Top Dogs: Our Preoccupation with Presidents' Pets

It's pretty interesting in terms of the president as an entity how their pets affect our perceptions of their overall character and personality. A president's chosen breed, name, and treatment all are analyzed with a scrutiny befitting the first family themselves. Nixon famously denied Eisenhower's allegations of shady campaign financing, while admitting his dog Checkers was a political gift. In an homage to his down-home charm, Clinton's dog was simply named "Buddy." And George W. Bush was not the only political dynasty in the 2000 White House, his dog Spot was the offspring of father H.W.'s pet.

Credit: White House

This year's election marked a bizarrely staggering number of articles and news stories about Obama vs. Romney's treatment of their family pets. Mitty Romney's vacation anecdote about strapping his dog's kennel to the roof of his car for a 12 hour road trip dominated the March news cycle. David Axelrod posted this picture of Obama and Bo on his twitter with the caption "How loving owners transport their dogs." The Romney camp fired back with excerpts from the President's memoir where he discusses eating dog meat as a child in Indonesia, with one advisor re-captioning the image with "In hindsight, a chilling photo."

It reminded me of another pet-related snafu by President Johnson, tugging his beagles' ears in such a way, it actually led to public outcry. So don't worry you guys, we've always been this distractable.