Reliable, friendly, and masters of one-way communication: Meet the dog mayors of America

Frida, a female Chihuahua, was mayor of San Francisco for a day in 2014.Stephen Lam / Reuters

• American politics is a dog-eat-dog world — and sometimes that means an actual dog is in office.
• Small towns in California, Minnesota, Colorado, and Kentucky have all had dog mayors, and San Francisco had one for one day.
• Here are the some of the country's politicians with the loudest bark.

There are dogged leaders, and then there are actual dog leaders. Across the US, we've found nine dogs who have been elected mayor.

Small towns in California, Minnesota, Colorado, Kentucky, as well as San Francisco have all had dog mayors.

Mostly, the dogs are figureheads. Their elections are used to raise money for animal shelters, or for the towns. Elected dogs also tend to last a long time in office, in dog-years anyway.

While they're not as controversial as some of their peers, at least one dog leader sparked international headlines and was condemned by China as a sign of failing democracy.

Continue on to see very good dogs who have been in office in towns across the US. As we didn't want to leave any animals out, we've also included three goat mayors, and a cat mayor.