evidence: Canines in the oval office is even the subject of a book entitled First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Best Friends, by Roy Rowan and Brooke Janis, published in 2009. According to the authors, Presidents have owned every manner of canine from wolfhounds to beagles, Airedales to poodles, plus a generous helping of affectionate mutts. In some cases, there has been a downside. For example, Thomas Jefferson's briards liked to dine on his sheep, and Lyndon Johnson didn't win any friends among animal lovers when he held his beagles Him and Her by the ears. But in other cases dogs have improved the image of the President they served. FDR had his inseparable companion, Fala; Richard Nixon probably saved his Vice Presidential candidacy and possibly his political future, with his impassioned speech about his wife's cloth coat and his cocker spaniel, Checkers. Lyndon Johnson was known to yowl duets with Yuki, a stray found by his daughter Lucy.