Animals at Home & In the Wild - LIFE

The Look of a Westminster Champion

Bill Syken — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 14:01:57 +0000

The expressions on this dog’s face are priceless, and you don’t need to know his place in history to appreciate the photos of Kippax Fearnought that were taken by LIFE staff photographer George Silk.

But in fact the dog does have a place in history, which in why LIFE featured this grumpy-looking fellow its Feb. 28, 1955 issue. Fearnought had just won the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, which was a rarity for a bulldog.

Here’s what LIFE said about the result:

With his whiskers properly clipped and his nose vaselined to bring out the highlights, an English-born bulldog, Ch. Kippax Fearnought, won U.S. dogdom’s top laurels, the best in show award of the Westminster Kennel Club’s show in New York’s Madison Square Garden. First in his breed to win the award since 1913 and only the second to win the award since it was established in 1907, Fearnought was brought to the U.S. 14 months ago by Dr. J.A. Saylor of Long Beach, Calif., who bought him after seeing his picture in a magazine.

In the years since these photos were taken, Fearnought’s place in history has only become more precious, because since 1955 show no other bulldog has joined him on the Best in Show list.

But all talk of prizes aside, it’s these looks that are winning. If you can’t get enough of them, check out this Facebook group dedicated to Grumpy English Bulldogs.

Kippax Fearnought, here going through his grooming routine in 1955, is the last bulldog to win Best in Show at the Westminster competition.

George Silk/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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When Tiger Cubs Come to Stay

Bill Syken — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 19:38:48 +0000

When you think of animals that would work as house pets, tigers generally don’t top the list. And for good reason. The website The Spruce Pets advises that no tiger species should be kept as a pet, noting that the practice is banned in most U.S. states. Among the reasons why tigers don’t make good pets: as adults the tigers “eat dozens of pounds of meat per day and need acres of expensive high-security enclosures.”

Not to mention the obvious dangers.

But in 1944 LIFE wrote about a special instance in which a woman took in three tiger cubs into her New York city apartment, and it worked out quite well—for the most part.

She took in the tiger cubs because of a situation at the Bronx Zoo, where her husband worked as a lion keeper. The zoo had a Bengal tiger named Jenny who had given birth to three cubs. As sometimes happens with tigers in captivity, Jenny refused to nurse her young. So Helen Martini, the lion keeper’s wife, stepped forward to give these young cubs the care that they needed.

As LIFE described it, taking care of the cubs kept her quite busy:

Fed every three hours, the cubs announce their mealtime with loud squalls, which grow louder as they grow hungrier. They have not learned to lap from a saucer and each has to be fed from a bottle. When she is not feeding them, Mrs. Martini is cleaning them, or putting drops in their eyes, or playing with them. Though quite tame and playful, the cubs’s long claws require her to wear leather gloves when handling them.

The tigers’ stay at the Martini home was only set to last about a month. At that point the cubs would need to transition to be a meat diet and become too much to handle around a New York City apartment.

The images of Martini caring for the cubs, taken by LIFE staff photograper Alfred Eisenstaedt, show the obvious affection she developed for these adorable creatures. But having tigers in her house came with its problems. Not only did Mrs. Martini have to wear those protective leather gloves, she also had to take the drapes off her windows before the cubs completely shredded them.

This was happening when the cubs weighed around eight pounds. As adults Bengal tigers can weigh close to 600 pounds.

In short, don’t try this at home.

At five weeks old, this tiger cub weighed 6 1/2 pounds over its birth weight, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A tiger cub made its way from the kitchen to the living room while staying at the home of the Bronx Zoo’s lion keeper, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A tiger cub made its way around the home of the Bronx Zoo’s lion keeper; these cubs were given home care because their captive mother would not nurse them, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Helen Martini, wife of a Bronx Zoo lion keeper, cared for three tiger cubs after their captive mother would not nurse them, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Three tiger cubs were taken into the home of a Bronx Zoo lion keeper because their captive mother would not nurse them; they needed to be fed by bottle because they had not learned to lap from a bowl, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Rajpur, a tiger cub, investigated a kitchen cabinet full of Carnation evaporated milk; he was temporarily being cared for by Helen Martini, the wife of the Bronx Zoo lion keeper, because its captive mother would not nurse her cubs, 1944.

