Socks was the first cat to live in the White House since Amy Carter’s Siamese, Misty Malarky Ying Yang. Often seen perched on the President’s shoulder, the black-and-white tuxedo cat reportedly jumped into the arms of daughter Chelsea Clinton as she was leaving her piano teacher’s home in Arkansas in 1991, and the rest is history.

Socks was a hit with photographers and the public, and was even the subject of a popular 1990s TV comedy, Murphy Brown, in which the star of the show unintentionally kidnapped him from the White House. He also appeared with the President on a series of stamps in the Central African Republic.

In 1997, Buddy, a chocolate Labrador retriever, joined the family, but Socks was not a fan of sharing the limelight, so he went to live with Clinton's former secretary, Betty Currie, at the end of his presidency.

Meet the 21 famous pets who called the White House home