Shadowing Practice: Every US President's Strangest Pet Explained in 20 Minutes - Learn English Speaking with Video
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From two grizzly bear cubs caged on the White House lawn, to a 600 -pound hippo from Liberia,
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to a pet snake getting smuggled into a meeting with the U .S.
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Attorney General.
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This is every U .S.
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President's weirdest pet.
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And some of these are so unhinged, you're going to start questioning whether the White House is a federal building or America's most prestigious zoo,
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starting with George Washington.
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who didn't just have a dog, he had a kennel.
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Cause George was a fox hunting fanatic who bred his own line of hounds and gave them names like Sweet Lips,
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Scentwell, Vulcan, Drunkard, Taster, Tipler, and Tipsy.
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Yep, the father of our country named his dogs after the stages of getting hammered.
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But somehow that's less controversial than John Adams, who had three dogs named Juno, Satan!
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Yeah, Satan!
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Sir!
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He's biting me!
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But even Lil' Satan was nothing compared to Thomas Jefferson, who owned the most dangerous pet in American history.
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Cause when Captain Zebulon Pike traveled out west, he sent Jefferson a gift.
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Two grizzly beer cups.
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And Jefferson built them a cage on the front lawn of the White House for two months.
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But eventually he said, "These are too dangerous
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and troublesome for me to keep." So he shipped them to his buddy Charles Wilson Peel, where one of them broke out,
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terrorized the Peel family, and got shot dead in the basement kitchen.
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Sir, we tried to warn you.
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But after the Grizzlies, James Madison kept things simple with a parrot.
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And then James Monroe bought a spaniel named Buddy.
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horse things couldn't remain boring for too long.
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Cause John Quincy Adams is famous for keeping a pet alligator in the White House bathtub.
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But hold your horses, cause this one's almost certainly a myth.
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The story goes that Marquis de Lafayette gifted Quincy Adams an alligator,
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and JQA stashed it in a bathtub in the East Room to terrify visitors for months.
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You'll find this fun fact was a meticulous diarist who wrote everything down.
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And the dude never once mentioned an alligator.
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You'd think that'd be something you'd write in your diary.
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So historians call this almost certainly fiction.
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Unlike Andrew Jackson and his crazy parrot.
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Cause this one's 100 % true.
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Jackson bought his beloved wife Rachel an African gray parrot named Paul.
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And if you know Andrew Jackson, you know he was a foul mouthed dude who cursed constantly,
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and Paul, being a parrot, repeated every single word.
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But the most famous moment happened at Andrew Jackson's own funeral.
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Because Paul got so agitated by the large crowd of people, she unleashed a nonstop stream of profanity.
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It was so loud and so obscene, she had to literally be removed from the service.
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Come on, Paul, you're coming with us.
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On the other hand, Sultan of Oman.
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Never mind, just kidding.
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That's actually another myth you'll find on Snapple Caps.
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What the heck, Snapple?
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The true gifts were 150 pearls, a sword, a carpet, and two horses.
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Sorry to disappoint.
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But before William Henry Harrison could really get into the pet game, he died 31 days into office.
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So there's not much to report other than his cow named Suki.
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Sup, Suki?
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On the flip side, John Tyler owned a horse called the General.
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And he loved the General so much he wrote on his gravestone, "Here lies the body of my good horse, the General.
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For 20 years he bore me around the circuit of my practice, and in all that time he never made a blunder." I wish that his master could say the same.
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But while Tyler eulogized over his horse, James Polk was too busy working.
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Yeah, the man had zero pets because he was too focused on getting the job done.
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Unlike Zachary Taylor and his war horse Old Whitey, who peacefully grazed the White House lawn while Taurus plucked hairs from his tail as souvenirs.
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Hey, keep your hands off the horse, please.
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apart over the literal Mason Dixon line.
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And Franklin Pierce got miniature Japanese chin dogs after Commodore Perry forced Japan open to trade.
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Aww, they're so cute!
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Ah!
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Oh, and even though James Buchanan is sometimes credited with receiving Siamese elephants from the King of Siam, the reality is he declined the offer.
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I wish it was true!
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But then came Abraham Lincoln, and I just wish this one wasn't true, because Lincoln had a yellow mutt named Fido that he loved dearly.
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He even had Fido photographed, making him the first presidential dog ever photographed.
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But Fido was terrified of crowds.
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So Lincoln left him with a family in Springfield rather than drag him to Washington.
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And when Lincoln was assassinated, that family brought Fido to greet mourners at Lincoln's home.
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He was a great little pup living a normal life.
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Until one day, a drunk man encountered Fido on the street, pulled out a knife, and stabbed him.
