Founding Fathers and their dogs!
Howllo Fellow Basset Hound and Founding Fathers Lovers!
Here is your Mayor, the Founding Father of Basset Hound Town, the day a stamp was issued in his honor. Today he would like to take a little time to tell you about some of the other founding fathers in USA history.
George Washington, Revolutionary War hero and first President, was a man of many interests and pets. Among them were over thirty dogs with names like Sweet Lips, Drunkard, Taster, and Tipsy.
His preference ran toward hunting hounds, and he was gifted on several occasions by the French general Marquis de Lafayette with French foxhounds and others, including the first basset hounds in America. Washington himself used these gifts to develop the American fox hound breed.
Washington’s favorite was Vulcan, a huge black American fox hound, reported to be big enough for a young boy to ride like a pony, with powerful jaws and an infamous appetite. A legendary story tells of Vulcan developing a taste for Virginia hams, and sneaking into Washington’s Mount Vernon kitchen, snatching a one, and running “straight to the kennels with it locked in his great jaws.” First Lady Martha was justifably upset, but the event openly delighted George.
The first pets to actual live at the White House belonged to second President John Adams and his wife. He built the first stable at the White House for his horse Cleopatra, but the first dogs to live there belonged to his wife Abigail. Their names were Juno and Satan.
Thomas Jefferson, our third President and primary architect of The Declaration of Independence, was also gifted by Lafayette with Buzzy the Briard, a French working breed. Buzzy would provide later provide him with puppies. Jefferson also had two bear cubs and a mockingbird named Dick.
Although never a president, founding father Benjamin Franklin was an inventor, statesman, and a co-contributor to The Declaration of Independence. No research revealed his having a dog, but rumor has it that he and his wife had a cat . . .
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More news from your Founding Father Later…..Love, Cat, Chaps and Emma
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