Socks, First Cat of the United States from 1993-2001
Allyson Waller reports Once again, a cat is set to join the ranks of presidential pets:
When he was running for president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. said it was time for a pet to be put back in the White House.
First it was announced that Champ and Major, the German shepherds belonging to the president-elect and the future first lady Jill Biden, would roam the White House. And now, after an absence of more than a decade, a cat is set to also join the ranks of presidential pets, Jane Pauley of “CBS Sunday Morning” reported on Twitter on Friday.
In an interview with Fox 5 in Washington, Dr. Biden hinted that if her husband won the presidency, she would not mind getting a cat.
“I’d love to get a cat,” she said. “I love having animals around the house.”
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Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state, William H. Seward, gave him two cats, Tabby and Dixie, said Andrew Hager, historian-in-residence at the Presidential Pet Museum. Lincoln was a major “cat fan,” Mr. Hager said, and the president often fed Tabby from the dinner table despite his wife’s criticism.