Unusual White House Pets

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So this episode was
a gear change because I was working on something else
that I was being frustrated with, and then I was

(00:24):
having a conversation with friend of the show, Brian Young
while he and I were recording our Star Wars podcast
Full of Seth, which I heart very kindly lets me
record because it's not part of iHeart. And then he
mentioned Rebecca Raccoon because we also talk about history when
we're not talking about Star Wars, and that got me
thinking about the odd pets that lived in the White
House and how that would be fun. So thanks Brian

(00:46):
for that idea. Some of these pets that we're talking
about today were mentioned very briefly in the second part
of a twenty ten to two parter that Sarah and
Katie did on the show on interesting History Animals, but
their stories didn't get a lot of attention. It was
kind of just like their names and the fact that
presidents kept them. It's kind of a list. Yeah, And

(01:09):
like in that particular moment, they're whipping through like a list.
They're not even necessarily the animals they were talking about
on the show. But some of these animals are really
interesting in terms of how they arrived at the White
House and became part of the First family. Two of
them are related to holidays, so technically this is seasonal.
We're also going to do a little mythbusting on one

(01:30):
of them. The information in that previous episode was incorrect,
but we'll talk about why a lot of people had
that wrong. And another one is kind of shaky in
terms of documentation. Heads up, there are no dogs or
cats on this list, so if you were hoping to
hear about Clinton's cat socks or Nixon's dog checkers, those

(01:50):
will not be making an appearance. Also, none of the
Teddy Roosevelt menagerie is on here, although part of me
thinks that would be a fun future episode own thing,
because I mean, aside from his daughter Alice's pet snake
Emily Spinach, there were a lot of other wild animals, yeah,
running around that house in the grounds, but those are

(02:12):
not the ones we're talking about today. Also, this goes
without saying, but I will say it just the same.
Wild animals are not supposed to be pets. So while
these stories in some cases involve wild animals that get adopted,
that is a bad idea. We are not telling you
to go out and get the kakamamie animal that really
belongs outside. And in one case, we'll talk about one
that I'm really obsessed with that probably did bite the president.

(02:35):
So then maybe they should not be adopted as pets. Yeah,
if you're disappointed that there are no dogs in the episode,
there are other dog episodes, specifically, so many back in
the archive, a number of them, So there's plenty of
dog stuff, just not in this one. So first up,
as Holly alluded to some myth busting, there have been

(02:58):
so many online and in print mentions stating that John
Quincy Adams had a live alligator in the White House.
I think we may have even said that at some
point in the long past. This factoid has appeared online
and in books and even on a Snapple lid, and
in a lot of cases the details have been embellish

(03:21):
to suggest that Adams would send people he did not
like into the bathroom where he kept this reptile without
telling them that it was in there. There is literally
nothing to back up this story. Adams is well known
for keeping detailed notes and diaries, and there's no mention
of an alligator. So where did this pretty outlandish myth

(03:44):
get its start. A lot of people have tried to
hunt down the origin, and a number of them have
traced this confusion and the first mention of the alligator
back to one book from eighteen eighty eight, which was
written by Harriet Taylor Upton. Her writing The Household of
John Quincy Adams, which was later republished in a collection

(04:05):
of her other writing to be a bigger book about
multiple presidential households, includes this mention of a visit from
French General Lafayette to the Adams White House. Quote. There
was no conservatory then. The grounds were rough and uncultivated.
The house was lighted with candles, and the east room
was bare and empty, save for the mahogany frames of

(04:27):
some upholstered sofas and chairs. When General Lafayette made his
visit there, this famous east room was given to him
to deposit the many curiosities sent to him, some live
alligators being among them. So that mentions alligators, But the
way it's worded, it sounds like those live alligators she
mentions were gifts to Lafayette, not from him to President Adams.

