Since our nation's founding, pets have played an essential role in the lives of many U.S. presidents.

A new exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston

tells the story of the pets that called the White House home.

Jared Bowen of GBAH Boston takes us there for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

The role of the American president has often been described as the loneliest job in the world.

No surprise then that nearly all of them have had pets.

President Bush had Barney, complete with his own Barney Cam.

Reagan had Rex, who would happily be in his doghouse, and Hoover had Billy,

his pet, possum. This is an opportunity to see the history of the nation through the eyes of all the

pets that have lived in the White House. Boston's John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

has gone to the dogs, cats, and horses that have fetched, purred, and trotted

their way into American history. This new exhibition delivers us all the way back to the founding

pets. We find George Washington's beloved horse Nelson and his foxhound sweet lips. Speaking of

lips, Thomas Jefferson fed his mockingbird Dick treats from his own.

And then there is Abraham Lincoln. Director Alan Price says he changed the course of presidential

pet history. Well, Lincoln's dog is named Fido, and Lincoln has a photograph of his dog,

and that's the first known photograph of a presidential dog.

And I think for so many Americans who then named their dog Fido, Lincoln is part of that origin story.

The story of presidential pets winds through the peculiar.

President Calvin Coolidge and First Lady Grace took their raccoon Rebecca out for evening walks.

While some presidents turned the White House lawn over to grazing, Theodore Roosevelt made it a veritable zoo.

You'll find the rough riders saddle and crop here, and a taxidermied badger gifted to Roosevelt to remind him of his live one, Josiah.

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