The Escapist Pets on Parade!

This week’s issue of The Escapist celebrates our virtual animal companions, so it seemed like the perfect time to show off our real-world pets, too. Not that we really need much of an excuse. We’re complete suckers when it comes to animals, as you might have guessed by now.

Shockingly, you won’t find a single pony in the bunch, but you will find plenty of well-loved and utterly spoiled critters. Most of them were also rescue animals, adopted from shelters, taken off the streets – one was even saved from a cardboard box.

So here’s to you, oh ye furry (and sometimes scaly) friends without whom our lives would not be the same. Sure, we’d be able to sit wherever we wanted and our furniture would have way fewer chew marks, but what’s the fun in that?

Join our celebration by posting snaps of your pets, too – just please enclose them in spoiler tags to save folks with slower connections.

And now…to the gallery!

Pets: Irving (a male Russian blue) and Maggie (a female tabby). Irving enjoys knocking bottles off of shelves almost as much as he likes sitting on Maggie. Maggie doesn’t seem to mind, she just chases imaginary bugs for hours.
Their humans: trukjin and Myan.

Pets: Halfro the cat and Cosmo the Jack Russell Terrier. Halfro sleeps all day to “store up energy so he can destroy his enemies.” Cosmo will fall asleep almost instantly if you sing “Hey, Jude.”
Their human: George Palmer

Pets: Maddie and Pago. They may look like litter mates, but they’re actually strays from two different states!
Their human: sprout

Pet: Mojo the cat. Note the dangling paw action.
His human: trademespots

Pet: Toby the boa, who enjoys climbing, sunning, snoozing, and eating colossal rats.
His human: Archon

Pet: Ginny the Abyssinian cat. As you can see, she’s an experienced raider.
Her human: chimaera

Pets: Rowen the bunny and Bacon the fish. Rowen is more commonly referred to as “Bunny-lishious” or “stupid rabbit,” and Bacon resides in The Escapist offices.
Their human: ckeymel

Pet: Chuck the cat. Chuck’s trademark move is “dead kitty”: she rolls over onto her back and sticks her legs straight out in the air and goes catatonic for as long as a half an hour.
Her human: Lima

Pet: Alice the dog. Alice was rescued from a local shelter on Super Bowl Sunday, the year of the last presidential elections. She was voted “Pound President” which, while flattering, would have been of little consolation if she’d had to stay there.
Her human: Russ Pitts

Pet: Lily the Jack Russell Terrier. Yes, that is her couch, thank you very much, but you may sit on it if you play ball with her.
Her human: megmurph

Pet: Ninja the cat. She was supposed to be named “Kunoichi,” but the vet couldn’t pronounce it, so Ninja it is.
Her human: CaptainCrunch

Pet: Karl the poodle. Let’s all just back away slowly from the demonically-possessed poodle, shall we?
His human: Jordan Deam

Pet: Jasper the dog, who was saved at the last minute from a shelter in Chicago. He turns two next month, but clearly still needs to work on his Hide and Seek skills.
His human: Shane Hamstra

Pet: Buffy T. Catt. The only thing Buffy likes more than a sunbeam is sleeping on something blue. Blanket, pillow, laundry, doesn’t matter, she just wants it to be blue.
Her human: Susan Arendt

Pet: Snickers the chocolate lab, who loves pizza crust, Doritos and snuggling in the morning.
Her human: Spinwhiz