FURRY FRIENDS OF THE OVAL OFFICE

Grizzly bears and tiger cubs: 10 Presidential pets that left a mark

Image: Krista Mangulsone

It is usually said that dogs are humankind’s best friends, but maybe we should broaden our horizons a little and include all pets in this phrase. After all, anyone who shares their home with a pet will attest to how much love and joy these companions bring to their lives.

We can all agree that every house with a pet is a happier home, and the White House is no exception. A generation of Presidential Pets has warmed the hearts of both the nation and our commanders-in-chief throughout our history, and we have chosen to remember ten of these loving companions with this article. Enjoy!

Image: Sebastian Coman Travel

If you visit the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington D.C., you will see a statue of our 32nd President sitting down in the reflexive demeanor that reassured our nation during his famous "Fireside Chats". However, if you happen to look left, you’ll come across a different kind of reassuring presence: the statue of a small Scottish Terrier, curiously looking at the millions of Americans that pay homage to his owner.

Fala was FDR’s famous dog, given to him as a Christmas gift by a cousin. He often accompanied the President on important events, was made a symbol for contributing to the war effort, and was featured in an MGM movie about a day at the White House. Fala, who outlived the President by seven years, was buried near his owner after he passed away.

Image: Camylla Battani

Who do you think about when you hear the phrase "space pet"? Maybe about Astro, the Jetsons’ dog, or Jonesy, the adorable cat on board Ripley’s spaceship on "Aliens". However, although these fictional pets are undoubtedly iconic, we want to focus on an unforgettable, real-life dog that could actually receive the title of space pet: Pushinka, the Kennedys’ dog.

Given to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy as a gift by Soviet Premier Khrushchev, Pushinka was the daughter of Strelka, a dog who had journeyed to space on a Soviet mission. Pushinka was beloved by Caroline Kennedy, and she was trained to slide down Caroline’s playhouse alongside her.

Image: Bella Huang

Fala is not the only presidential dog immortalized on an official monument. First Lady Grace Coolidge’s official white house portrait shows her in a dashing red dress, standing in a garden with the White House in the background. Right beside her, a white collie looks dutifully at Coolidge, while the First Lady’s hand rests comfortably on the dog’s head. That collie’s name is Rob Roy, the Coolidge family’s favorite pet.

Rob Roy was adopted by Grace Coolidge in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and became part of the family’s numerous pets, which included cats, birds, and raccoons. According to White House officials at the time, Rob Roy led Calvin Coolidge every morning onto the Oval Office, and the President himself described the dog as "a stately gentleman of great courage and fidelity".

Image: Rae Wallis

Make way for the first cold-blooded pet on this list! John Quincy Adams’ pet alligator has been the subject of speculation for decades, up to the point that many people believe the President’s scaly companion never existed. However, while some historians disagree, it seems that our 6th President did in fact housed an alligator in the White House.

According to most sources, the alligator was given to John Quincy Adams as an unusual gift by French general Marquis de Lafayette, who encountered the reptile on one of his many travels. Some testimonies say that the President placed the alligator in a bathroom in the White House, where he used it to prank (and terrify) guests.

Image: Vincent van Zalinge

President Teddy Roosevelt was known for his numerous pets, which included a blue macaw called Elie Yale, a small bear called Johnatan Edwards, and a myriad of guinea pigs. And while we could have focused on any of them, Josiah the Badger is probably the most outstanding of Teddy Roosevelt’s animal companions.

While doing a railway tour through the American West, President Roosevelt made a stop in Sharon Springs, Kansas. On his last day of the stop, a 12-year-old girl approached the President and gifted him a baby badger. The delighted Teddy named him after the girl’s father, Josiah, and adopted his new furry friend into his vast menagerie of pets.

Image: Sam Carter

Who says pets can’t be useful? The flock of sheep bought by President Woodrow Wilson to mow the White House lawn certainly were. While calling them pets might be slightly misleading, the truth is that these cute wooly gardeners were fondly regarded by the White House staff and by the President himself.

During WW1, President Wilson bought a flock of 12 sheep to keep the White House lawn trimmed. This action not only saved an enormous and expensive human effort during a difficult time, but it also provided a profit: the wool sheared from these sheep was auctioned and its profit was donated to the Red Cross. This flock was so iconic that it is featured in the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum of Staunton, Virginia.

Image: jbc

Socks might be the most famous pet in this article: In the early 90s, the Clinton family cat was regularly featured in pictures and events, and his cartoon version guided kids through the children’s version of the White House website. Socks was beloved by the public, whether perched on the President’s shoulder or prancing through colored eggs on the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.

