Happy Tuesday, this is Congress Editor David Sivak welcoming you to Capitol Tea, a weekly column dedicated to life on Capitol Hill. It’s the dog days of summer, so we’re bringing you an all-canine edition this week.
Miss our last column? Catch up here.
In this edition …
– Jim Justice’s bird dogs. Babydog gets all the limelight, but she’s not his only pet. He has a Boston terrier and hunting dogs scattered across three states and two countries.
– “Doggy Gras” finale. A knock-on effect of Thom Tillis’s retirement could be an extra Halloween dog parade.
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23 AND ME
It turns out Babydog is not Jim Justice’s (R-WV) only canine companion. The senator says he owns almost two dozen hunting dogs that he trains to track down quail and grouse.
“I’ve got lots and lots and lots of bird dogs,” Justice said in an interview at his Capitol Hill office, reclining on a couch as Babydog, his politically famous sidekick, panted beside him.
How many bird dogs? “I’ve probably got about 22,” Justice replied.
I already knew about Justice’s other pet: Ellie, a Boston terrier and playmate of Babydog’s at their West Virginia residence. And Babydog, the 60-pound bulldog, herself needed no introduction. Her name was emblazoned across a wooden stool where she sat for the duration of our interview.
But Justice, a coal magnate and former governor of West Virginia, has spoken less about the dogs he’s raised for hunting, a lifelong hobby he learned from his father. He has English setters, pointers, and at least one cocker spaniel (see Snoopie here). Of those, nine are 10-month-old pointers he bred and sent to Pennsylvania for training.
“Right now, some of them are in Pennsylvania, you know, getting to do a little bit of extra training,” Justice said. “And some of them are in Canada to do a little bit of extra training.”
The rest, he added, reside at family properties in West Virginia and South Carolina.
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To be sure, Babydog is the apple of Justice’s eye. His office sitting area is anchored by an imposing portrait of her, akin to the government photos taken for senators, and he provides her with all the creature comforts needed to acclimate to Washington, where Justice has represented West Virginia in the Senate since January.
Babydog is given ice packs to stay cool in the summer months, and when I arrived at his office, Justice had just fed her a peach.
But Babydog, a gift from Justice’s children, is a bit of an outlier as far as his dog breeds go, and her talent is retail politics, not hunting. She will pose for photo ops in the great outdoors but is more used to being carted around the Capitol to the smiling faces of staffers and reporters.
“I’ve had a lot of dogs all my life, and I love them to death,” Justice said, “but this one takes on a different look, that’s for sure.”
Baby Dog isn’t exactly a bird dog, but she’s become quite the avid hunter!
Here’s us this morning after a successful grouse hunt
pic.twitter.com/YGgm4j3Z0c
— Senator Jim Justice (@JimJustice_WV) January 2, 2023
Justice said he admires bird dogs for their discipline, in particular the way a pointer will “lock up” on its prey and wait patiently without barking. He has difficulty walking behind them due to the trouble his knees give him — Justice travels around the Capitol in a scooter — but he will still ride along in a “side by side.”
“When they point, I can get to them if they’re not very far away and everything, but it’s surely not what I used to do,” Justice said.
His lifelong interest in hunting includes steps he took as governor to revive the bobwhite quail population in West Virginia, which declined dramatically in the 1970s due to harsh winters and habitat loss.
As far as his Boston terrier, Justice said Ellie is “hyper as can be” and will tire Babydog out running through the house. Other times, Babydog will simply hide, either behind doors or up on furniture, before taking Ellie by surprise and pouncing on her.
OUT WITH A BANG
Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) is teasing a grand finale for his “Howl-o-ween” dog parade, telling me he wants to turn up the tradition’s pomp and circumstance for his final year in office.
“Like a Doggy Gras. We’re thinking about, like, a legit parade,” Tillis said of the costume party, in which staffers and lawmakers will dress up their dogs as Power Rangers, S’mores, and more. “We kind of run them through, but I want a little bit more formality.”
The procession of pooches takes place every other year, with Tillis skipping election years since Congress is out of session for campaign season, but he expects to ignore that rule because he is not running for a third term. Tillis will hold an event this October, as he normally would, and then “probably” another that he hopes will set a new “best practice” in 2026.
The parade, which Tillis started in 2017, brings hundreds to the Hart Senate Office Building for an afternoon of spectating and, in 2021, included his own dogs, Mitch and Theo.
Mitch, an 18-pound cockapoo, dressed as his namesake — Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the former majority leader — while Theo, a Bernese Mountain Standard mix, dressed as Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the now-retired independent from Arizona.
“I love that thing,” Tillis said of the event, formally named the “Bipawtisan Howloween” parade. “I mean, people come together. You see Democrats, Republicans, everybody just having fun with dogs.”
“I mean, look, if you can’t look at a dog parade and smile, then you got real problems,” he added. “Seek help.”
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The next obvious question is whether the tradition will continue after Tillis retires. He has not found a successor yet but expressed interest in passing the baton.
His main prerequisite? “They got to love dogs as much as me.”
Tillis has set the bar high on that front. He was wearing red socks printed with the faces of Mitch and Theo on the day of our impromptu interview and is known for running a dog-friendly office. In a novel blend of conservative reverence and doggy love, Tillis also has a long track record of naming his pets after party leaders.
“I started running out of presidents, so I went to my majority leader,” Tillis said of Mitch.
His past dogs include Abe, Ike, Reagan, and even Maggie for the United Kingdom’s Margaret Thatcher.
Legislatively, Tillis reintroduced bills this year that would provide veterans with service dogs and make it easier for animal shelters to accept food donations.
Mark your calendars: Speaking of dog-themed events, there is a second one for you to attend this fall. The therapy dogs who grace the Senate once a quarter will be back on Oct. 7, according to People Animals Love, the outside group that brings them. They will be on campus from 11:15 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. to boost your mental health.
In case you missed it, here’s Bixie and Max, who took full advantage of the head scratches and cool tile floors when they swung by the Senate chamber in July. There is also a “canine comfort zone” in the Russell basement that is available to staffers when the therapy dogs visit.
Learn more about People Animals Love here.