ФОРУМ ЛЮБИТЕЛЕЙ ЭРДЕЛЬТЕРЬЕРОВ

Over the Easter weekend, a carefully guarded White House secret leaked out: The Obama girls, Malia and Sasha, finally have a puppy. His name is Bo, and he’s a six-month-old Portuguese water dog. Just hours after his identity was revealed, Bo was already an Internet sensation. But he won't be the first celebrity White House dog. That honor goes to Laddie Boy, an Airedale terrier who was the pet of President Warren G. Harding and his wife, Florence.

Though there were many presidential pets before him, Laddie Boy was the first to receive regular coverage from newspaper reporters. "While no one remembers him today, Laddie Boy's contemporary fame puts Roosevelt's Fala, LBJ's beagles and Barney Bush in the shade," says Tom Crouch, a Smithsonian Institution historian. "That dog got a huge amount of attention in the press. There have been famous dogs since, but never anything like this."

During their time in the White House, from 1921 to 1923, the Hardings included their dog in almost every aspect of their daily lives. When Harding golfed with friends, Laddie Boy tagged along. During cabinet meetings, the dog sat in (perched on his own chair). At fundraising events, the first lady frequently had Laddie Boy make appearances. The dog was such a prominent White House personality that the Washington Star and the New York Times seemed to run stories about the terrier almost daily in the months after Harding took office. In a 39-day period in the spring of 1921, these are just some of the headlines that appeared in the Times:

"Gets Airedale as Mascot"
"Laddie Boy a Newsboy"
"Trees White House Cat"
"Laddie Boy Gets Playmate"

Born on July 26, 1920, at the Caswell Kennels in Toledo, Ohio, Laddie Boy was 6 months old when he arrived at the White House on March 5, 1921, the day after Harding's inauguration. A sitting U.S. senator from Marion, Ohio, Harding had won the 1920 presidential election with 60 percent of the popular vote. Harding, who had brought his relaxed and informal work style to the presidency, instructed his staff to bring Laddie Boy to him as soon as he was delivered to the White House. The staff obeyed, interrupting Harding's first cabinet meeting to unveil the terrier. "With many manifestations of pleasure, the President led his new pet into his office, where he made himself at home," wrote a Times reporter on March 5.

Will the future Obama dog get the kind of Oval Office access that Laddie Boy had? If Barack Obama is as besotted with his dog as Harding was with Laddie Boy, possibly. But it's probably fair to say that Obama would not be getting a dog had he not promised his daughters a puppy to make up for the inconveniences they endured during the presidential campaign. "I guess I'm a little disappointed that he didn't have a dog previously," says Ronnie Elmore, associate dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University, who has developed a side career as a historian of presidential pets. "And then that it has taken so long to get the dog. There are kennels in the White House, and a dog could be assimilated into the White House scene very quickly and without any real responsibility for the Obamas other than to play with the dog once in a while."

The White House kennels existed in Laddie Boy's day, but the Airedale seems to have spent little time there. He was too busy roaming the White House living quarters, where the Hardings doted on him like the child they never had—together. Before her marriage to Harding, Florence had struggled to support herself as an unwed mother after giving birth to a son when she was 20. When the boy was 4 years old, he was sent to live with Florence's wealthy parents, who raised the child as their son. As for Harding, throughout his marriage, he relentlessly—and successfully—pursued sexual relationships with other women, at least one of whom bore him a child.

Tall and handsome, Harding certainly looked presidential, and he was an eloquent speaker, but he likely would not have won the White House without the help of the ambitious Florence, who was five years his senior. Before beginning his political career, Harding had been the owner of a struggling newspaper in Marion. After marrying Harding, Florence did her best to bring order to her husband's private and professional lives. Under her expert management, Harding's newspaper became profitable. No wonder Harding referred to his wife as "the Duchess." "Psychologically, they were a whale of an interesting couple," says historian Crouch.

However much Florence tried to keep her husband on the right path, she was unable to prevent the scandals that would rock his administration. Harding appointed several of his friends to his cabinet, many of whom were not worthy of a president's trust. While Harding's cabinet included the future 31st president, Herbert Hoover, as secretary of commerce, it also had Albert Fall as secretary of interior, who rented federal land to oil companies in exchange for personal loans.

While Harding was a flawed president, he was, in the words of a New York Times story published on March 12, "kindly, simple, neighborly and genuine." His kindness found expression in love for animals; indeed both Hardings supported the humane treatment of all creatures. In an editorial that Harding had authored while still editor of the Marion Star, he wrote: "Whether the Creator planned it so, or environment and human companionship have made it so, men may learn richly through the love and fidelity of a brave and devoted dog." The president took such pleasure in Laddie Boy that he had 1,000 bronze miniatures made in the dog's image shortly after taking office. Like a proud father handing out cigars to celebrate the birth of a child, Harding had the dog statuettes sent to his political supporters in Washington, D.C., and to those back in Ohio.

The Laddie Boy miniatures have become a rare find for collectors of presidential memorabilia, commanding between $1,500 and $2,000, says Kansas State veterinarian Elmore. He feels fortunate to have one in his collection. "I had been looking for one all over the country and on eBay," he says. "And one afternoon my wife was at an antiques store here in Manhattan, Kansas, and just as she was leaving, she looked down and saw Laddie Boy in a glass case. And she just about fainted. It turns out that there was an elderly person that lived here who had died, and at the estate sale, the antique's dealer bought a box of junk, and Laddie Boy was in there."