Fido (dog)

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Fido (1860)

Fido (born before June 1855, died 1865) was the favorite dog of the 16th President of the United States , Abraham Lincoln .

In 1855, when Lincoln had retired from politics and was in a creative crisis, the long-eared yellow-colored mixed breed dog Fido ran to his family. At the time, Fido was likely still a puppy and followed Lincoln himself or one of his sons, William and Thomas, home. Preserved records of Lincoln's purchase of a wormer from a pharmacy in Springfield , Illinois at that time suggest that Fido was living with the Lincoln by late June 1855 at the latest. While Lincoln himself, as well as William and Thomas, liked him, Mary Lincoln was afraid of dogs of all ages, and her oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln , had feared them since a dog bite in early childhood. After winning the presidential election in the United States in 1860 and the associated move to the White House , Lincoln decided, despite the requests of the two younger sons, to leave Fido in Springfield, believing the speed and restlessness of a train journey was too dangerous for him the dog. Before the family left for Washington, DC on February 7, 1861 , Willy and Thomas had a photo taken of Fido in a photo studio. After that, the dog came into the care of the brothers John Linden and Frank Roll, who were friends with the young Lincoln's. Less than a year after Lincoln's murder , Fido also met a violent death when he playfully put his paws on a drunken man sitting on the floor and was then stabbed by him.

literature

  • Matthew Algeo: Abe & Fido: Lincoln's Love of Animals and the Touching Story of His Favorite Canine Companion . Chicago Review Press, Chicago, IL 2015, ISBN 978-1-55652-222-2 .
  • Chapter 4: Assasinated Like His Master . In: Brooke Janis, Roy Rowan: First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Best Friends , 2nd Edition, Algonquin Books, Chapel Hille, NC 2009, ISBN 978-1-56512-936-8 , pp. 37-50.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matthew Algeo: Abe & Fido: Lincoln's Love of Animals and the Touching Story of His Favorite Canine Companion . P. 10
  2. ↑ Matthew Algeo: Abe & Fido: Lincoln's Love of Animals and the Touching Story of His Favorite Canine Companion . Pp. 13-16
  3. ^ Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt: Lincoln's Lost Dog . Life , Feb. 24, 1954, pp. 83-86