One of the inspirations for Nixon's Checkers story was a speech by FDR, made on the exact same day eight years earlier. FDR was responding to a smear by Republicans that he'd accidentally left his little Scottish terrier Fala behind on an island while touring the Pacific, and had sent a Naval Destroyer back to retrieve her. FDR turned the scandal into a joke, deftly deflecting the controversy. Nixon used a similar dog-friendly strategy, though in his case it was more opportunistic; nobody had heard of Checkers before the speech.