One of the first White House pets was John Adams' dog Satan.

Famous Figures

A lthough he was the second president of the United States, John Adams was the first to (briefly) live in the presidential residence now known as the White House. That means he and his wife, Abigail, inaugurated such White House traditions as the selection of furnishings, the hosting of official gatherings, and the introduction of presidential pets — one of whom answered to the moniker of Satan.

Despite the copious surviving correspondence between John and Abigail Adams, there exist few juicy details about this devilishly named dog for historians to sink their canines into. We do know that the pup shared the White House grounds with another mixed-breed named Juno (and possibly a third dog, named Mark). We can also deduce that Satan had to compete for the divided attention of the horse-loving president, who built the White House stables to house his carriage horses Cleopatra and Caesar.

Though they were the first to bring animal residents to the White House, the Adamses were not the last presidential family to bestow their pets with unusual names. Later nonhuman occupants of the Pennsylvania Avenue mansion include Benjamin Harrison's opossums Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection; Rutherford B. Hayes' cats Siam, Miss Pussy, and Piccolomini; and Theodore Roosevelt's guinea pigs Admiral Dewey, Dr. Johnson, Bishop Doane, Fighting Bob Evans, and Father O'Grady. But as with other matters of American presidential history, it's hard to top the standard set by George Washington, who blessed his dogs with such memorable names as Drunkard, Madame Moose, and Sweet Lips.

Thank you for supporting our advertisers!

By the Numbers

U.S. households that own at least one dog

65.1 million

Dogs owned by Herbert Hoover in the White House

Presidents who did not have any pets while in office

Surviving letters between John and Abigail Adams

1,160

Did you know?

A dog named Satan helped the Allies survive WWI's Battle of Verdun.

Pinned back by German troops during the lengthy siege of Verdun in 1916, the Allied soldiers that held down the traditional French stronghold were surely praying for divine intervention from their guardian angels. What they got instead was Satan, a military dog trained to zigzag through the flying bullets while shouldering a contraption that held two passenger pigeons. Although he was shot in the leg, and his handler was killed while exhorting him to continue, Satan managed to stagger to safety behind the Allied line. From there, the French commander affixed messages with information about the German position to each of the pigeons, one of which managed to evade the gunfire to reach headquarters and spur the arrival of reinforcements. It's unknown what happened to this particular Satan, but he is credited with having a hand (paw?) in helping the Allies attain a hard-fought victory.

Thank you for supporting our advertisers!