A tiger cub trying to climb onto a couch while staying at the home of the Bronx Zoo lion keeper; the keeper’s wife was caring for the tigers because their captive mother would not nurse them, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tiger cubs stayed at the home of the Bronx Zoo lion keeper after their captive mother would not nurse them, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Helen Martini, wife of a Bronx Zoo lion keeper cared for three tiger cubs after their captive mother would not nurse them, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A tiger cub sucked on the finger of Helem Martini, who was the wife of the Bronx Zoo lion keeper and was looking after three tigers because their captive mother would not nurse them, 1944.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Sharks: Fear and Fascination

Bill Syken — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 13:54:28 +0000

The following is adapted from the introduction to LIFE’s new special issue Sharks: Predators of the Sea, which is available here online and at newsstands:

Few words in the American vocabulary inspire fear and fascination the way shark does. If shouted too loudly on a sunny Cape Cod beach, it could prompt scores of swimmers to rush to shore. When attached to a movie poster—think Jaws and Sharknado—the association has reliably led to big box office. More than half of Americans say they are scared of sharks, and a third have said they are so terrified they suffer from galeophobia (the scientific designation for a shark phobia) and won’t even go in the water.

There are plenty of reasons we are afraid of sharks. From a psychological perspective, being attacked by a shark looms as a particularly gruesome way to die. “We’re not just afraid of things because of the likelihood that they’ll happen, but [also] because of the nature of them if they do happen,” David Ropeik, who has studied the gap between human fears and reality, told Live Science in 2015. “It may be unlikely that you’ll be attacked by a shark, but it would suck if you did.” On top of that, there have been vastly more unprovoked shark-related incidents in the United States over time—28 in 2024 alone, triple that of Australia, which is next in line.

The odds of dying in a shark attack during your lifetime are incredibly remote—1 in 4.3 million. Each year, there are typically around six unprovoked shark-related fatalities worldwide. A beachgoer is far more likely to die of sun exposure (.00007 percent chance) or in a car accident (.011 percent chance) than from a shark attack. According to data compiled by the International Shark Attack File, you’re far more likely to be bitten by a New Yorker than a shark.

Perhaps because so much of the United States is landlocked, sharks historically were not on the American radar. In fact, for many years, sharks didn’t bite people in the U.S. Or, at least, that’s what the general population and some academics thought. Consider Maryland-born athlete Hermann Oelrichs, who in 1891 felt so sure
that sharks were harmless, he jumped into the sharky waters outside his home in Newport, Rhode Island, to prove his point to some guests. Oelrichs was fine; the fish and sharks scattered—likely frightened by the splash, according to the Pittsburgh Dispatch. The upshot: Scientists at the American Museum of Natural History in New York later cited Oelrichs’s stunt as scientific evidence that man-eating sharks did not exist.

The conviction that sharks posed no threat would not last long. Fast-forward to 1916 on the Jersey Shore, when in the course of just 12 days, five people were attacked by sharks. In an attempt to contain public anxiety, authorities blamed all of the attacks on a single young great white that was found with human remains in its stomach.

The single-shark messaging led to the “mythos of a rogue killer . . . intentionally moving around and finding victims,” says Janet M. Davis, a professor of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, who has studied the history of human-shark interactions. “The fact that these fatal bites [in New Jersey] occurred in such rapid succession really scared people.” Locals fought back, with some tossing sticks of dynamite into a creek where one of the victims was found. President Woodrow Wilson promised federal aid to “drive away all the ferocious man-eating sharks which have been making prey of bathers,” reported the Philadelphia Inquirer.

During World War II, anxiety about shark attacks was so pronounced, the Navy began work on a shark repellent, with the help of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. Among others who devoted themselves to the repellent was OSS executive assistant and future chef Julia Child, who experimented with combinations of nicotine, clove oil, horse urine, rotting shark muscle, and asparagus in the hopes of preventing shark attacks. Before the end of the war, the Navy introduced Shark Chaser, a pink pill of copper acetate that produced an inky black dye when released in the water, obscuring a serviceman from lurking sharks.

With the war’s end, it would be another 30 years before fear of sharks again gripped the public. The precipitating events: the publication of the book Jaws by Peter Benchley and the release of the Hollywood version, also called Jaws.

“During the summer of 1975 when Jaws was in hundreds of theaters across the [U.S.] . . . we could see the fear that it was stirring up,” Wendy Benchley, an ocean conservationist and the novelist’s widow, told National Geographic in 2022. For some, that meant avoiding swimming in deep waters. Others were inspired to emulate the film’s heroes and sail out to sea to hunt down these creatures. Across the U.S. East Coast in the mid-1980s, sporting events, such as Monster Shark Tournaments, took place to kill sharks as conquests. “It horrified Peter and me that some people’s first reaction was to kill sharks,” she said.

