OK. OK. I know presidential candidate Donald Trump has his faults.
Sure, he’s been impeached twice, divorced twice, convicted of sexual assault, charged with stealing government documents, forced to pay millions of dollars in several complicated lawsuits, and has faced 91 felony charges in New York, Georgia and at the federal level, but hey, what’s a little legal and criminal baggage? I guess this is the best the Republican party, the party of law and order and family values, can do.
If Republicans want a carrothead for a presidential candidate, it looks like they’ve got one. But as Trump runs again for president the real issue is his lack of a four-legged furry pet.
I’m not sure why rural Westerners voted for President Trump the first time. He doesn’t drive a pickup with a gun rack. He doesn’t wear Wranglers or Lees or Levi’s and his hairstyle certainly wouldn’t work in a Wyoming wind. He doesn’t know which end of a cow gets up first. He’s never fixed fence, bucked bales, cut wheat or field dressed an elk. But most importantly, he doesn’t have a dog.
His real omission is not having a canine companion, especially with his wife, Melania, nowhere near him on the campaign trail. What’s Donald going to do? He’ll need a warm heart and a cold nose to come home to. Who’s going to bring him his slippers and fetch his newspapers? Oh, I forgot. He doesn’t read the news. No matter. He still needs a dog.
George H.W. Bush had a springer spaniel named Millie. “Millie’s Book,” as dictated from the dog to Barbara Bush, outsold the president’s own memoirs. LBJ famously picked up his beagles named Him and Her by the ears, “to make them bark,” he said. A speech by Richard Nixon about his cocker spaniel Checkers helped save Tricky Dick’s political career. The public adored FDR’s Scottie named Fala.
James Garfield named his dog Veto. George Washington began his presidency with black and tan Virginia hounds. James Buchanan’s Newfoundland often lie motionless for hours with one eye open and one eye closed, similar to Congress. Like Trump, President Rutherford B. Hayes also lost the popular vote and squeaked by with a narrow electoral victory. To compensate for the nickname “Rutherfraud,” Hayes surrounded himself with a cocker spaniel, a small black mutt, a mastiff, a greyhound, a pair of shepherds and two hunting pups.
President Theodore Roosevelt not only named the White House, but he came to Pennsylvania Avenue with a Pekingese, a Saint Bernard, and enough other dogs to fill an animal shelter. Among others, Teddy had a Manchester terrier, a Chesapeake retriever, a bull terrier named Pete and a Jack Russell called Skip, which was the president’s favorite because he found the dog while hunting bears in Colorado.
Trump scorns tradition, but maybe a furry creature with paws will make him pause and not send out those bombastic tweets. He’s never tied a bandanna around his neck. Trump doesn’t have mud on his boots; he doesn’t have boots. He needs cowboy boots, a snap button shirt, leather work gloves, and fencing pliers in his hip pocket, but most of all he needs a dog. How can you trust a man without a dog?
We Westerners love our dogs. They do-si-do in the back of pickup trucks, guard sheep, herd cattle, flush pheasants and are always glad to see us. Trump is going to need a smiling face and a wagging tail to cheer him up. Yes, he had lap dogs in his presidential Cabinet, but that’s not the same.
Rural Westerners voted for Trump once but will they again if he doesn’t have a dog? If he’s going to be a two-term president, our chief executive, our commander in chief, then he needs a dog to talk to and share confidential briefings with. A good dog listens well, responds to treats and rarely barks back.
So the question is, what kind of dog? Out west, we have a variety of working dogs and canine companions. We live with Labrador retrievers, Border collies, Australian shepherds and Blue heelers. Unlike Western dogs that roam ranches and our cherished public lands, Trump’s pup would live at a golf course or maybe under the porch at the White House. What kind of dog would fit Donald Trump’s lifestyle? Would it be a fluffy, toy poodle with ribbons, a diamond studded collar and painted pink toenails? It would have to be a female dog because a male dog might be too competitive and garner too much attention.
I’d recommend a Chihuahua, but we’d have to be sure the dog arrived in the country legally or had a green card. Maybe Putin could send Trump a Russian wolfhound, but I’d be leery of a hidden microphone in the dog’s collar. Perhaps the best fit for President Trump would be a Pomeranian. The hairstyle would work. It’s a yappy little dog with attitude that needs constant grooming, adoration and attention.
An earlier version of this essay ran in Writers on the Range in 2017.
Andrew Gulliford, an award-winning author and editor, is a professor of history at Fort Lewis College. Reach him at andy@agullifd.com.
