When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died following a raid by American special forces in his Syrian bolthole, Donald Trump was delighted to report, in October, that the Islamic State leader had “died like a dog”.

You mean enfolded by love and grief, Mr President? You mean surrounded by human beings who feel like they have just had their hearts ripped out?

Not quite. If anyone was in any doubt about how a dog dies, Trump was happy to elaborate: al-Baghdadi had “whimpered, cried and screamed like a coward”, he chortled. “[He] spent his last moments in utter fear, in total panic and dread!”

But that is not how a dog dies, Mr President. There are almost 90 million dogs in the United States and all of their owners will have winced to hear their president gloating about how a dog slips this mortal coil. Personally, when my dog leaves this world, I pray he will die in my arms and looking in my eyes, at peace and pain-free, knowing he will be mourned for the rest of my life.

Killing the leader of Islamic State should have been the greatest triumph of the Trump administration, but with his crass, anti-canine sentiments, Trump managed to snatch flesh-crawling revulsion from the jaws of victory. Inevitably, Trump’s “died like a dog” drivel was compared to Barack Obama’s solemn, restrained announcement when Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. Trump did not sound like Obama. The exulting violence of his rant made him sound more like some eye-swivelling terrorist nutjob. His sneering “died like a dog” line was particularly ill-judged because the special forces had pursued al-Baghdadi with the help of a K-9 unit. Indeed, one of the dogs – a Belgian Malinois named Conan – had been injured when al-Baghdadi detonated his suicide vest. But Trump has long used man’s best friend as a symbol of all sorts of nastiness.

Trump observed that Republican senator Marco Rubio was “sweating like a dog” at a 2016 debate. He compared former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman to a dog when she published her book Unhinged: An Insider’s Account Of The Trump White House. Trump noted that Republican nominee Mitt Romney “choked like a dog” against Obama in the 2012 election. At various times, NBC’s David Gregory, Fox News’ Glenn Beck and Ted Cruz’s communications directors were all, Trump leered, “fired like a dog”.

In Trump’s tiny mind, dogs are venal and treacherous creatures

In Trump’s tiny mind, dogs are venal, treacherous creatures. Vanity Fair suggested, “To the president, dogs are capable of many things, none of which are particularly dog-like. Begging for money, for example. Getting dumped. Feeling ungrateful... Trump never compared anything to a dog that draws on how the animal famously is. It’s never ‘He’s loyal like a dog’... The creatures have never done much good in the Trumpian universe.”

“Donald was not a dog fan,” ex-wife Ivana confirmed in her memoir Raising Trump, recalling his hostility to her poodle, Chappy, who would “bark at him territorially”.

Ivana never understood Trump’s hostility to dogs. “How can you not love a dog that acts like he’s won the lottery for life just because he sees you walk through the door?” she wondered.

Trump’s anti-dog prejudice feels un-American, because the pedigree of the FDOTUS (First Dog Of The United States) is as long as American history. George Washington had Sweet Lips, Scentwell and Vulcan (American foxhounds). Abraham Lincoln had Fido (mongrel), killed by a drunk with a knife a few months after Lincoln’s assassination and whose name became a generic handle for dogs everywhere. John F Kennedy had Gaullie (French poodle), Charlie (Welsh terrier), Clipper (German shepherd), Shannon (cocker spaniel), Wolf (Irish wolfhound) and Pushinka (a mongrel presented by former Soviet Union premier Nikita Khrushchev).

Ronald Reagan’s Christmas gift to his wife, Nancy, in 1985 was the legendary Rex – a cavalier King Charles spaniel who had framed portraits of Ron and Nancy in his elaborate doghouse. Bill Clinton had Buddy (a chocolate Labrador retriever). George W Bush had Spot “Spotty” Fetcher (an English springer spaniel), Barney and Miss Beazley (Scottish terriers). Barack Obama had Sunny and Bo (Portuguese water dogs).

It is nearly 120 years since those rolling White House lawns were dog-free. President William McKinley didn’t have a dog – although he did have a parrot that could whistle “Yankee Doodle” – but McKinley left office in 1901 following his death. For generations, there has been a welcome for dogs in the White House. Until now. Yet no president has ever been in greater need of a dog than Donald Trump.

“This is a president who needs a friend,” Brooke Janis, coauthor of First Dogs, a history of mutts in the White House, told the Washington Post. “Having a dog offers unconditional love and that is something this president desires so deeply and can’t seem to find.”

But it appears Trump has finally realised the error of his dog-hating ways – or, at least, that he finally understands how terribly the optics look to a dog-loving world. After Conan the Belgian Malinois was wounded taking out al-Baghdadi, Trump dialled down the mutt-hating and ramped up his love of dogs.

“Our ‘K-9’, as they call it,” he sighed, misty-eyed. “I call it a dog. A beautiful dog. A talented dog.”

And I recalled when my daughter and I took our dog to the vet for his first vaccinations. The people before us, a man and his teenage daughter, had a desperately ill dog some ten years older than our pup and at the other end of a dog’s desperately short life span. They had to carry their sick dog into the surgery. When they came out they were in tears of inconsolable grief and without their dog, clutching the lead he would never need again.

Every dog owner dreads being in that room and we all know it is waiting for us and our dog. The only comfort is knowing that your dog will die surrounded by people who will miss them forever, knowing that at the end of their short lifetime, so full of love and laughter, they died like a dog, Mr President.

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