(04:51):
Lafayette stayed at the White House from August eighteen twenty
four to September eighteen twenty five, so that might have
been part of this confusion. If he kept such an
animal or animals in the residence for almost a year,
people might have thought it belonged to Adams or some
mention of it may not have specified ownership and an
assumption was made. But we also don't know if Lafayette,

(05:14):
if he did receive alligators, hung on to them. So
many question marks. It's still understandable, though, that people believed
this story for so long, because at one point even
the White House website mentioned it as though it were
a fact. In two thousand and two, then First Lady
Laura Bush chose the theme all Creatures Great and Small

(05:35):
for the White House Christmas Day Corps, and that included
all kinds of sculptures and representations of animals that had
been part of the Holmes history. And there was an
alligator sculpture accompanied by a placard that read Alligator President
John Q. Adams. When a photo of the decoration was
put on the White House website section that showcased the

(05:57):
holiday decors. The caption of the image read quote. The
alligator given to President John Quincy Adams by the Marquis
de Lafayette resided in a bathroom in the East Room
for a time. President Adams served from eighteen twenty five
to eighteen twenty nine, So whoops. In any case, whether

(06:18):
there ever were live alligators present in the White House,
there is not evidence that Adams specifically had one. Yeah.
Moving on to turkeys, the practice of a turkey getting
a presidential pardon each year is actually quite new, according

(06:39):
to Smithsonian Magazine, While a number of presidents have referenced
the idea of pardoning a turkey, it was not until
President George H. W. Bush that it became an official
annual activity. That kind of broke my brain, because I
could have sworn that happened when I was a kid,
but that would have been too late. But well before that,

(07:01):
there was one particular bird's life that was spared, although
it was not for Thanksgiving. The death of Mary Todd
and Abraham Lincoln's son Willie has come up a number
of times on the show. I don't really think though,
that we've ever talked about Willy's younger brother, Tad. Thomas Lincoln,
who went by Tad, was born in April of eighteen

(07:22):
fifty three, while his father was still a lawyer living
in Springfield, Illinois. The nickname Tad is said to have
come from his father, who described this little boy as
quote Wiggley as a tadpole. In the wake of Willy's
death in February of eighteen sixty two, Tad was the
only Lincoln child remaining at the White House. He had

(07:45):
actually also come down with typhoid fever when Willie had,
but Tad survived it. His other surviving brother, Robert, was
older and he was away at school, and perhaps because
of his parents grief, Tad was given very little discipline. Additionally,
he had a speech impediment, and his parents tended to

(08:05):
coddle him. He was also the baby of the family,
and so they were quite permissive of him. Based on
accounts of their friends, even before the family tragedy of
the loss of Willie. Truthfully, he sounds very precocious and
even something of a terror at times. There are numerous
accounts written by Abraham Lincoln's associates, both before and after

(08:27):
he became president, that really indicate that Tad was a lot.
We had an episode about Alice Roosevelt back in twenty fifteen,
and we talked about how she was rebellious, and while
Tad did some similar things like bursting in on meetings,
his behavior seemed less rebellious and more bent on mayhem

(08:51):
and mischief. For example, at one point he started charging
visitors to see his father. The plan was to give
the money to charity, but he started the little endeavor
all on his own, and the President didn't initially known
that he was basically shaking down official visitors until he
had been doing it for a while. He was also
known to drive away his tutors with his rambunctious behavior.

(09:15):
He would dress in a custom made military uniform and
order all of the ground staff around like he was
a little dictator. There are a lot of photographs of
young Tad in this uniform. He also tried to have
a yard sale on the White House lawn and at
one point turned a hose on visiting dignitaries. The kindest

(09:35):
descriptions of him describe him as precocious. He does seem
to have been kind hearted as well as rambunctious, and
he did raise money for charities. Even as a little boy,
he influenced his father to try to help anyone he
met who seemed to need that help. Yes, sometimes when
random people would come to the White House that maybe