But there were also members of the public who found the story thrilling. Thousands of people around the world sent letters to Benchley to describe how the book and film had inspired them to learn more, become marine biologists, or photograph sharks. (One example: Eight years after the release of Jaws, a group of scientists founded the American Elasmobranch Society, to promote the study of sharks.) “There is no question that Jaws made a lot of people scared of sharks, and some responded by killing these animals,” shark scientist Yannis Papastamatiou told National Geographic in 2022. “Jaws had the opposite effect on me. I wanted to work with sharks.”

America’s post-Jaws reactions to sharks largely centered around another entertainment medium: Shark Week and the rise of television documentaries. If Jaws—both the book and movie—taught television and film executives anything, it was that sharks sell. The Discovery Channel’s weeklong Shark Week event, inaugurated in 1988 as a way to spark ratings, soon became an annual mainstay–akin to a secular national holiday.

Originally, Shark Week programming was educationally oriented, including the 1988 film Caged in Fear, about the development of technology to stave off shark attacks. But as ratings for Shark Week grew, Discovery amped up the drama, conflict, and sensationalism. Today, Shark Week tends to feature content like Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood, which capitalized on a string of fatal shark attacks off the coast of Mexico. In the film, investigators attempted to identify the perpetrator, a massive great white shark, and capture it on film.

Although sharks continue to be sensationalized in the media, researchers like Papastamatiou work to promote a more accurate understanding of the animals and support conservation efforts. In particular, Papastamatiou, who runs the Predator Ecology & Conservation Lab at Florida International University, is known for his work around sharks’ social and hunting habits.

Instead of demonizing sharks, the public should follow the example of seafaring communities in the South Pacific, Davis suggests. In Hawaii and Fiji, sharks are not viewed as blood-frenzied serial killers but instead revered as ancestral spirits. Of course, that doesn’t mean these indigenous communities would call sharks cute and cuddly. “This is an animal that is very powerful and strong,” says Davis. “So even in a culture that really looks to these animals as central to their cosmologies and spiritual worlds, there’s still respect for the potential power of these animals.” These centuries-old stories and traditions align with what scientists have been discovering–the ocean is better with sharks in it. ——By Courtney Mifsud Intreglia ▼ ▼

The following is a selection of photos from LIFE’s new special issue Sharks: Predators of the Sea, which is available here online and at newsstands.

Cover photo by Chris & Monique Fallows/Nature Picture Library

Cover photo by Brad Leue/Alamy

Cultures on seafaring islands in the South Pacific consider the whale shark to be a harbinger of good luck and fortune.

Alamy Stock Photo

Marine biologists observed a Port Jackson shark about 20 meters below in the surface in the waters off Sydney, Australia.

Fairfax Media via Getty Images

Bull sharks, seen above in Western Australia, are found in both saltwater and freshwater. They have been spotted in rivers hundreds of miles from the ocean.

Getty Images

The 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws, starring Roy Scheider, had plenty of people afraid to go in the water.

Corbis via Getty Images

In the 2003 movie Finding Nemo, a shark named Bruce looked intimidating but turned out to be kind and gentle.

©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection

Tourists paddled a kayak, unaware of the great white shark lurking behind them.

Shutterstock/karelnoppe

Sharks circled in the waters off Cocos Island, Costa Rica.

Getty Images

A great white shark leapt against the sunset.

Getty Images/iStockphoto

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Meet Lady Wonder, the Psychic Horse Who Appeared Twice in LIFE

Bill Syken — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 19:55:11 +0000

The story of Lady Wonder began in 1925, when her owner, Mrs. Claudia Fonda of Richmond, Va., noticed that the horse she had purchased when it was two weeks old—then just called Lady— would come when Fonda was merely thinking of calling her. Fonda wondered if the horse could read her mind, she told LIFE. By the time Lady was two years old the horse had been taught to spell out words by using blocks with letters on them. When Lady correctly predicted the winner of the Dempsey-Tunney boxing match, the fame of what Fonda billed as “The Mind-Reading Horse” began to spread.

