Wacky Presidential Pet Relics for Sale (Like a Socks the Cat Doll)
The Presidential Pet Museum is auctioning its collection, which celebrates White House pets with paintings, photos, and kitschy memorabilia.
It all started with the hair of the dog. Ronald Reagan’s dog.
For a brief period in the mid-1980s, Claire McLean was a dog groomer for President Reagan’s Bouvier des Flandres, Lucky. After clipping Lucky’s hair, McLean saved it. Her mother later painted a picture of Lucky using the dog’s real hair.
That painting started McLean’s love affair with presidential pet memorabilia. She began to collect and create other items and, in 1999, she opened the Presidential Pet Museum in a barn in Maryland, about a 30 mile drive from Washington, D.C.
McLean, who is 83, is no longer able to operate her museum, but she’s hoping that someone else is. She and David Baker, who runs the museum’s website,