(09:57):
did not have an appointment but were just general people
that felt hopeless and we're looking for something, Tad would
talk to them and then would be like, Dad, this
woman really needs help. So a good heart, but woo.
He seemed to really test the patience of the adults
in the Lincoln circle. In eighteen sixty three, the President

(10:18):
was given the gift of a turkey that was intended
to be the entree for the family's Christmas dinner. This, interestingly,
was the same year that Lincoln had determined that Thanksgiving
would be a national holiday. It didn't get celebrated that year,
there were some years before that all happened. But this
bird was not for Thanksgiving. It was for Christmas. But

(10:40):
Tad took a liking to this bird and named him
Jack and started treating him like a pet. And Jack
seemed to reciprocate Tad's affection, and this bird basically followed
this kid everywhere. He was like his little av in shadow.
On Christmas Eve, Jack was scheduled to be killed for
the family dinner, but Tad realized this plan and begged

(11:01):
for the bird to be given a reprieve. He cried,
and he said to his father, quote, I can't help it.
He's a good turkey and I don't want him killed.
And in line with how often the President gave in
to his youngest son, Lincoln wrote this turkey a pardon.
The card it was written on was given to Tad,
and Jack was officially his pet at that point. Tad

(11:25):
showed the handwritten pardon to the White House chef so
that he would know that Jack was not ever to
be turned into a meal. Is unclear what happened to
Jack in the long term. We know that Tad had
him for another year, and there is a cute story
about Lincoln seeing his son with the bird in eighteen
sixty four on election day, and according to that tale,

(11:46):
when the President asked Tad if Jack was going to vote,
Tad told his father that the turkey was not old
enough to vote. It seems the turkey was already gone
by the time President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes
Booth on April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five. Tad was at
a different theater for children when that shot was fired.

(12:06):
He was watching a production of Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp.
It was at that production that Tad learned that his
father had been attacked, and while Jack the Turkey was
gone from the picture by that point. He is memorialized
today in a statue at Riverside Park in Hartford, Connecticut.
That statue was part of a project funded by the

(12:28):
Lincoln Financial Group in two thousand and five, and Jack's
stylized likeness was created by Philip Grausman, and it has
a plaque detailing the story of his pardon. Coming up,
we'll talk about a foul mouthed fowl, but first we
will pause for a sponsor break. Okay, this one comes

(12:55):
with a caveat that we don't know with certainty if
it is true, although it has served only been repeated
a lot. We'll talk about where it came from. But
it is also a case where the story sort of
hits that confirmation by a sweet spot, because at one
hundred percent sounds plausible given the president that it evolves.
On June fifth, eighteen twenty seven, Andrew Jackson purchased an

(13:18):
African gray parrot for his wife, Rachel. This parrot, named Paul,
was beloved. That's Paul polll, not Paul, which is what
it sounded like when it came out of my mouth.
So Rachel died a year later, but Jackson adopted the bird.
Paul lived at Jackson's Tennessee home, the Hermitage, for the

(13:40):
rest of Jackson's life. When he became president in eighteen
twenty nine, the bird stayed in Tennessee, but Jackson frequently
asked after her and his letters home. He said things
like quote, I intend to foster the bird and prolong
its life as long as I live, for the fondness
my dear wife had for her. His nephew, William Donaldson,
was passed with looking after Paul in Jackson's absence and

(14:04):
was the recipient of these queries. He responded back at
one point that Paul quote is doing well. She is
as fat and saucy as ever. From her continued good health,
I think she will live to be an old bird.
African gray parents can live a very long time, Yes
they can. I also kind of I want to be cremated,

(14:25):
but part of me wants a headstone that just says
fat and saucy as ever, it's pretty great. When Jackson's
time as president ended in eighteen thirty seven, he returned
to the hermitage and at that point he lived alongside
Paul until he died on June eighth of eighteen forty five.
His funeral drew a massive crowd of an estimated three

(14:46):
thousand people, and that was Paul's time to shine. There
is one single account that mentions this bird as part
of what happened at the funeral. That account was written
by the Reverend Normant. This has been the cause of
some confusion and debate about whether what Normant relayed actually happened.

