet fanciers throughout the nation. Coincidentally or not, LBJ declined to run for reelection in 1968.
Many years later, in 2012, Mitt Romney’s marketing campaign towards President Barack Obama went to the canine. Was it as a result of the patrician GOP candidate was secretly recorded saying that 47% of Obama’s voters have been “dependent upon authorities”? Or as a result of years earlier, throughout a 12-hour highway journey from Boston to Ontario, Romney had put Seamus, his Irish setter, in a canine service that he’d strapped on prime of the household station wagon? Based on The New York Occasions, one wag urged on Fox Information that to be extra likable, Romney “ought to exit onstage with the canine that he had on the roof of the automobile and have the canine endorse him proper there…Seamus and Mitt. (Besides Seamus is lifeless, and Mitt is struggling to show he’s alive.)”
The outraged response to Main’s troubles means that presidents could be sensible to coddle their pooches. Certainly, Biden seems to be a hopeless canine lover, a coddler in chief. Commander, regardless of the biting spree of his predecessor Main, seems to have been given a really lengthy leash. So lengthy, based on a cache of data obtained by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, that Commander has attacked Secret Service brokers and officers not as soon as however 10 instances over a current four-month stretch. Ruh-roh!
The drama had all the weather of a minor scandal—or perhaps successful track: “Who Let Biden’s Canine Out?” The official rationalization got here from first girl Jill Biden’s spokesperson, Elizabeth Alexander: “The White Home complicated is a novel and sometimes aggravating setting for household pets, and the First Household is working by way of methods to make this case higher for everybody.” In different phrases, would everybody please simply let sleeping canine lie? Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre informed the press corps, “The White Home complicated could be distinctive and really aggravating. And that’s one thing I’m certain you all can perceive.” Wink-wink.
Perhaps the fault lies not with the canine however with their West Wing handlers. The truth that a couple of of Biden’s canine have gone rogue means that the people, not the pooches, would be the ones in want of coaching. Cesar Millan, extensively often known as the canine whisperer from his well-liked tv present, has provided to assist. As Millan informed Politico’s “West Wing Playbook,” “It’s like, ‘Hey, guys, it’s clearly not the canine. Let the canine whisperer come into the White Home and simply do what I’ve completed for 20 years.’” To this point, the White Home isn’t biting.
Complicating issues, Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, head of the Horowitz Canine Cognition Lab at Barnard Faculty, writing in The New York Occasions, posed a number of questions to think about in attempting to know Commander’s aggressive conduct:
Did somebody immediately method Commander (stunning him)? Does it look as if he was in ache or in an uncomfortable state of affairs (the chunk as details about his discomfort)? Did he give warning indicators like a growl or bark earlier than biting (defensively)? Was the chunk completed in response to a spirited gesture or a chase (playfully)? What did the canine do after the chunk—proceed to chunk or step again? Bark and bounce (extra assertive) or roll on his again, exposing his stomach (extra submissive or playful)?
These could be essential components—who am I to argue with the specialists? However readers of my e book—particularly followers of the Oval Pawffice—have urged one other risk. Canine know issues that mere bipeds don’t.
Teddy Roosevelt’s bulldog, Pete, as soon as chewed the pants off the French ambassador. Who’s to say the ambassador didn’t have it coming to him? (Who in Washington hasn’t been tempted to place a haughty international diplomat in his place?) On a extra poignant word, Jim Bishop, creator of FDR’s Final Yr, wrote that when Franklin Roosevelt died at Heat Springs, Georgia, on April 12, 1945, Fala appeared to intuit what had occurred.
