When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died
following a raid by American
special forces in his Syrian
bolthole, Donald Trump was
delighted to report, in October, that the
Islamic State leader had “died like a dog”.
You mean enfolded by love and grief,
Mr President? You mean surrounded by
human beings who feel like they have
just had their hearts ripped out?
Not quite. If anyone was in any doubt
about how a dog dies, Trump was happy to
elaborate: al-Baghdadi had “whimpered,
cried and screamed like a coward”, he chor-
tled. “[He] spent his last moments in utter fear,
in total panic and dread!”
But that is not how a dog dies, Mr Presi-
dent. There are almost 90 million dogs in the
United States and all of their owners will have
winced to hear their president gloating about
how a dog slips this mortal coil. Personally,
when my dog leaves this world, I pray he will
die in my arms and looking in my eyes, at
peace and pain-free, knowing he will be
mourned for the rest of my life.
Killing the leader of Islamic State should
have been the greatest triumph of the Trump
administration, but with his crass, anti-canine
sentiments, Trump managed to snatch flesh-
crawling revulsion from the jaws of victory.
Inevitably, Trump’s “died like a dog” drivel was
compared to Barack Obama’s solemn,
restrained announcement when Osama bin
Laden was killed in 2011. Trump did not sound
like Obama. The exulting vio-
lence of his rant made him sound
more like some eye-swivelling
terrorist nutjob. His sneering
“died like a dog” line was par-
ticularly ill-judged because the
special forces had pursued
al-Baghdadi with the help of a
K-9 unit. Indeed, one of the dogs- a Belgian Malinois named
Conan – had been injured when
al-Baghdadi detonated his suicide vest. But
Trump has long used man’s best friend as a
symbol of all sorts of nastiness.
Trump observed that Republican senator
Marco Rubio was “sweating like a dog” at a
2016 debate. He compared former White
House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman to a
dog when she published her book Unhinged:
An Insider’s Account Of The Trump White
House. Trump noted that Republican nominee
Mitt Romney “choked like a dog” against
Obama in the 2012 election. At various times,
NBC’s David Gregory, Fox News’ Glenn Beck
and Ted Cruz’s communications directors were
all, Trump leered, “fired like a dog”.
In Trump’s tiny mind, dogs are venal,
treacherous creatures. Vanity Fair suggested,
“To the president, dogs are capable of many
things, none of which are particularly dog-
like. Begging for money, for example. Getting
dumped. Feeling ungrateful... Trump never
compared anything to a dog that draws on
how the animal famously is. It’s never
‘He’s loyal like a dog’... The creatures have
never done much good in the
Trumpian universe.”
“Donald was not a dog fan,”
ex-wife Ivana confirmed in
her memoir Raising Trump,
recalling his hostility to her
poodle, Chappy, who would
“bark at him territorially”.
Ivana never understood
Trump’s hostility to dogs.
“How can you not love
a dog that acts like he’s won the
lottery for life just because he
sees you walk through the
door?” she wondered.
Trump’s anti-dog prejudice
feels un-American, because the
pedigree of the FDOTUS (First
Dog Of The United States) is as
long as American history. George
Washington had Sweet Lips,
Scentwell and Vulcan (American
foxhounds). Abraham Lincoln had
Fido (mongrel), killed by a drunk with a knife
a few months after Lincoln’s assassination and
whose name became a generic handle for dogs
everywhere. John F Kennedy had Gaullie
(French poodle), Charlie (Welsh terrier),
Clipper (German shepherd), Shannon (cockerspaniel), Wolf (Irish wolfhound) and
Pushinka (a mongrel presented by former
Soviet Union premier Nikita Khrushchev).
Ronald Reagan’s Christmas gift to
his wife, Nancy, in 1985 was the
legendary Rex – a cavalier King
Charles spaniel who had framed
portraits of Ron and Nancy in his
elaborate doghouse. Bill Clinton
had Buddy (a chocolate Labrador
retriever). George W Bush had Spot
“Spotty” Fetcher (an English springer
spaniel), Barney and Miss Beazley
(Scottish terriers). Barack Obama had
Sunny and Bo (Portuguese water dogs).
It is nearly 120 years since those rolling
White House lawns were dog-free. President
William McKinley didn’t have a dog –
although he did have a parrot that could
whistle “Yankee Doodle” – but McKinley left
office in 1901 following his death. For
generations, there has been a welcome
for dogs in the White House. Until now. Yet
no president has ever been in greater need of
a dog than Donald Trump.
“This is a president who needs a friend,”
Brooke Janis, coauthor of First Dogs, a history
of mutts in the White House, told the
Washington Post. “Having a dog offers uncon-
ditional love and that is something this president
desires so deeply and can’t seem to find.”But it appears Trump has finally realised
the error of his dog-hating ways – or,
at least, that he finally understands
how terribly the optics look to a dog-loving
world. After Conan the Belgian Malinois was
wounded taking out al-Baghdadi, Trump
dialled down the mutt-hating and ramped up
his love of dogs.
“Our ‘K-9’, as they call it,” he sighed,
misty-eyed. “I call it a dog. A beautiful dog.
A talented dog.”
And I recalled when my daughter and I
took our dog to the vet for his first
vaccinations. The people before us,
a man and his teenage daughter,
had a desperately ill dog some
ten years older than our pup and
at the other end of a dog’s des-
perately short life span. They had
to carry their sick dog into the
surgery. When they came out they
were in tears of inconsolable grief
and without their dog, clutching the
lead he would never need again.
Every dog owner dreads being in
that room and we all know it is waiting for us
and our dog. The only comfort is knowing that
your dog will die surrounded by people who
will miss them forever, knowing that at the
end of their short lifetime, so full of love and
laughter, they died like a dog, Mr President.In Trump’s
tiny mind,
dogs are
venal and
treacherous
creaturesOf all his changes at the White
House, Donald’s lack of canine
companions goes against the grainStory by Tony ParsonsMa n’s b e s tFRIEND?Not for TrumpTrump ‘honours’ Conan
via an altered image he
posted on TwitterPhotographsAlamy; Getty Images; Twitter/@realdonaldtrumpDETAILS − MAN THINGS04-20DetailsParsons_3394046.indd 65 07/02/2020 13:03
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