by Paul Chalmers

Created on: January 19, 2009   Last Updated: January 27, 2009

The pets of state leaders spend more time with them than any adviser, so they have an unpredictable and hidden influence. We can only guess at the need for companionship and simple solace that drove Winston Churchill's adoration of his cats, particularly a tabby named Jock, which had a painting commissioned of it and attended all meetings of the war cabinet. The appreciation Adolf Hitler must have had for the solidarity of his beloved Alsatian 'Blondi' (after which the band actually is named) is understandable. At least until, trapped - and facing suicide himself - he ordered it dosed with cyanide, its puppies shot, and his girlfriend's two dogs killed by lethal injection, to prevent them being tortured by enemies. Steady on, we're not all Hitler, Hitler.

As you might expect from this megalomaniacal demographic, many of the pets selected by world leaders are chosen to impress and plunge fear into the hearts of their enemies. Tutankhamun was not the only Egyptian pharaoh to keep trained hunting cheetahs, and Ramses II had a tame lion. Acting Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov of Chechnya, weaving as he does through a chaotic vortex of brutality, reportedly has had a pet lion, a wolf, a bear and a tiger, which he once joked about setting on an unsympathetic (and present) reporter. But the most potent symbol of god-like power and dangerous majesty? Caesar's giraffe, unique in Europe at the time - and as lonely and perplexed as a stranded Martian. It was believed to be, and duly named, a cameleopard' - he eventually ordered it destroyed by lions in a power-proving show of nonchalance.

Catherine of Aragon had a pet monkey; by her own admission because it reminded her of the children of her native Spain. Napoleon's wife, Empress Josephine, had an orangutan who wore a coat - for undocumented, but probably equally confusing - reasons. The pet tortoise of the Tongan Royal Family lived to 188; the longest of any of its genus. But in achieving exoticism it is hard to beat pure, blunderbuss-delivered variety. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India practically had his own zoo, with crocodiles, dogs, deer, tigers, squirrels and four red pandas - firefoxes - in his possession. Henry VIII's Royal Menagerie included leopards and a herd of buffalo. But the ultimate surrealism for the toothless Tudor crowds must have been his gigantic polar bear, which fished in the murky Thames.

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