PRESIDENTIAL DOGS ON DISPLAY

One more reason to visit the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago: the presidential dogs Bo and Sunny have their own exhibit in the museum!

The two Portuguese Water Dogs may not have been as famous as Fala, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Scottish Terrier, but they were an integral part of daily life at the White House. During his 2008 campaign, Barack Obama promised his daughters a dog, whether he won or lost the election. And in his victory speech, the president-elect said to his girls, “I love you both more than you can imagine. You have earned the puppy that is coming with us.”

In the museum’s Life in the White House exhibit is a comic strip honoring the two dogs. The illustrations are designed with different textural elements allowing children, including those with visual impairment, to physically experience the dogs’ fur.

BTW Fala, who had his own press secretary and was known in his time as “the most famous dog in the world,” is memorialized with many of his personal items — including his food dish, collar, dog tags, and fan mail — at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York