(15:08):
So here is his account quote. When hearing that he
was dead, I with others, decided to attend the burial.
The funeral was preached by a Presbyterian pastor from Nashville,
standing on the front porch to a great concourse of people.
His body was then taken by a military company and
born to the garden and placed beside his wife in

(15:30):
a vault that he had prepared. A military salute was
then fired, and we left him there to rest in peace,
to await the Great resurrection. Morn before the sermon and
while the crowd was gathering, a wicked parrot that was
a household pet got excited and commenced swearing so loud
and long as to disturb the people, and had to

(15:53):
be carried from the house. And thus the man of
nerve that won battles and guided the ship of state
through Stormnes had finished his work. Clearly, this person was
very fond of Andrew Jackson mixed reviews. Not everyone would
speak so kindly of him. But this account was written
on February eighteenth, nineteen twenty one, at the request of

(16:14):
a writer who wished to have a first person reminiscence
of the day that Andrew Jackson was buried. That means
that it happened more than seventy five years after the
funeral took place. Further, Normant who wrote this account was
born in eighteen twenty nine, so he was a teenager
around sixteen years old when he attended this funeral. So

(16:36):
it is possible that his account wasn't accurate. You know,
we've said many times like memory shifts things. Although it
does seem like something that would leave an impression if
he felt compelled to include this bird detail. The other
thing that has led to issues with this account being
taken seriously is when people talk about it and they

(16:58):
only include that segment about the bird's profanity, having nothing
to do with the writer. Modern accounts often report this
as having come from the minister who presided over the funeral,
which it obviously did not. Even if you did not
have the information about Normant being so young at the time,

(17:18):
it's very apparent when the entire passage is included that
he was not the minister because Normant mentions the other minister.
But Andrew Jackson did have a reputation for having a
potty mouth, so it would make sense that a parrot
that had lived with him for years would have picked
up some choice words. After Jackson's death, it's believed that

(17:39):
Paul lived out the rest of her life with his relatives,
who hopefully did not mind the swearing. If that was
indeed happening, I have a really good bird swearing at
an inopportune moment story for behind the scenes on Friday.
But now we get to the real star of this episode,
which is Rebecca Raccoon. President Calvin Cool was known to

(18:01):
love animals, and during his presidency he was actually given
a lot of animals as gifts. I read one newspaper
account that said that basically like when people would hit
hard times and be like, we can't afford to feed
this animal anymore, we'll just give it to the President,
which I think happened with some frequency. Coolidge later wrote

(18:22):
in his autobiography quote, A great many presents come to
the White House, which are all cherished, not so much
for their intrinsic value as because they are tokens of
a steeb in affection. Almost everything that can be eaten comes.
We always know what to do with that. But some
of the pets that are offered us are more of
a problem. I have a beautiful black haired bear that

(18:43):
was brought all the way from Mexico in a truck,
and a pair of live lion cubs now grown up,
and a small species of hippopotamus which came from South Africa.
These and other animals and birds have been placed in
the zoological quarters in Rock Creek Park, Just in case
you don't know, Rock Creek art is part of the
National Zoo. But what animal that was not mentioned there

(19:06):
was intended to be eaten but instead became a cherished pet,
And that was Rebecca the raccoon. In late November nineteen
twenty six, several newspapers ran the story live raccoon gives
Coolidge big problem. A man named Vinnie Joyce of Nitty Yuma, Mississippi,
had sent this live animal to the White House as

(19:26):
a gift to the president quote, with the intention that
the raccoon should share the honors of White House Thanksgiving
dinner with Governor Baker's prize turkey. So the raccoon was
intended to be served as part of the holiday meal.
So it is not a common practice today, but in
the nineteen twenties, plenty of people ate raccoon. The Evening

