August 23, 2021

"Captain is part of the governor's family and for your nameless ill-informed source to imply they've been trying to give him away is untrue."

"Someone offered to watch him for a few days while the transition was ongoing but for that to be weaponized and morph from a game of telephone into the pages of your paper is absurd — now excuse us we're preparing for a major storm."

Said a spokesman for Andrew Cuomo, quoted in "Cuomo's dog Captain left at mansion after governor departed" (Times Union). 

The dog is "a high-strung mix of shepherd, Siberian and malamute" who "has nipped a few people since Cuomo adopted him in 2018." 

These politicians and their fake dogs.

ADDED: Wikipedia has a nice list of all the Presidents "pets." I put pets in quotes because they're all animals but not all pets. Included on the list are horses used in battle and silkworms, whose silk was spun by Louisa Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams. 

Quincy Adams also had an alligator — "Said to have belonged to Marquis de Lafayette and housed for two months in the East Room." Emphasis on "said." Andrew Jackson kept fighting cocks. Thomas Jefferson had 2 grizzly bear cubs — a gift from Captain Zebulon Pike:

In a letter to his granddaughter, Ann Cary Randolph, he mentioned the arrival of the grizzly cubs from Pike and stated flatly, "these are too dangerous & troublesome for me to keep. I shall therefore send them to Peale’s Museum." Charles Willson Peale, artist and devotee of the natural sciences, was a friend and correspondent of Jefferson's. In 1786 he had opened a museum in Philadelphia that displayed portraits he had painted of American notables (including Jefferson) along with a varied and growing collection of natural history objects. Peale had one brief experience with a live grizzly, which had been brought to Philadelphia by a French trader. In March 1804 Peale advertised that the "Famous Grisly Bear" would be on display at the museum for two weeks. But the grizzly, estimated to be two years old, proved too dangerous: It broke its chain and cage, and was put down. 

In writing to ask Peale if he would take the two bears, Jefferson stressed that they had been taken as cubs, were "perfectly gentle" and "appear quite good humored." Jefferson added that they didn't eat much, primarily "Indian bread," and could be of interest to visitors to the museum. Peale wrote back: "this charge I will chearfully undertake." Jefferson must have greeted Peale's response with enthusiasm, but it took almost two months to get the cubs, one male and one female, on their way to Philadelphia. 

Meanwhile, the bears outgrew their cage and apparently spent some time in an enclosure on the lawn of the President's House. No doubt some passers-by enjoyed seeing the grizzlies, but this gave Jefferson's political opponents the opportunity to gleefully refer to his "bear-garden," a term going back to Elizabethan-era bear-baiting arenas that still carried a connotation of a rough, noisy area lacking any sort of decorum. 

When the two grizzlies were delivered to Peale on January 28, 1808, he immediately set about securing a large cage for them, and expressed hope that they would eventually breed. He knew from a bearskin given him by Lewis that grizzlies could grow to be quite large. "[W]e hope to see them get their full groath," Peale wrote to Jefferson, "& also to assertain what they may weigh when they acquire their full size." As these bears had been with humans almost from birth, the expectation seemed to be that they would adapt well to captivity. But this was not to be the case. As they matured, they became more threatening. It is not clear how long Peale had the bears before one of them broke out of its cage and, after terrorizing the Peale family, was shot in the basement kitchen. The other bear was put down as well, then both were mounted and placed on display in Peale's museum. 

24 comments:

wendybar said...

Done with that political prop!!!

wendybar said...

And Janice Dean has offered to take the dog. You know...that Weathergirl that Andrews people told should stick to weather rather than complain that Cuomo killed her in laws by sending covid infected people into Nursing Homes.....

gilbar said...

Serious question
Is it Better or Worse,
for a politician to "have" a dog that they are So Disconnected from, that it bites numerous people
Or should they just not Pretend to have a dog?

robother said...

The dog is a prop. Doesn't the new governor need a prop(er) dog as much as Cuomo did? Or was she one of the nipped victims?

Joe Smith said...

Homosexuals get elected these days with little problem. Why are politicians still using dogs as props to appear more like 'regular guys.'

Ridiculous...leave the poor dogs alone.

Joe Smith said...

