Fala (April 7, 1940 – April 5, 1952), a Scottish Terrier, was the dog of United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt. One of the most famous presidential pets, Fala was taken to many places by Roosevelt. Given to the Roosevelts by a cousin, Fala knew how to perform tricks; the dog and his White House antics were mentioned frequently by the media and often referenced by Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. Fala outlived Roosevelt by seven years and was buried near him.

A statue of Fala beside Roosevelt is featured in Washington, D.C.'s Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, the only presidential pet so honored. Another statue of Fala has been placed at Puerto Rico's "Paseo de los Presidentes" in San Juan.

Early life

Fala was born on April 7, 1940. Roosevelt's distant cousin, Margaret "Daisy" Suckley, gave the dog to Roosevelt as an early Christmas gift.

White House years

Fala was relocated into the White House on November 10, 1940, and spent most of his time there until Roosevelt's death during April 1945. Fala also traveled with Roosevelt to his home (Springwood) in Hyde Park, New York, and to Warm Springs, Georgia, where Roosevelt received treatment for his paralytic illness.

An MGM movie about a typical day in the White House featured Fala. He also became an honorary private of the U.S. Army by "contributing" $1 to the war effort for every day of the year and setting an example for others on the "home front". During the Battle of the Bulge, American soldiers asked one another the name of the President's dog, expecting the answer "Fala," as a supplementary safeguard against German soldiers attempting to infiltrate American ranks.

Fala often accompanied Roosevelt to important events; he traveled in Sacred Cow, the president's airplane, and in Ferdinand Magellan, Roosevelt's custom-made train car, as well as by ship. He was with Roosevelt at the Atlantic Charter Conference, Quebec, the meeting with President Manuel Ávila Camacho of Mexico in Monterrey, In the speech, Roosevelt criticized Republican opponents in Congress and detailed their criticisms of him. Late in the speech, Roosevelt addressed Republican charges that he had accidentally left Fala behind on the Aleutian Islands while on tour there and had sent a U.S. Navy destroyer to retrieve him at an exorbitant cost to the taxpayers:

<blockquote>These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family don't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I'd left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find himat a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollarshis Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself ... But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog.</blockquote>

The story of being left behind on the Aleutian Islands was false. (Fala did cause some minor trouble once on the cruiser in the West Indies by licking the feet of sailors relaxing on deck.)

The idea of turning the Republican charges into a joke was that of Orson Welles. Campaigning extensively for Roosevelt, Welles occasionally sent him ideas and phrases that were sometimes incorporated into what Welles characterized as "less important speeches". One of these was the "Fala speech". Welles ad-libbed the Fala joke for the president, who was so delighted that he had a final version written into the speech by his staff. After the broadcast Roosevelt asked Welles, "How did I do? Was my timing right?"

Fala attended Roosevelt's funeral</blockquote>

In November 1945, Fala was hospitalized for a week after being attacked at the family's Hyde Park estate by Elliott Roosevelt's bull mastiff, Blaze. Fala had been staying with Margaret Suckley and visited Hyde Park. He was on a leash when the larger dog jumped on him, slashing his back and right eye. The attack ended when someone struck Blaze with a rock and dazed him. Blaze was euthanized as a precaution against future attacks and tested negative for rabies.

Suffering from deafness and failing health, Fala was euthanized on April 5, 1952, two days before his twelfth birthday. Fala is buried in a marked grave about behind the Roosevelt tombstone in the Rose Garden at Springwood, beside Chief (1918–1933), the Roosevelts' German Shepherd.

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File:Eleanor Roosevelt with Fala.jpg|Eleanor Roosevelt walking Fala (1947)

File:Eleanor Roosevelt with Fala 2.jpg|Fala and Eleanor Roosevelt (1951)

File:Fala's Grave.jpg|Chief and Fala's graves

File:Franklin Delano Roosevelt gravesite.jpg|Grave near that of the Roosevelts at Springwood

</gallery>

Memorials

A statue of Fala beside Roosevelt is featured in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. Fala is the only presidential pet so honored. Another statue of him has been placed at Puerto Rico's "Paseo de los Presidentes" in San Juan. A third statue is in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY. Fala's collar, dog dish, White House dog tags and other artifacts also are on display.

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File:Washington DC August 2014 29 (Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial).jpg|The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, showing a statue of Fala next to FDR

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See also

  • List of individual dogs
  • United States presidential pets
  • Checkers speech

References

  • Audio recording of 'Fala Speech':
  • Transcript:
  • Artists for FDR, blog post presenting selections from the 1944 pamphlet, The President's Speech, with illustrations by Crockett Johnson, Syd Hoff, Hugo Gellert and 16 others from the Independent Voters' Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Roosevelt.
  • IMDb profile of Whiskers, Fala's movie stand-in in Princess O'Rourke (1943).