Did Franklin Roosevelt really give a speech about his dog?
Yes. On September 23, 1944, the President of the United States stood up in front of a room full of union workers and answered a political attack by defending his Scottish Terrier, and the country laughed the accusation away. In this episode of Our Next Collar, The Scottie Who Outranked the Generals, Fala tells what a dog can actually know about a famous man: the voice, the chair, the day the phones would not stop, and the seven years in a house where the voice was gone.
History remembers the famous. Their pets remember the person. On Our Next Collar, a brown tabby cat named Prince MoRee reaches the pets of history. One of them tells what they really saw. Tonight, a small black terrier who sat through some of the largest events of the twentieth century and understood none of them, because he was a dog, and who knew the one thing nobody wrote down: what the voice sounded like at the end of the day. True, surprising, and funnier than history has any right to be. Great for curious kids and the grown-ups listening with them.
This episode is fully scripted and has passed the Talking With Pets accuracy review. The recording is in production. The audio player and the full transcript will appear right here the day the episode goes live. Join the founding list below and we will write to you when it does.
From the episode
Armando: You could hear the weight in it.
Fala: I could always hear when he was tired and when he was decided. Those are two different things. When he was tired his voice was lower and slower. When he was decided it was also lower and slower, but the quality was different, like the difference between a door that has settled in its frame and a door that has been locked.
Armando: (after a moment) That's a useful distinction.
Armando: It's considered one of the most effective political speeches of his presidency.
Fala: (a pause) I know. I've had a long time to think about it. I'm not sure how I feel about it. But he needed it to work, and it worked, and I was useful, and that's enough.
Fala: But the house was different. The voice was gone. I knew every room of Hyde Park by where his voice reached, and I knew, after, which rooms it didn't reach anymore.
Armando: Did he know they were going to win?
Fala: (a long pause) He knew. He had known for a long time. He just didn't want to leave before seeing it.
[Prince MoRee gives a slow blink.]
Fala, the fireside chats, the wheelchair, the Atlantic Charter ship, the Fala Speech of September 23, 1944, and the seven years with Eleanor at Hyde Park are all real. The conversation is ours.
Sources and further reading
- Fala: Scottish Terrier, given to Franklin Roosevelt in 1940 by his cousin Margaret Suckley; resident of the White House, Hyde Park, and Warm Springs; aboard the USS Augusta for the Atlantic Charter meeting, August 1941; present at the funeral procession; lived until 1952. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. fdrlibrary.org
- The fireside chats: thirty in all, the first on March 12, 1933, explaining the banks in plain language, with an estimated sixty million listeners. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. fdrlibrary.org
- The Depression and the first hundred days: about nine thousand banks closed in three years, roughly one in four workers out of work, and fifteen major bills signed, including the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration, with Social Security to follow. Also the first inaugural address, March 1933: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
- Polio at age 39 in 1921, the wheelchair and the steel leg braces, the informal press agreement not to photograph the chair, and the swimming at Warm Springs, Georgia, where a rehabilitation center still operates.
- The Fala Speech: September 23, 1944, at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters dinner; the documented lines about “my little dog, Fala” and his indignant Scottish soul; carried nationally by radio. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. fdrlibrary.org
- April 12, 1945: Roosevelt died at Warm Springs while sitting for a portrait, twenty-six days before V-E Day on May 8, 1945. Fala walked in the funeral procession and then lived with Eleanor Roosevelt at Hyde Park, New York, for seven years.
- The bronze Fala beside Roosevelt at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C. National Park Service. nps.gov
- Theodore Roosevelt's diary of February 14, 1884: the X across the page and “the light has gone out of my life,” written the night his mother and his first wife died hours apart. Theodore Roosevelt was Franklin's distant cousin, a different man and a different presidency. Library of Congress. loc.gov
All historical claims above were checked in the Talking With Pets accuracy review, most recently the full editorial pass of July 2026.
Did Franklin Roosevelt really have a dog named Fala?
Yes. Fala was a Scottish Terrier given to Roosevelt in 1940 by his cousin Margaret Suckley. He lived at the White House, at Hyde Park, and at Warm Springs, Georgia, traveled by presidential train and by warship, and was aboard the USS Augusta for the Atlantic Charter meeting in August 1941. He is the most documented presidential dog in American history, and there is a bronze statue of him at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C.
What was the Fala Speech?
On September 23, 1944, speaking to the Teamsters Union, Roosevelt answered a campaign accusation that he had sent a Navy destroyer to bring Fala home from the Aleutian Islands. He said "These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala," and told the room that Fala's Scottish soul was indignant. The room laughed for a long time, the radio carried it across the country, and the accusation was gone. It is studied today as one of the most effective uses of humor in American political history.
Did Roosevelt really lead the country from a wheelchair?
Yes. He contracted polio in 1921 at age 39 and was paralyzed from the waist down. He used a wheelchair and steel leg braces, and by informal agreement the White House press corps did not photograph the chair, so most Americans never understood how much he was working with. He was President for twelve years, through the Great Depression and most of the Second World War, and he swam regularly at Warm Springs, Georgia.
What happened to Fala after Roosevelt died?
Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, at Warm Springs, while he was sitting for a portrait, twenty-six days before V-E Day. Fala walked in the funeral procession beside Eleanor Roosevelt, then lived with her at Hyde Park for seven more years, until 1952. Those seven years are the part of the story the record does not keep.
What is Our Next Collar, and is it good for kids?
Our Next Collar is an educational history podcast for curious kids ages 6 to 10 and the grown-ups listening with them. A brown tabby cat named Prince MoRee reaches the pets of history, and one of them tells the true story of the person they knew. Every episode lists its sources and says plainly which parts are real and which are ours, which makes it a quiet lesson in how to weigh sources. It is a podcast from Talking With Pets.
Our Next Collar · the true stories only the animals saw.
Chaco, Roxie, Moose, Prince MoRee, and Armando are getting the pilot ready. Join the founding list and we will write to you when the first episodes go live. Listen with someone you like.