About 400 different pets have lived at the White House, not counting horses used for transportation before cars.
Besides many dogs and cats, there were pet horses, mules, cows (Taft was the last president to keep a cow at the White House), birds of all sorts, reptiles, silkworms (belonging to Louisa Adams), an alligator, tiger cubs, a lion, a wallaby, a pigmy hippopotamus, a hyena, bears, a zebra, owls, raccoons, coyotes, hamsters, rabbits, goats, mice, turkeys, a badger; and several snakes.
Teddy Roosevelt and his children ran a small zoo that included Emily Spinach the snake, Jack the turkey, and guinea pigs named Dewey Senior, Dewey Junior, Father O’Grady, and Bishop Doan.
However, Roosevelt’s bull terrier, Pete, takes the cake for causing the most political stink.
He tore the pants off the French ambassador and was thereafter banished from the White House.
