38. Exterminate All Dogs
Thomas Jefferson was quite proud of his dogs when he got back home to Monticello, his plantation near Charlottesville, VA. He boasted of their herding skills, and before long, friends were writing Jefferson, asking for a pup from the next litter.
However, Jefferson was one of those types who demanded strict and complete obedience, and when one of his dogs proved obstinate, his views on dogs, in general, underwent a radical change. He killed all his dogs, and ordered his foreman to rid the plantation of dogs by killing all the slaves’ dogs as well. Eventually, he advocated for the complete eradication of all dogs everywhere. As he put it in a letter to a fellow dog hater in 1811: “I participate in all your hostility to dogs, and would readily join in any plan for exterminating the whole race“. Thus, he became the only president to wage war on dogs.