Professional athletes and their pets

Dogs, cats, and what?
By Mo Hussain, Sports Reporter

Who’s to say the camel didn’t play a big role in Melo’s success?

In the competitive world of sports, it can be difficult for some to see an athlete’s softer side. However, something that might manage to crack through that thick emotional wall is pets. Some may also find it very interesting to see what the most popular pets are among top athletes. Here are three animals some athletes have picked up:

DOGS

The overwhelming majority of top athletes across most major sports in the world have dogs. Tiger Woods got his three dogs named Yogi, Bugs, and Taz. Cristiano Ronaldo has got his selfies with his dog “Marosca.” Charlotte Hornets star Gordon Hayward takes his German Sheperd “Siber” on hikes. Olympic gold-winning skier Lindsey Vonn is also a dog lover as she’s dedicated an entire Instagram account to her dog “Lucy Vonn” whom she’d rescued. The list can go on and on, but for the sake of fans of other animals, the dog appreciation must stop here.

CATS

Although those a part of the cat community may be disappointed with the quantity of athletes that have cats, cat lovers should instead look at the situation as “quality over quantity.” Washington Wizards center Robin Lopez has a dog, but he also has a cat that he calls “Prince Edward Zephyr.” Lopez and the royal cat posed for an awesome picture back in 2015 where he urged people to follow his cat’s Instagram page, “or else he will send stormtroopers to your home.”

CAMELS

Who says athletes can only have cats and dogs? In 2011, Carmelo Anthony was one of the top basketball players in the world. In that year he also happened to announce that he’d picked up a camel in a now deleted post on a social media platform called “WeHow.” Melo captioned the post “Everybody got dogs and cats as pets, I got a camel!” Who’s to say the camel didn’t play a big role in Melo’s success? The world is yet to know whether Carmelo has kept the camel a decade later, but that is definitely one of the more interesting pets a professional athlete has owned.