The story of Socks adoption is as cute as the cat himself: According to the Clintons, Socks was a stray cat that jumped into the arms of Chelsea Clinton when she was leaving her piano teacher’s house after a lesson. The Clintons instantly adopted him, and gave Socks a loving family until his passing in 2009.

Image: 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič

Over 120 years have passed since the first teddy bear was sold, but they are still a child's favorite. If you are like us, you probably hugged your favorite stuffed animal every night before bed and wished that it would suddenly become real. But, let’s face it, a bear would probably be a tough pet to handle. Having said that, if Thomas Jefferson’s pair of grizzly bears have taught us anything, is that caring for a pet bear might be dangerous, but not impossible.

Our 3rd President received the pair of bear cubs from Captain Zebulon Pike in 1807, who purchased them during his expedition of the American West. In a letter he sent to his friend Charles Willson Peale, Jefferson describes the bears as "perfectly gentle" and that they "appear quite good-humored", since they had been taken as cubs. Peale later on adopted the bears from Jefferson, but they lived a big portion of their lives in an enclosure of the President’s house.

Image: Ana Karla Parra

They say pets take after their owners, but we hope for President Jackson’s sake that this was not the case. Among many other pets, Jackson owned an African Grey parrot named Poll, which he originally purchased as a gift for his wife Rachel. Poll is remembered to this day not only for being a beautiful and loyal parrot but also for his tendency to spout profanity.

After Jackson’s wife died, the President became the main caretaker of Poll. Now, we can’t be sure that it was the President’s vocabulary that influenced such foul language onto the parrot, but we should note that Andrew Jackson’s temperamental nature earned him the nickname "Old Hickory". In any case, a popular story states that, during the President’s funeral, Polly’s outbursts were so offensive that he had to be taken away from the service.

Image: Mystery Cat

We’ll end this list with a group of pets that ignited a conflict between Congress and a U.S. President. In the early years of his presidency, Martin Van Buren received an uncommon gift from the Sultan of Oman: a pair of tiger cubs. The president was delighted by them, and intended to keep them with him in the White House.

However, Congress thought otherwise. Since the tigers had started their journey to America under Andrew Jackson’s previous presidency, Congress stated that Van Buren had no claim over them, as they were not directly addressed to him. The President, on the other hand, replied that they were addressed to "the US President", which he was when the tigers arrived. Eventually, Congress was able to take hold of the cubs, which were sent to live at the local zoo.

PHRASES WITHOUT BORDERS

Did You Know That These 10 Idioms Have Equivalents In Other Languages?

Image: Adolfo Félix

To say that the English language is filled to the brim with quirky and baffling idioms is no groundbreaking news: after all, we say that someone has "kicked the bucket" when they pass away, or that a heavy thunderstorm is comparable to "cats and dogs" raining from the sky. However, while we have previously delved into the inherent strangeness of the idioms we use every day, one of the most beautiful aspects of these phrases is how difficult they are to translate: tell a non-native English speaker that you are "head over heels" for them and you might only receive a weird look as a response. Luckily, for every strange English idiom, there’s always an even stranger idiom that conveys the same meaning, though using entirely different images. With that in mind, here are ten of the most unique equivalents of English idioms we could find. Enjoy!

Image: Arthur Yeti

We’ll start with one that perfectly describes how baffling some of these idioms are. Whenever someone says "It’s all Greek to me" they are trying to convey how incomprehensible or difficult something is. In a way, this idiom makes perfect sense: English and Greek are extremely dissimilar, from the way both languages sound to the way they are written.

Similarly, the Czech language’s equivalent to this idiom also focuses on a completely dissimilar language to convey this feeling. The expression je to pro mě španělská vesnice literally translates to "It's a Spanish village to me."

Image: PHÚC LONG

To say that someone has "rekindled an old flame" means that they have rediscovered feelings for a former partner. In that sense, these idioms are fairly self-explanatory: the image of lighting up a fire perfectly summarizes the heat and excitement of passion. However, Italy’s answer to this idiom perplexingly focuses on an objectively less romantic image. Let’s put it this way: if you had to associate passion and intimacy with a vegetable, would you honestly pick a cabbage?

The Italian phrase cavolo riscaldato, the equivalent to "rekindling an old flame", literally translates to "reheated cabbage." If this doesn’t speak to you, we have good and bad news. The good news is that some regions of Italy use a variant of this idiom, minestra riscaldata, so you might prefer to use this one the next time you find yourself in "the Boot." The bad news is that this idiom doesn’t fare that much better, since it translates to "reheated soup."

Image: Petim latifi

No one wants to be the third wheel, that friend caught in the awkward position of unwillingly chaperoning a date. While tricycles are definitely a thing, this idiom speaks to how useless a third wheel is to a two-wheeled vehicle like a bicycle. Moreover, an argument could be made that it also highlights how troublesome it would be to carry a third and motionless wheel: it is as awkward for the couple as it is for the third party. Like we said, no one wants to be the third wheel.