(19:48):
Star of Washington, DC ran an article that made it
sound like plenty of people thought it was odd that
the President had not eaten raccoon himself, stating, quote, mister
Coolidge need not be hesitant. According to the testimony of
the those who his gustatorial pleasure, have munch toothsome mouthfuls
of this small nocturnal animal. It is strange that during
his New England boyhood he never tasted it. For among

(20:10):
the granite hills, it is of a surprising delicacy, especially
when young and tender. This article goes on for some
time about the various ways that raccoon has been cooked
in various cultures and regions, before concluding by saying, quote,
without wishing to suggest too freely to the presidential minage,
it is hereby recommended that the recent Thanksgiving Day gift

(20:32):
be killed, dressed, and properly roasted if it gets by
the first table. There are plenty of people below stairs
who know a good thing when they see it. But
though a lot of people seemed to enjoy raccoon as food, Coolidge,
as that article mentioned, had never had it before and
was just not in any kind of hurry to try
it now with a live raccoon on the property. News

(20:55):
stories reported that quote, the problem has now arisen whether
to hand the raccoon over to the chef or present
it to the zoo. Neither of those things happened, because
the Coolidgees opted for a third choice, which was making
the raccoon a pet. By December first, the announcement had
been made and papers are running the story raccoon sent
to Coolidge to be White House pet. The Coolidges tried

(21:19):
to set Rebecca up with proper lodgings. According to first
Lady Grace Coolidge's writings. Quote. We had a house made
for her in one of the larger trees, with a
wire fence built around it for protection. We kept her
chained when out of doors, but in the house she
had her liberty. She was a mischievous, inquisitive party, and
we had to keep watch of her when she was
in the house. She enjoyed nothing better than being placed

(21:42):
in a bathtub with a little water in it, and
given a cake of soap with which to play. In
this fashion, she would amuse herself for an hour or more.
The Cincinnati Inquirer and other papers ran a piece titled
Meet Rebecca on Christmas Day in nineteen twenty six. Bad quote.
The latest White House pet today received a noteworthy Christmas

(22:04):
gift a name. It will be known to the world
as Rebecca Raccoon. The President and the pet have become pals.
It strolls over the White House grounds with the President
and jumps into his lap. A bright red bow ribbon
was placed upon Rebecca's neck today by Missus Coolidge. The
President gave the pet a collar with a metal plate

(22:24):
upon which its name will be inscribed. White House attaches,
by direction of the President, have built a wooden box
in the branches of a tree in which Rebecca nestles
at night. Rebecca clearly made a lot of journalists happy
because they almost always had a go to on a
slow news day. While there was a pet raccoon in

(22:45):
the White House. There were reports about how she rode
in cars with President Coolidge, how the President fed her
from his hand. Basically, anything the raccoon did was a headline. Additionally,
she offered up new material for political cartoonists. She was
drawn in cartoons skewering the President for his advocacy for
high tariffs, and a later cartoon made use of the

(23:07):
President's attachment to the raccoon to associate the creature with
tax reduction, which he also believed was important. A raccoon, again,
is the wild animal, which means that sometimes it's going
to be unpredictable or get into mischief. That, of course,
can also happen with domesticated animals, but with wild animals

(23:29):
it's a little different. We will talk about some of
Rebecca's antics after we take another sponsor break. In March
of nineteen twenty seven, the White House was undergoing construction,
and while initially Rebecca was to stay on the White

(23:50):
House grounds while the family stayed elsewhere. That plan changed quickly,
according to the News Journal of Mansfield, Ohio. Quote, when
the Coolidges moved moved, Rebecca was left behind in the
regular domicile, which is being repaired. Her Lord and Master
found he needed her to pet in the evening, so
the presidential limousine took her to the temporary residence in

(24:12):
DuPont Circle. Rebecca is a pet raccoon. But it seems
like something went down in the DuPont Circle residence because
six days later, a very different headline ran, quote, Rebecca
raccoon is banished from Coolidge domicile. The brief notice, which
appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, noted that the President