Lady Wonder’s first appearance in LIFE came in 1940, when the magazine, as part of a larger story on ESP, related the history of the horse but also reported that it had lost its extra-sensory special powers. The horse could still perform simple mathematics, though, and was at that point merely being billed as “The Educated Horse,” with claims of clairvoyance left by the wayside. Still, the story noted that its ESP expert believed the horse once posessed special powers.

Then in 1952 Lady Wonder returned to the spotlight when she seemingly offered insight to a tragic case involving a missing boy. Here’s how LIFE described her contribution in its issue of Dec. 22, 1952:

A friend of the district attorney of Norfolk County, Mass., went to see her, on a hunch, to ask her for news of a little boy who had been missing for months. She answered, “Pittsford Water Wheel.” A police captain figured out that this was a psychic misprint for “Field and Wilde Water Pit,” an abandoned quarry. Sure enough, that is where the boy’s body was found.

The incident brought national attention to Lady Wonder, and among those who made the pilgrimage to her Virginia farm was LIFE photographer Hank Walker. He captured the mare, then 27 years old, in action, dispensing advice and sports predictions. (For the specific college football picks from Lady Wonder mentioned in the article, the horse was right on only one out of three picks).

Not everyone was buying the act. In 1956 the magician Milbourne Christopher, who was a noted debunker of frauds, visited Lady Wonder’s stable and concluded that the horse was spelling out words under the subtle guidance of Fonda, who was directing Lady Wonder on which blocks to select.

Lady Wonder died the next year.

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

“Lady Wonder,” a horse with the purported ability to see the future, came in from the pasture to answer questions for her customers, Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Mrs. Julius Bokkon regularly visited Lady Wonder to solicit the opinion of the clairvoyant horse on matters in her life, Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lady Wonder, the purported clairvoyant horse, gave a Massachusetts businessman direction on where to get a loan, spelling out “Heancock,” which was interpreted to mean the insurance company John Hancock, 1952.

Hank Walker/LIfe PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

The tricks of Lady Wonder included performing addition; here she had been asked what 7+6 equalled (she had already pulled up a “1” that is out of view to the left), Richmond, Va., 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Owner Claudia Fonda stood by as her clairvoyant talking horse tourist attraction, Lady Wonder, gave a Massachusetts businessman direction on where to get a loan, spelling out “Heancock,” which was interpreted to mean the insurance company John Hancock, 1952.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The 27-year-old Lady Wonder, a horse with purported clairvoyant abilities who communicated answers by flipping letters on a rack, was a popular tourist attraction in Richmond, Va,. 1952.

Hank Walker/LIfe PIcture Collection/Shutterstock

Lady Wonder, a horse with supposed clairvoyant powers, attracted visits from tourists and well as regulars such as Mrs. Julius Bokkon, Richmond, Va., 1952. The levers around the horse were like keys in a giant typewriter that it used to communicate its messages.

Hank Walker/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Before Moo Deng: Little Hippos in LIFE

Bill Syken — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 17:03:23 +0000

Hippos are the third largest mammal on the planet, behind only the elephant and the white rhino. But there is a variety of hippo known as the pygmy hippo that is tiny by comparison, especially when it is very young. And that makes the animal a natural curiosity. Witness the popularity of Moo Deng, a pygmy hippo who lives in a Thailand zoo and became a viral sensation in 2024.

The editors of LIFE shared the fascination.

The magazine’s June 2, 1941 issue included a story headlined “World’s Smallest Hippopotamus Arrives in U.S. From Liberia.” The pygmy hippo in question had been abandoned by its mother, found by Liberian natives and turned over to a man named Silas E. Johnson, who worked in Liberia and was an amateur zoologist.

Johnson then sailed to New York City for his “biannual three-month vacation in the U.S,” according to LIFE, and brought the baby hippo with him. When the hippo arrived in America, he was two months old, weighed nine pounds, was 18 inches long, and had acquired the name Skipper during the course of his sea journey. Legendary LIFE staff photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt was there to capture the magic.

LIFE explained exactly what made Skipper so precious:

The rarity of Mr. Johnson’s pet lies in the fact that pygmy hippopotamuses, found only in Liberia, are stalwart fighters which fiercely protect their young….When he is full-grown, Skipper will weight about 400 pounds. Normal hippos weight 30 pounds at birth, three tons at maturity.

While Skipper was rare, he was not entirely unique. In 1952 LIFE featured another pygmy hippo that had come to the U.S. This little fellow was named Gumdrop, and he and his zookeeper were photographed for the magazine by George Skadding. Unlike Skipper, Gumdrop came to the U.S. in the company of his mother.

