President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and first lady Melania Trump stand in 2019 with Conan, a military dog who suffered injuries during the raid that led to the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post, file

In the months after it was revealed that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem shot and killed her family’s 14-month-old puppy – around the time the public learned that President Biden’s dog Commander had bitten more Secret Service agents than previously reported – independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had to explain that, no, the photo of him next to a splayed animal carcass was a goat, not a dog, and then had to explain again that he was only pranking the people of New York when he dumped the dead body of a bear cub in Central Park, staged to look like it was a bike accident. (Maybe it was the lingering effects of his brain worm?)

It was then, amid a continuing discussion of Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance’s disparaging remarks on “cat ladies,” that Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund, began to understand that this slate of candidates’ relationship to animals was, uh, different.

“I have lived in D.C. since 1988, and I have been engaged in animal protection issues the entirety of that time,” Amundson says. “I have never seen an election cycle like this one.”

The list above isn’t even complete: It omits a few other anecdotes, such as the time that RFK Jr., an avid falconer, flung meat scraps to his ravens (a group of ravens is called a “conspiracy”). The resurfacing of a 2022 story about how Vance’s venture capital fund had invested in an animal research lab that was accused of burning monkey testicles. The horses and goat that Noem also fessed up to put down.

This election is – in so many ways – a zoo.

“I feel as if we’re watching one of those hideous reality jungle survival TV shows where every five minutes, the contestants are asked to do something like eat pigs’ testicles or beat a turtle to death or something hideous, just to win a prize,” said Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The prize this time is public office.

Usually, when animals end up in campaign news stories, it’s because of something cute: holding a prize piglet at a state fair, for example. Or it’s because the candidate is a pet owner, and they’re using their furry family member to engender goodwill. Occasionally, it’s because they’re a bad pet owner. (Remember how Mitt Romney put the family dog in a carrier on his car’s roof rack for a long drive?)

Now we have stories about animal carnage and death and larval infestation. This is new. This – to use the word of 2024 – is weird. This is not going to help anyone on Election Day.

It’s “incredibly tone-deaf for candidates to think … these stories that point to a lack of consideration for animals is going to win them votes,” Amundson said. “It’s not smart.”

Even though the animal stories seem like trivial oddities, they can have a major impact on voters’ opinions, said Darryl Paulson, professor emeritus of government at the University of South Florida.

“You just can’t dismiss these stories as being of no substance because we’re dealing with animals,” Paulson said. For many voters, there’s a direct link between how they treat animals “and what kind of politician they will be.”

He continued: “You know, do they treat their animals with dignity and respect? Or, as in the case of Noem, do they just shoot them and bury them in the backyard? It can make – it can break – political careers.”

Indeed, Noem’s dog story blew her chances of being selected as Donald Trump’s running mate.

In Kennedy’s case, it can reinforce previous perceptions. The candidate already holds views on vaccinations and public health that are outside of the mainstream. His interactions with animals seem to be similarly unusual. On the positive side of that ledger is his longtime environmental advocacy and his ownership of many pets, including his dogs, trained falcons, and the pair of ravens he befriended near his home. Dipping into questionable territory are the taxidermied exotic animals in his office, as well as the behavior of his previous pet emu, Toby, which was aggressive toward his wife, actor Cheryl Hines.

Where it gets, well, weird are the stories that have emerged throughout the spring and summer. Like the May reports that Kennedy had suffered memory loss due to a parasitic worm, to which he responded in defiance: “I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate,” he posted on the social media site X. “I feel confident of the result even with a six-worm handicap.”

Earlier this month, another bonkers Kennedy animal story hit the news: that, in 2014, when traveling in upstate New York on a falconry trip, he found a dead black bear cub on the side of the road. He posed for photos with it and loaded it into his car, intending to skin it. He then went to a steakhouse. After the meal, he dumped the dead bear in Central Park with a mangled bicycle, to stage the scene as if it were an accident. (He thought it would be funny, a person with knowledge of the event told the New Yorker.) And recently told another reporter that he has been “picking up roadkill my whole life. I have a freezer full of it.”

“Most people would look at anyone doing that with a quizzical eye,” Newkirk said. “It does show a certain deadness of heart.”

This is what Paulson means when he talks about animal stories reinforcing previous perceptions about candidates.

“You start to say to yourself: ‘Boy, I was right. This guy is a nut case,’ ” he said.

But, OK, the major party candidates aren’t dragging bears off the side of the road. They’re weird in another way: They don’t have pets.

That was not the case a few weeks ago. Though Biden had to rehome his dog Commander (and, before that, his other German shepherd, Major) after both dogs attacked people in the White House, the Bidens still have their cat, Willow. But when Biden dropped out of the race, 2024 became the rare election where neither major-party presidential candidate is an animal owner.

The Obamas with dog Bo. Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post, file

President Barack Obama, while campaigning, was petless, but he famously promised to get his daughters a puppy after the election. Bo, a Portuguese water dog, joined the family in 2009, followed in 2013 by Sunny, another water dog. (Obama’s opponent, Sen. John McCain, owned many pets, including dogs, turtles and a ferret.)

Before Trump, the only two presidents who did not own animals were James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson – but Polk’s opponent, Henry Clay, owned horses and cattle, and Johnson, who assumed office after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, failed to secure his party’s nomination for reelection after an impeachment, so he never actually ran as a major-party presidential nominee. (Ulysses S. Grant, who won the nomination from him, owned horses, dogs and a parrot.)

Trump has long been known as a notorious dog hater – one who frequently compares people he doesn’t like to dogs. Vice President Kamala Harris, too, is petless, though she has been photographed petting dogs and, in 2019, tweeted that “dogs are always welcome in my Senate office.” A campaign spokesperson did not respond to an inquiry about whether she has ever owned pets.

Just as animals can be a liability, so, too, can a lack thereof. Pets humanize politicians and show voters how they treat vulnerable beings that depend on them. And pet owners are a huge voting bloc in the United States: 62% of Americans own a pet, according to the Pew Research Center.

The way a candidate treats an animal is “a fundamental measure of character,” Amundson said. This is why Vance’s remarks, which resurfaced from 2021, about “childless cat ladies” hit a nerve with some people. The same 2023 Pew study found that 51% of Americans consider their pets to be as much a part of their family as a human family member.

Both of this year’s vice-presidential nominees are pet people, though. At one point, Vance operated a (still-active) Facebook account for his German shepherd, Casper. Casper and his “sibling,” a black Lab mix named Pippin, have crossed the rainbow bridge, in dog parlance, and Vance posted a tribute to Pippin on his X account in April: “Goodbye old friend,” he wrote. A Vance spokesman said another German shepherd, Atlas, has joined the family.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has a dog, Scout, and a cat, Honey, both adopted from rescue organizations. Scout made local news in October 2023, when the black Labrador mix locked himself in a bedroom in the governor’s home and had to be rescued via ladder. “This damn dog,” Walz posted on his X account, along with screenshots of texts from his wife explaining the situation. When it was resolved, he posted a photo of Scout smiling, with the caption, “Free at last!”

The aspiring veeps “can enrich the top of the ticket with their experience having pets as part of their families,” Amundson said.

At least until some other animal story churns through another news cycle. Will Harris adopt a one-eyed shelter cat named Midge? Will Vance alienate a powerful contingent of childless gerbil ladies? Will Kennedy club a baby seal to death on live television?

“Just try to guess,” said Newkirk, and compared to whatever animal steps into the three-ring circus next, “your guess would probably be less bizarre.”