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Katy Perry owns a cat named Kitty Purry. Kelly Clarkson’s dogs are named Joplin and Security. Mick Jagger owns a black cat named Nero. Lady Gaga owns three French bulldogs named Asia, Koji, and Gustav. Amy Winehouse owned more than a dozen cats. Jimi Hendrix owned a pair of green ring-necked parakeets named Adam and Eve. Michael Jackson owned (among other animals) a snake named Muscles, a llama named Louie, a giraffe named Jabbar, and a chimpanzee named Bubbles. Elvis Presley owned (among other animals) a turkey named Bowtie, a Chow named Get Lo, and a chimpanzee named Scatter. Kurt Cobain owned (among other animals) a rabbit named Stew, a turtle named Sappy, and a rat named Kitty. Slash named his boa constrictor Pandora because he mistakenly thought the snake was female at first. Iggy Pop rescued a stray cat on the set of Blood Orange and changed its name from “Sugartits” (the moniker the film crew had originally bestowed upon the animal) to the slightly more dignified “Pop.” After their breakup, Justin Timberlake infuriated Britney Spears by naming one of his boxers Brennan, the name she’d chosen for the hypothetical child they would never end up having together. Ian Curtis’ giant black sheepdog Candy was named after a Velvet Underground song. Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson taught their rat terrier Lolabelle to play piano using a modified keyboard. John Mayer’s dog Moose hates music the way some dogs hate thunder. The Beach Boys’ 1966 album Pet Sounds ends with the barking of Brian Wilson’s two dogs, a Weimaraner named Louie and a beagle named Banana. During the performance of “Ripple” that appears on the Grateful Dead’s 1981 live album Reckoning, Bob Weir’s dog ambles onstage and Jerry Garcia stops singing and joyfully exclaims “that’s Otis!” Queen’s song “Delilah” is about Freddie Mercury’s favorite cat. Paul McCartney wrote “Martha My Dear” about his English sheepdog Martha. Both Eric Clapton and George Harrison wrote songs inspired by Clapton’s golden retriever Jeep. Led Zeppelin’s “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp’’ features a shoutout to Robert Plant’s collie Strider. Chris Stapleton wrote “Maggie’s Song” the day after his black lab Maggie died. Ian Curtis’s song “In a Lonely Place” is, in part, about how much he missed Candy the sheepdog, who he’d given away following the birth of his daughter. When Louie the Dalmatian went missing for a week, Bradley Nowell of Sublime spent virtually the entire time curled up on his couch and weeping. A German Shepherd belonging to ZZ Top’s photographer jumped onto a table and gobbled up the entire Tex-Mex meal that is pictured on the gatefold of the band’s 1973 Tres Hombres album—he survived. Diana Ross’s dogs Tiffany and L’il Bit ingested rat poison set out by staff at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and did not survive, leaving Ross so furious with grief that she fled to Los Angeles and skipped out on the entirety of her exclusive two-week engagement at the casino. Hank Williams Jr.’s Plott Hound was killed by a puma during a hunting excursion in Colorado. Ted Nugent’s dog Happy suffered a collapsed lung after a fight with a wild boar. Two of Lady Gaga’s three French bulldogs were stolen while out in West Hollywood with her dog walker, who was seriously wounded in the attack. Kurt Cobain accidentally stepped on Kitty, his rat. Amy Winehouse came under sharp criticism after posting a bizarre YouTube video where she and Pete Doherty spent several minutes pawing at tiny baby mice. Louie the Dalmatian, who for years was allowed to wander the stage during Sublime performances, eventually became so hard of hearing that Bradley Nowell had to amplify his voice with a microphone to summon him. Latoya Jackson’s ex-husband claims he once witnessed Michael Jackson punch Bubbles the chimpanzee in the stomach. While out of his mind on drugs and alcohol one night, Ozzy Osbourne lurched around his house with a gun and shot all seventeen of his cats. The Grateful Dead’s January 29th, 1987, performance at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium—mere days after the death of Otis—is widely regarded as one of their most lackluster performances. Elvis Presley flew Get Lo all the way to Boston for three months to receive treatment for a kidney disorder that the pug eventually succumbed to. Miley Cyrus commissioned a thirty-foot tall statue of Floyd, her Alaskan Klee Kai, after his death. Freddie Mercury hung Christmas stockings for each of his ten cats. Elton John’s cocker spaniel Arthur was the best man at his wedding. Kurt Cobain hired a carpenter to drill a hole in his living room floor so that dirty water could be drained from his turtle tub directly into the ground below. Bubbles the chimpanzee was sent to a California wildlife refuge after he became too aggressive to continue living at Neverland Ranch. Amy Winehouse’s cats were re-homed to various family members and friends following her death in 2011. After he was adopted by a mutual friend, Louie the Dalmatian would come running every time he sensed someone at the front door, as if he expected Bradley Nowell to be there to greet him on the other side. Ozzy Osbourne—who now shares a bed with his wife Sharon and their eleven small dogs—admits that his past cruelty to animals is “something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.” After Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs were safely returned and their thief took a plea deal to serve 21 years in prison for attempted murder, the pop singer’s dog walker released a statement offering forgiveness to his assailant that read, in part, “I know I can’t fully move forward from the night you shot me until I said those words to you.” Whenever Ian Curtis’s elderly neighbor caught a glimpse of Curtis walking Candy the sheepdog on the street outside her window, she would smile tenderly and say to herself, with a chuckle, “There goes that dog, walking Ian again.”