(24:34):
and Rebecca had a parting of ways. It's a short
piece that ends with quote, when the Coolidgees moved to
DuPont Circle, Rebecca was taken along. That was the beginning
of the end for Rebecca. She has been banished to
the zoo. It is believed that Rebecca bit the president.
He was appearing in public with a bandaged hand around
the same time she was, as that suggests, moved to

(24:57):
the National Zoo. Yeah, he never gave an extra for
the bandage hand it just didn't acknowledge it. But fear not,
Rebecca was soon back in the good graces of the
First Family and back in the White House, although she
did continue to make trouble from time to time. In
spring nineteen twenty seven, Rebecca was the star of the
White House egg roll for Easter. There are a number

(25:20):
of photos of her wearing her collar and with her
bow on being carried through the party by the First Lady.
Rebecca had a leash on that day, and Grace Coolidge
would sometimes set her down so that visiting children could
pet her, although she was carefully watched. Since she had
a penchant for escaping, and because she was a wild animal,

(25:41):
I think she would have wanted to eat some of
those eggs probably, I mean, raccoons love an egg. In
June of nineteen twenty seven, the Coolidges headed to the
Black Hills of South Dakota, and they took a lot
of their animals with them, including Rebecca. Papers described it
as quote the largest menagerie that has ever been transported

(26:03):
on a presidential special. So the Coolidges brought their two collies,
rob Roy and Prudence, prem two canaries their cat Blackie,
and Rebecca, who was carried aboard the train in a basket.
I have questions because not all animals like to travel anyway,
seems like a lot. I just keep thinking about how

(26:24):
much destruction raccoon can do and it gets into somewhere,
like into the attic or under the deck or whatever. Yeah. Well,
on that journey, Rebecca made headlines for making White House
staffers really frustrated with her antics. When they were in
the Black Hills, she was able to get out of
her enclosure and up a tree near the temporary White House,

(26:48):
but as she was approached, she got really wily. One
paper read quote, the raccoon, a favorite with the President,
seemed to take considerable delight in leading the searchers from
tree to tree before she finally scented quite peacefully to
being returned to her house on top of a stump
in the rear of the temporary White House. At the
end of nineteen twenty seven, there were new articles about

(27:10):
Rebecca's bad behavior, which is just normal behavior for a raccoon.
One headlined as Rebecca in disgrace again as she flees
White House kennels to spend night out states that Rebecca
managed to escape and wander about overnight before being recaptured
in the morning when her absence was noted. That rite

(27:31):
up is definitely tongue in cheek, and it mentions things
like Rebecca retaining quote a faraway look in her eyes
after being recaptured. It does seem, though, that at least
some people had started to believe that Rebecca's tendency to
go on walk about might be because she was seeking companionship.
So several months after that disgrace article came out, newspapers

(27:56):
were reporting that a plan had been hatched to find
Rebecca a male recondoon friend. The Buffalo News reported in
March nineteen twenty eight, quote another chapter has been added
to the history of the already interesting White House menagerie.
It was begun when several White House attaches on a
coon hunt in nearby Virginia cornered an unusually fine male

(28:17):
of the species and brought him back to share the
newly refurnished log cabin bungalow. Or Rebecca Raccoon, presidential pet
and president occupant of the new home. What the next
chapter will be, no one knows. The White House staff
named this new raccoon Hector, but Coolidge did not like

(28:37):
that name and changed it to Ruben. But from the
get go, Ruben did not seem to love being captive.
He started escaping immediately after being installed on the White
House grounds. At one point, Ruben got off the Executive
Mansion property and caused a halt to the traffic for
half an hour when he wandered onto Pennsylvania Avenue. In

(28:59):
any case, Rebecca and Ruben never really hit it off,
so if anybody was hoping for a story about presidential
raccoon kits, they were sorely disappointed. Ruben's fate is reported
differently in different places. The White House Historical Association says
that quote Ruben's tenure at the Executive Mansion was short lived,

(29:19):
as he later escaped the grounds and was not found
by the staff afterward, And indeed, First Lady Grace Coolidge's
own writing suggests that Rebecca drove Ruben away. Quote Rebecca
had lived alone and had her own way so long
that I fear she was a little overbearing and dictatorial,
perhaps reminding her spouse that he was living on her bounty.