How rare is a pygmy hippopotamus? Outside of zoos, the animal’s primary habitat remains in Libera and other neighboring West African countries. According to an estimate in 2015, only about 2,500 pygmy hippos remain alive in the wild.

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist. Skipper needed to be kept wet to prevent his skin from peeling.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This rare baby pygmy hippopotamus, named Skipper, was abandoned by his mother in Liberia and brought to the U.S. by boat in 1941 in the company of an amateur zoologist.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Amateur zoologist Silas E. Johnson brought this baby pygmy hippopotamus abandoned by his mother from Liberia to the U.S.; during the boatride from Africa to New York, the hippo acquired the nickname Skipper.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

This baby pygmy hippopotamus, abandoned by his mother in LIberia and brought to the U.S. by an amateur zoologist, consumed a half-pint of condensed milk and pablum from a bottle four times a day, 1941.

Alfred Eisenstaedt/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby pygmy hippo named Gumdrop received a bath, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A baby pygmy hippo named Gumdrop and his mother, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A zookeeper administered a bath to Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, was toweled off by a zookeeper following his bath, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gumdrop, a baby pygmy hippo, fed with his mother, 1952.

George Skadding/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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The First Beagles Whose Ears LBJ Just Had to Tug

Bill Syken — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 18:05:46 +0000

Early in his first term as president, Lyndon B. Johnson found himself caught up in a scandal involving his family’s beagles, named Her and Him. The trouble started when the President was welcoming a group of business leaders at the Rose Garden, and he lifted one of the family pets by its ears, causing the dog to cry out. Johnson then commented, “It does them good to let them yelp.”

The ear-pulling was captured by an Associated Press photographer, and plenty of dog lovers became upset at the President. At this link you can see the photo, as well as audio of Johnson talking about how a senator brought up the ear-pulling during negotiations with Congress over the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

After that incident Johnson’s beagles soon appeared on the cover of LIFE’s June 19, 1964 issue. The story aimed to show that, despite the ear-pulling incident, Her and Him were enjoying life under the Johnson Administration. “Not many dogs have been privileged to shoo birds off the White House lawn, get underfoot at a cabinet meeting or mingle with dignitaries at a State Ball,” LIFE wrote. “Certainly no dogs in all the world have the Bouquet Room as their private boudoir.”

LIFE staff photographer Francis Miller was given great access to Him and Her, and he came to the White House prepared to make the most of it. An animal lover himself, Miller brought a full assortment of treats and amusements to get the beagles on his side. Here’s how LIFE described the shoot:

Too wise in the ways of puppies to believe that affection alone would produce good photographs, Miller stretched himself out on the White House lawn, alternately barked like a dog, tossed a bone in the air, plied the beagles with his Yummies, huffed into the harmonica and joggled the toy bird in his left hand. This left him free to shoot the cover with his right hand and his right eye.

The story stated that Him and Her were primarily the pets of LBJ’s daughter Luci, who was 16 years old at the time. And she was not the beagles’ only caretaker. Miller took several photos of the dogs in the company of Thraphes Bryant, who in addition to being the White House electrician helped look after the dogs.

The affection between Bryant and the beagles was clear in Miller’s photos. And Bryant tended to many First Dogs during his career. He would write a memoir about it, titled “Dog Days at the White House: The Outrageous Memoirs of the Presidential Kennel Keeper.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson’s pet beagles, Him and Her, on the White House lawn, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Him and Her, pet Beagles of President Lyndon B. Johnson, sitting together on lawn of White House, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Him and Her, pet Beagles of President Lyndon B. Johnson, in a White House sitting room, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

President Lyndon B. Johnson, along with his daughter Luci Baines Johnson (left) and her friend Warri Lynn Smith (center), played with the family beagles, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

President Lyndon B Johnson’s beagles at the White House, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lyndon Johnson’s beagles, Him and Her, at the White House, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Him and Her, the beagles belonging to the Lyndon B. Johnson family, made sport of an old overshoe in the White House living quarters, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lyndon Johnson’s beagles, Him and Her, at the White House, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thraphes Bryant, in addition to being White House electrician, helped care for the beagles of Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

White House electrician Thraphes Bryant helped care for LBJ’s beagles, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Thraphes Bryant, in addition to being White House electrician, helped care for the beagles of Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

LIFE photographer Francis Miller took photos of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s beagles, Him and Her, on the White House lawn, 1964.

Francis Miller/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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