How About a Pygmy Hippo for the Whitehouse?

It seems everyone has an opinion about what kind of dog the Obama's should get.

The issue has leaped to the top of the national agenda for a couple of reasons: We are a bit in love with the idea of a young charismatic family in the White House; no one can understand the macro-economic complexities of the economic meltdown and so there is not much to talk about there, and Barack Obama himself has shoehorned this topic into the national conversation by giving a shout-out to his kids in his acceptance speech, noting they had earned the puppy he had promised.

All well and good up to there, but there have been a few small bumps since then. It seems Barack Obama is a little to new talking about medical and dog issues with the national press, and in his confusion, he said the family is looking for a "hypoallergenic" dog.

In fact, his daughter Malia is not allergic to dogs; she has a slight case of asthma, so a low-shedding breed is best, so as not to unnecessarily inflame the condition.

No problem; there are lots of low-shedding dog breeds, including all the various forms of rough-coated or wire-haired terriers, poodles, and a hundred different crosses of the same.

If the Obama's want a really low-shedding pet, however, perhaps they should consider doing what Calvin Coolidge did: put a Pygmy Hippopotamus in the White House.

Yes, it's true; along with six dogs, a bobcat, a goose, a donkey, a cat, two lion cubs, an antelope, a raccoon, and a wallaby, Calvin Coolidge kept a Pygmy Hippopotamus by the name of Billy for a short time at the White House.

Billy came from Liberia (they are native to the thickly forested river sides of Liberia, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Sierra Leone), where he was born on 1927 and captured at a young age.

Billy ended up in the hands of tire mogul Harvey Firestone who had a huge rubber plantation in Liberia (note: Firestone's Liberian massive rubber plantation is still in operation in Liberia).

Firestone gave Billy to President Coolidge as a gift, but by the time the hippo got to the U.S. he was no longer a little baby; he was six feet long and weighed about 600 pounds!

After a very short stint corralled at the Whitehouse, Billy ended up at the National Zoo which is run by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He lived there his entire life and was a popular attraction.

For the record, Billy turned out to be quite a stud, and over the course of his long life (he died in 1955) he sired 23 babies. Most of the Pygmy Hippos in U.S. zoos today, in fact, are his descendants. Billy also traveled a bit, and even attended the 1939 New York World's Fair as part of the Firestone exhibit!

Coolidge was not the only person to have a non-shedding animal in the White House.

Herbert Hoover's son, Allan, had two alligators that were occasionally allowed to wander (supervised, of course) around the White House grounds.

These were not the first alligators in the White House. That distinction is owned by John Quincy Adams who got an alligator donated to him by the Marquis de Lafayette.



A baby Pygmy Hippo named Monifa recently born at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia
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