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A completely random act of violence.
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And the family wrote, "So Fido, just a poor yellow dog, met the same fate as his illustrious master.
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Assassination !" Man, I'm so sad.
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And enraged right now!
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He just fed mice he found in his bedroom.
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Sir, that's not really a pet.
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Meanwhile, Ulysses S.
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Grant had a stable of horses, including his war mount, Cincinnati, Egypt, and a horse named Jeff Davis.
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Yeah, I'm not making that up.
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During the Civil War, the Union captured a black pony from the brother of Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president.
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And when they brought it back to Grant, he named it Jeff Davis as a joke.
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Yee -haw!
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But while Grant was cracking jokes, Rutherford B.
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Hayes owned a piece of feline history.
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Cause the American consul in Bangkok learned that First Lady Lucy Hayes loved cats.
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So he sent her a Siamese cat named Siam.
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And Siam became the first Siamese cat ever to set foot
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in the United States after a two -month steamship journey across the Pacific.
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However, shortly after arriving, Siam got sick and died.
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And the President's steward gave her body to the Secretary of Agriculture, but she was never seen again.
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"Um, sir, the first Siamese cat arrived in America, and we lost the body." Meanwhile,
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James Garfield had a massive Newfoundland named Vito, deliberately named to remind Congress of his veto power.
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dog whose entire name is "I Will Block Your Bill".
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That might be the best dog name in cabinet history.
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And Chester Arthur had no pets other than an Indian pony as a gift from the Eastern Shoshone tribe.
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Sir, he took a dump in the Oval Office again.
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On the other hand, Grover Cleveland collected hundreds of fish, including paradise fish gifted by the King of Siam.
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Cleveland was such an obsessive fisherman that when he had to have a cancerous tumor secretly removed from his mouth,
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he disguised the entire surgery as a fishing trip on a friend's yacht.
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But then came Benjamin Harrison's goat, Old Whiskers, who belonged to his grandkids.
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on cart around the White House grounds.
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Until one day, old whiskers bolted right through the White House gate and pulling a cart full of grandchildren.
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So the 56 -year -old President of the United States, top hat on and cane in hand,
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sprinted down Pennsylvania Avenue chasing a runaway goat with his grandkids.
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And while that incident made the New York Times, William McKinley had a yellow -headed Mexican parrot named Washington Post.
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And he could whistle Yankee Doodle.
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In fact, McKinley would whistle the first half and the parrot would finish it.
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But honestly, every president before Theodore Roosevelt was just a warm up.
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Cause Teddy's six kids turned the White House into a literal zoo of over 40 pets.
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including a small black bear, laughing hyena, barn owl, badger, lion, and a calico pony named Algonquin.
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And when Teddy's son Archie was sick, Algonquin rode the White House elevator up to Archie's bedroom to cheer him up.
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But things got even crazier with Teddy's youngest son Quentin, who came home from a pet shop with four snakes, including a four -foot king snake.
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Attorney General and eagerly plopped them onto his father's lap.
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Teddy smiled and sent Quentin and the snakes into the next room to entertain four congressmen waiting there.
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The congressmen at first thought the snakes were wooden ones and played along, until they realized, "These snakes are alive !" In Teddy's own words,
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"The last I saw of Quentin, one congressman was gingerly helping him off with his jacket so as to let the snake crawl out
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dull moment in Teddy's White House.
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But after TR moved out, William Taft imported a 1 ,500 -pound cow.
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Let me introduce you to Pauline Wayne, a gift to Taft by a Wisconsin senator.
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She produced about eight gallons of milk a day, which was necessary since Taft weighed over 300 pounds.
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And the Washington Post was obsessed with Pauline, covering her like Us Weekly would a Kardashian.
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She was crowned Queen of the But one time, she was sent by private rail car to a dairy show in Milwaukee,
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and the rail crew accidentally switched her car onto a train headed for the Chicago Stockyards.
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The president's cow was minutes from the slaughterhouse.
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Luckily, she was identified at the last second and rescued.
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Whew, close call!
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We almost turned the president's pet into a hamburger.
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But while Taft enjoyed one cow, Woodrow Wilson enjoyed a whole flock of sheep.
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'Cause in the middle of World War I, Wilson installed sheep on the White House lawn as a wartime austerity measure.
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He wanted to free up the groundskeepers to enlist and auction off the wool for the Red Cross.
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The flock quickly grew to 48, with the leader being a vicious ram named Old Ike, White House cops.
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Go get a mic!
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Meanwhile, Warren G.
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Harding's Airedale Laddie Boy was basically the first celebrity presidential dog.
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Cuz he had his own hand -carved chair at cabinet meetings.