(29:42):
She mentions that Rebecca was single again after one of
Ruben's escapes, but there are also quite a few newspaper
write ups mentioning Ruben as still being part of the
Coolidge's animal collection at the end of the presidency. In fact,
when Coolidge's presidency ended in early nineteen twenty nine, there
were a number of stories in the news about what

(30:02):
would happen to all of the animals that the First
family had been gifted in their time at the White House,
and they all seem to mention both raccoons going to
the National Zoo. Whether that was simply a matter of
assumption on the journalist parts is unclear, but Rebecca definitely
was rehomed into the National Zoo in the hopes that
the zoo could offer her a fulfilling life for the

(30:25):
remainder of her years. News about Rebecca's life after she
was turned over to the zoo seems to be non existent, though,
so it is unclear exactly how that worked out. There
is a fun little coda to Rebecca's story, which is
that her enclosure had a new tenant before long, during
the tenure of Coolidge's successor, Herbert Hoover, a possum wandered

(30:48):
onto the White House grounds and was adopted by the
dew first family, and Billy possum lived in Rebecca's former enclosure,
although it does not appear that this possum was a
lap the way that Rebecca had been. Yeah, possums can
be very sweet, but he seemed to just be like
an animal that was kept and cared for on the

(31:09):
White House grounds, not one that was paraded around at
children's parties. And those are some of the weird animals
that have lived in the White I mean, Paul the
parrot didn't live in the White House, but she was
a presidential pet. I have, of course, pet related listener mail.

(31:32):
I've clearly been on a pet kick lately because this
one is from our listener Sarah about our episode Inventions
for Pets. Sarah writes, I misread the episode title Inventions
for Pets as invention of pets, and maybe there's an
episode idea there. I'd love to learn more about the
roles that animals play in human civilization, beyond labor and livestock.

(31:53):
When did we start adopting animals simply for companionship. I
have good news, sort of. We have one about the
domes cation of the cat yep, but it's quite old
and depending on what podcast player you listen on. It
may have cycled out, but it does exist in our archive.
Sarah attaches a picture, she says, of my beautiful dog

(32:13):
Rumford for tax. When we'd been trying to get pregnant
for a year and we're starting to pursue medical help,
I realized, we don't know if we'll ever have a kid,
but we could just get a dog now. And then
my husband and our good friend conspire to surprise me
with a puppy that Christmas. Rumford is five now, and
he's a wonderful big brother to our son, who is
now five. Congratulations on successfully having a son. And also,

(32:37):
Rumford is really cute. He has these beautiful silky ears
that are like a russet color, and I want to
pet them and maybe put a bow on him. He
might not like bums, but he's very beautiful and looks
like the sweetest pup in the world. Sarah, thank you
so much for this sweet email. I also, when I

(33:00):
started reading your email, I misread it initially thinking you
were going to talk about somehow pets inventing things, and
I was like, that would be a good episode. I'm
sure there's a pet that's invented something. If I ever
find one, you know, I'm going to talk about it.
If you would like to write to us and send

(33:21):
us pictures of your pets or anything. Is there something
crafty you've been doing, I want to see it. If
there's just this beautiful landscape you love, I want to
see that too. Whatever you want to talk about send
us an email. Doesn't even have to be about something
we talked about. You can email us whenever you want.
You can do that at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
You can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio

(33:43):
app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff
you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Holly Frey

Tracy Wilson

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