'It is not clear how long Peale had the bears before one of them broke out of its cage and, after terrorizing the Peale family, was shot in the basement kitchen.'

I would have thought the head or chest area would be more effective...

And kudos to the guy named Zebulon for being the first alien to visit earth...

deckhand_dreams said...

Captain played a role in the initial pandemic response: he was in the anchor position on the rope team pulling the curve down in the poster created by Cuomo to commemorate the efforts.

Yancey Ward said...

At least Cuomo didn't send him to a nursing home....or Australia.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Say, anyone know what's happened to Biden's other dog? It was Champ who died, right, while Major was the nipper, and also the "don't pull my tail on your way out of the bath" dude? So he is the one supposedly still alive, but in DE?

tim in vermont said...

Now he's stuck with it. Dogs like this need committed owners with the time and energy that they require to keep them out of trouble.

wildswan said...

Cuomo had Captain; Biden had Major. Wonder who's got General?

exhelodrvr1 said...

So he is stranded at the governor's mansion?

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

A great post, and there should be more comments. Have politicians learned the Golden Retriever Rule that even if the car is full, you don't strap the dog to the roof?

"Only James K. Polk, Andrew Johnson, and Donald Trump did not have presidential pets while in office." One for Trump.

Summer political conventions, 2000, Bush Jr. family vs. Kerry family. In both cases, two daughters spoke together. Kerry daughters: to give an idea of our father's depth, once we had a hamster which was very unwell, and our father gave the animal mouth to mouth resuscitation. Bush daughters: by a coincidence, we also had a hamster who got sick, and we also asked our father for help. Suffice it to say, the hamster didn't make it. One for the Bushes.

JPS said...

I happened to hear Shelley Wynter's take, while I was driving. Roughly:

Now we know this poor dog was a prop! You're a single guy, leaving the governor's mansion, and you want to leave your dog there? He's the only friend you had left! He's the only one who still listened to anything you said!

The Genius Savant said...

Trump got a lot of crap (as usual/big surprise) for not having a dog and being a record saying he didn’t really like them. While I don’t really understand the sentiment because I love dogs and think they’re amazing companion to humanity that we really don’t deserve, everyone has their own thing and this is yet another thing where Trump was his own person they went against the grain that wouldn’t do him favors with most people and yet he didn’t care. He didn’t have a “fake” dog.

Dude1394 said...

How wonderful that your boss tries to strongarm you to take care of his pet versus hiring a dog sitter or boarding them. Typical of an arse like cuomo.

mikee said...

At lest Captain got out of his government service alive. Buddy, the Clinton's stage prop dog, was another apparent suicide. He was run down in the street by a female 17 year old brunette high schooler, after escaping from the Chapaqua estate. The dog escaped, not the girl. Not that she needed to escape, she was in a car approaching the estate. And yes, QuEStiOnS PeRSisT about this death, sorta like all the other deaths of Clinton associates.

Keep an eye out for danger, Captain.

Joe Smith said...

'At least Cuomo didn't send him to a nursing home....or Australia.'

At least he didn't eat him.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

The governor is "a high-strung mix of Italian and American" who "has groped a few people since taking office in 2011."

Big Mike said...

So Cuomo is being treated like average Republican politician, where every little incident gets the most negative spin possible and presented as accurate news. Guess he doesn’t like it a whole lot,

Yancey Ward said...

"Say, anyone know what's happened to Biden's other dog? It was Champ who died, right, while Major was the nipper, and also the "don't pull my tail on your way out of the bath" dude? So he is the one supposedly still alive, but in DE?"

Rumors are that he has been put down because it was his plan for withdrawing from Afghanistan that Biden chose.

Kassaar said...

Today's Daily Mail: " 'I'm not prepared to prioritise pets over people': Ben Wallace [British defense secretary] rebukes 'confused' Pen Farthing after former Royal Marine complained that charter flight to take his staff and rescue animals out of Kabul is being blocked"

LordSomber said...

Pets are props for politicians, but then again, so are spouses and family.

Unknown said...

“ now excuse us we're preparing for a major storm.”

Fact check: FALSE. Weather over Albany is clear.

Hyper-literalism is FUN when practiced on your political opponents. I can see why the media misses the Trump years.