In that sense, British English has a colorful idiom with the same meaning as "third wheel": being an unwanted companion is known in the United Kingdom as "playing gooseberry." The history behind this idiom is rather interesting: it comes from how chaperones would pretend to pick gooseberries to allow couples some intimacy during a date.

Image: Pasqualino Capobianco

The color blue has been associated with sadness since at least the late 19th century: "Having the blues" is a common idiom that describes not feeling great. There’s a reason why Blues music received this name: its slow chords and melancholic lyrics usually convey an atmosphere of sadness.

While the English language has a primary color to describe sadness, French is not so lucky: the phrase avoir le cafard, the equivalent of "having the blues," literally means "to have the cockroach." While definitively unpleasant, a point could be made that encountering a cockroach produces an unpleasant feeling not completely dissimilar to the blues.

Image: Caleb Woods

Quick question: if you had to choose the subject of our next idiom between a spade or a cat, would you even hesitate to choose the kitten? We know you wouldn’t: who in their right mind would pick a boring old spade over an adorable little furry bundle of joy?

Unfortunately for us English speakers, we are stuck with the idiom "to call a spade a spade" whenever we need to speak bluntly and in a straightforward manner. On the other hand, the French equivalent to this idiom is the phrase appeler un chat un chat, which translates to "to call a cat a cat."

Image: Andrea Sonda

Any English speaker "taking the fall" is facing responsibility or repercussions for someone else’s actions, whether it is done intentionally or not. While this idiom is rather self-explanatory, the same can’t be said about its Portuguese counterpart: the phrase pagar o pato translates to "pay the duck."

Don’t worry, this idiom doesn’t involve reimbursing any ducks. Its origins can be traced back to an old Portuguese fable in which a dispute concerning the cost of a duck breaks out between a poor family and a duck vendor.

Image: Rafael Corrêa

When someone is "in the dark," they are completely unaware of something happening in the background. Whether they are kept in the dark by someone or they choose to live in ignorant bliss doesn’t really affect the meaning of this idiom: at the end of the day, someone is "in the dark" just by ignoring something.

In that sense, the imagery of this idiom seems rather obvious: someone whose vision is impaired and can’t see properly. Curiously, the German equivalent of this idiom still manages to convey the same meaning with an entirely different picture: the idiom Tomaten auf den Augen haben means "to have tomatoes on one's eyes."

Image: Bovia & Co. Photography

While we mostly use it as a mild and more polite swear word, the term "darn" actually has a definition: it can be used as a verb for mending knitted clothing like a sweater, or as a noun to describe patches and holes in clothes. Funnily, when it comes to the idiom "to give a darn," both meanings of this word can be used. Since this idiom means not caring at all about something, both a meaningless hole and a bland insult can convey this feeling.

On the contrary, some Spanish-speaking countries have an equivalent idiom that makes use of one of the most beloved vegetables in the world. The phrase me importa un pepino roughly translates to "It matters to me as much as a cucumber does." While we can’t be sure if this idiom speaks of how cheap or how disliked cucumbers are in the Spanish-speaking world, we are certain that being told that you matter as much as a vegetable is definitively a hard pill to swallow.

Image: Mathew Schwartz

Don’t worry; this idiom doesn’t involve any curses: The devil won’t actually show up if you speak of him, like some sort of Bloody Mary urban legend. This extremely popular idiom is used whenever you are talking about someone, and they suddenly show up at that exact moment.

In the Spanish-speaking world, the devil is replaced with a king. Contrary to what you might think though, the saying does not mention the king of Spain, but rather a fictional king of the capital city of Italy: Spanish speakers use the expression hablando del rey de Roma, which literally translates to "speaking of the King of Rome."

Image: Reba Spike

We’ll end this article with the idiom that confused us the most. The expression "a wolf in sheep’s clothing" is used to describe a dangerous person hiding behind an innocent facade. This idiom comes from the New Testament, where Jesus warns his disciples against false prophets who mask their dark intentions with kindness. In any case, this idiom doesn’t require much explanation: a wolf is, after all, a dangerous predator to defenseless sheep.

However, Japan’s take on this idiom uses what’s probably this country’s most beloved pet. Japan’s expression "To wear a cat in your head" means exactly the same thing as "a wolf in sheep’s clothing." We know this is confusing, but trust us, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation. Japan’s very well-documented love for cats means that no one would ever suspect a cat of something nefarious. Thus, hiding behind a cat’s cuteness helps divert prying eyes from someone’s true intentions.