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And when Harding died in office, newsboys across America donated pennies and melted them down to make a bronze statue of Laddie Boy now in the Smithsonian.
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But honestly, that's nothing compared to Calvin Coolidge, who had the most exotic animal collection since Teddy Roosevelt.
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We're talking 25 + pets, including a wallaby, lion cubs, a black bear, and a bobcat.
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However, there's two that really stand out.
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The first is Rebecca the raccoon, 'cause a Mississippi family sent the Coolidge's alive raccoon to eat for Thanksgiving dinner.
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But First Lady Grace Coolidge took one look and said,
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"Yeah, we're not doing that." and was even walked on a leash.
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Silent Cal sometimes draped her around his neck like a scarf.
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And then Harvey Firestone, yes,
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the tire guy, captured a baby pygmy hippopotamus on one of his rubber plantations in Liberia and sent it as a gift.
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It was six feet long and 600 pounds.
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They named him William Johnson Hippopotamus, or for short, Billy.
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Now, Billy never actually lived him straight to the National Zoo.
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But here's the wild part: Billy went on to father 23 calves over his lifetime
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and became the genetic ancestor of most pygmy hippos in American zoos today.
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That's kind of awesome!
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But while Cal was breeding hippos, Herbert Hoover kept alligators.
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Well, not quite.
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His son, Alan, kept two pet alligators when Hoover was Secretary of Commerce, not President.
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And they were donated to the National Zoo well before Hoover's inauguration.
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But then came Franklin Roosevelt's Scottish Terrier, Fala, who accompanied him everywhere.
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Conferences, cruises, the whole works.
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Fala even has his own statue at the FDR Memorial in D .C.
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The only presidential pet honored in that way.
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was picking up what FDR was putting down.
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'Cause Truman famously said, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." So someone gave him a Cocker Spaniel named Feller.
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And Truman gave it away to the White House doctor.
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"Um, sir, I thought you wanted a friend." Kinda like Dwight Eisenhower and his Weimaraner Heidi,
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who urinated on a $20 ,000 rug in the diplomatic reception room and got banished to the Eisenhower farm.
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Forever.
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Dang it Heidi, not another rug!
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Anyways, did you know that the Cold War brought us the wildest pet diplomacy story of all time?
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Cause at a state dinner during the Vienna summit,
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Jack and Kennedy chatted with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev about Strelka, space dogs.
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Jackie casually asked about Strelka's puppies.
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And a few weeks later, a puppy named Puschenka, Strelka's actual daughter, arrived at the White House as a gift from the leader of the Soviet Union.
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At the same time, the Cuban Missile Crisis was about to happen.
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So before Puschenka was allowed near the first family, the CIA whisked her to Walter Reed,
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X -rayed her, scanned her with She was all clear.
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Pushinka eventually had four puppies with the Kennedys' Welsh terrier, Charlie.
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And JFK called them Pupnicks.
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Haha!
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Good one, sir.
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Meanwhile, Lyndon Johnson's beagles were named him and her.
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I know, real creative.
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And in the Rose Garden, in front of cameras, LBJ lifted him by his ears to make him bark.
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And just as you'd expect, the photo went viral.
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The Humane Society of Texas issued a statement saying, ears are for hearing, not for pulling.
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Sir, can you put the dog's ears down, please?
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And be more like Richard Nixon and his Cocker Spaniel Checkers, the dog who literally rescued his career during the famous "Checkers" speech.
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'Cause back when Nixon was Eisenhower's running mate, Nixon was accused of corruption.
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So he gave a speech, laying out his personal finances, and then admitting to receiving one gift that was off the books: Checkers.
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And once everyone saw Checkers, they basically went "aww" and forgot about the charges.
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Then Gerald Ford's golden retriever Liberty came in and had nine puppies in the White House.
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And famously, one night Liberty woke Ford up at 3am needing to go out.
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So the POTUS took her down a back staircase,
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found the doors locked, and ended up wandering a White House stairwell in his pajamas until the Secret Service rescued him.
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They don't pay me enough for this.
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this name ever bestowed upon a domestic animal.
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Misty Malarkey Ying Yang.
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The name was so iconic that a jazz guitarist composed an actual song about Misty.
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I wonder how that one went.
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On the other hand, Ronald Reagan kept it simple with Lucky,
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a Bouvier de Flanders that famously pulled President Reagan across the South Lawn as he was having a conversation with Margaret Thatcher.
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Bush's Springer Spaniel, Millie, literally wrote a book, Millie's book, as dictated to Barbara Bush.
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And it was so popular, it outsold the president's autobiography.
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"Sir, you're getting outsold by your own dog !" But then came Bill Clinton and his cat Socks, who became the most famous cat in America.
