Presidental pets

Most presidents throughout history have kept animals - with cats, dogs and horses being the most popular. However, some presidents have had slightly more varied animal tastes. For example, both John Quincy Adams and Herbert Hoover kept pet alligators. The two largest presidential menageries probably belonged to Calvin Coolidge and Theodore Roosevelt. Among Coolidge's miniature zoo were two lion cubs called Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau, a wallaby, a bear, an antelope, a pygmy hippopotamus and two raccoons called Rebecca and Horace (Rebecca is pictured above, with Coolidge's wife Grace). Theodore Roosevelt, meanwhile, had a large number of dogs, a pig, five guinea pigs, a macaw, a garter snake called Emily Spinach and a badger called Josiah who used to bite people.

Josiah doesn't hold the record for the most badly behaved presidential pet, though. That honour goes to Andrew Jackson's parrot, called Poll, who had to be ejected from Jackson's funeral service because she wouldn’t stop swearing.