(Mental Floss) -- In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Barack Obama promised his daughters Sasha and Malia that they'd get to bring a new puppy with them to the White House in January.



President Bush's dog Barney, left, plays in 2001 with Spot, the offspring of George H.W. Bush's dog Millie.



It's a good thing Obama said "Yes, we can" to the girls' request to getting a dog; for all of his charm, ability, and oratorical flair, he could never be our nation's chief executive without a White House pet.



Counting Obama, the country has had 44 Presidents, and only two of them -- Chester A. Arthur and Franklin Pierce -- left no record of having pets.



Like Obama himself, the family pooch will have some big shoes to fill. Previous White House pets have set the bar pretty high. iReport.com: What pet would you want if you lived in the White House?



Here are a few of our favorites:  Watch Obama on "mutts like me" »



1. Billy: Calvin Coolidge's pygmy hippopotamus



Calvin Coolidge may have been known for his reticence, but he showed little of his trademark reserve when it came to acquiring pets.



After taking over the presidency upon the death of Warren G. Harding, Coolidge assembled a menagerie that would rival most zoos' collections.



He had six dogs, a bobcat, a goose, a donkey, a cat, two lion cubs, an antelope, and a wallaby. The main attraction in his personal zoo, though, was Billy, a pygmy hippopotamus.  Watch new baby pygmy hippo »



Billy was born in Liberia, but was captured at a young age.



He came into the possession of tire mogul Harvey Firestone, who gave Billy to President Coolidge as a gift, possibly because Firestone didn't want to feed the critter. (Even a pygmy hippo is still quite rotund; Billy was six feet long and weighed upwards of 600 pounds.)



Coolidge donated Billy to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. Because there were only a handful of pygmy hippos in the U.S. at the time, Billy quickly went to work as a stud, an endeavor at which he found some success.



He sired 23 little hippos, and many of the pygmy hippos you see in American zoos today are his offspring. Mental Floss: 7 crafty zoo escapes



2. The White House gators



Herbert Hoover wanted to put a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, and ... a gator in the Oval Office? It's true.



Hoover owned a slew of dogs, but those weren't his only pets. His second son, Allan Henry Hoover, owned a pair of gators that were occasionally allowed to wander around the White House grounds.



Sound crazy? Blame John Quincy Adams for setting the precedent. The sixth president also had a pet gator. His was a gift from the Marquis de Lafayette; it lived in a bathroom in the East Room of the White House. According to some reports, he enjoyed using the gator to scare his guests.



3. Fala: FDR's traveling companion



What do you get the Depression-conquering president who has everything? A lapdog.



In 1940 Franklin Roosevelt received a Scottish Terrier puppy named Big Boy as an early Christmas gift from a family friend.



FDR immediately realized that Big Boy was no name for a presidential companion and rechristened the pooch Murray the Outlaw of Falahill, after a Scottish ancestor. For the sake of simplicity, though, he called his new pal Fala.



After that, Fala became FDR's inseparable companion and traveled everywhere the President went.



The dog "gave" $1 a day to the war effort, generosity that earned him the rank of honorary private in the Army. Each morning when FDR's breakfast tray came in, it included a bone for Fala.



Fala also made a famous appearance in one of his master's speeches. When FDR was decrying personal attacks from his political opponents, he jokingly said that it was okay to mock him,
What did Obama promise the girls? What did Barack Obama promise the girls
that they'd get to bring a new puppy with them to the White House they'd get to bring a new puppy with them to the White House in January.
question: What did Obama promise the girls?, answer: that they'd get to bring a new puppy with them to the White House | question: What did Barack Obama promise the girls, answer: they'd get to bring a new puppy with them to the White House in January.