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Cause Socks received fan mail by the thousands, posted the children's version of the White House website, and even had a Super Nintendo video game built around him.
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But in Clinton's second term, the family adopted a chocolate lab named Buddy, and Socks despised Buddy from first sight.
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up arched backs and growling at every encounter.
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The two animals could not be in the same room.
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Bill Clinton, the man who negotiated peace deals between Israel and the PLO, said, and this is a real quote,
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"I did better with the Palestinians and the Israelis than I've done with Socks
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and Buddy." And when the Clintons left the White House, Buddy got hit by a car a year later.
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Sir, the cat won.
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But up next was George W.
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Bush, who was a serious dog guy.
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Cuz his main pet was Barney, a Scottish Terrier who had his own segment on the White House website called Barney Camp.
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However, Vladimir Putin wasn't impressed.
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Cuz when he met Barney at Camp David, he told Bush that real world leaders should own large, powerful dogs, not tiny Scottish Terriers.
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said was bigger, tougher, stronger, faster, and meaner than Barney.
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Sir, he's trash talking your dog.
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Are you just gonna take that?
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And I'm not sure Barack Obama did much better either because he had two Portuguese water dogs named Bo and Sunny.
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Why this breed?
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Well, his daughter Malia is allergic to dogs, so Barack went with a hypoallergenic breed.
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Okay, hold up sir!
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Putin's dog is mean mugging us over here and we're picking dogs based on allergies?
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On the other hand, Donald Trump avoided pets altogether, making him the first petless president since James Polk.
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And then finally came Joe Biden and his German Shepherds.
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And boy, these dogs were troublemakers.
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Cause his dog Major was biting security guards, employees, and anyone that walked by.
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Ouch!
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So they kicked Major out of the White House and brought in Commander.
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And somehow, this dog was 10 times worse.
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Cause Commander bit Secret Service agents at least 24 times.
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And that's not even
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where one time he bit a staff member and left
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so much blood on the floor
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that White House tours had to be halted for 20 minutes while Cruz cleaned up the pool of blood.
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Are you kidding me?
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Can someone get the dog whisperer in here?
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But if you think dealing with presidential pets is a tough job, that's nothing compared to the actual job of the president.
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Cause this is every US president's hardest decision.
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From throwing Japanese Americans into internment camps, to deciding whether to drop the most destructive weapon ever created,
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to agonizing for 18 months over a move that could change the Civil War.
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Some of these decisions are so impossible, there's a reason presidents leave office with grey hair.
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So click this video and find out just how tough this job really is.
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Why Practice Speaking with This Video?
Engaging with the unique stories of U.S. Presidents and their unusual pets offers an entertaining and enriching way to practice your English speaking skills. The shadowing technique is particularly effective here, as you can mimic the speaker's intonation and rhythm while exploring fascinating historical anecdotes. By using this video, you're not just absorbing information; you’re also gaining insights into cultural references and humor that are prevalent in American English. This makes it a great resource for those who wish to learn English with YouTube while enjoying compelling narratives.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
The transcript of the video contains several key structures that can enhance your understanding and usage of English. Here are a few examples:
- Descriptive phrases: Terms like "the most dangerous pet in American history" demonstrate how to effectively use superlatives to convey meaning.
- Direct quotations: The use of quotes, such as "these are too dangerous and troublesome for me to keep," showcases how to present speech authentically and adds dramatic flair to storytelling.
- Colloquial language: Phrases like "come on, Paul, you're coming with us" provide examples of informal speech, crucial for improving conversational English.
- Conditional statements: The expression "you'd think that'd be something you'd write in your diary" illustrates the use of conditional structures to present hypothetical situations.
Practicing these elements will help reinforce your grammar while allowing for creative expression in your own speaking.
Common Pronunciation Traps
While watching this video, pay attention to certain challenging words and phrases that may pose pronunciation difficulties:
- Grizzly - The “z” sound can be tricky, especially for non-native speakers. Practice emphasizing the 'z' to ensure clarity.
- Terrify - The stress on the second syllable can be a common stumbling block. Make sure to pronounce it as TEH-ruh-fye.
- Obscene - This word can be mispronounced as ob-scene instead of the correct ob-SEEN, which can change comprehension in conversation.
Using a shadowing app can aid in perfecting your pronunciation by allowing you to listen and repeat phrases directly from the video. This technique builds muscle memory in your speech, ultimately helping you improve your English pronunciation.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be removed · is sometimes credited · was assassinated |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | day, which was · man who negotiated |
| Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group | the most dangerous · the most famous · the best |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | was cracking · was gingerly helping · was breeding |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.