Persia White is a true animal activist. The television veteran and XEO3 singer who’s most recent series, Girlfriends (CW recently cancelled production of the show’s ninth season), boasts the title of longest running live-action comedy airing on broadcast television to date. White expressed to Animal Fair, “I think humans are animals.” While enjoying the success of Girlfriends, which falls right behind The Cosby Show as the most episodes of an African-American sitcom produced, White still advocates the importance of animal fairness. Hailing from an Irish/Puerto-Rican/African-American background, White told Animal Fair that if she was a dog, she would “be mixed … [and] take five or six different breeds of animals and see what it looks like.” The result would be a mutt with beauty comparable to her own.
White’s two dogs are exceptional rescue cases, reiterating the actresses’ exceptional dedication to animal rescue. Her Chihuahua, Kisses LaRue, was “found in the desert.” White told Animal Fair that it is a little known fact that “when people want to get rid of dogs they just dump them in the desert … they’ll go out to the desert and just abandon them.” White, who was used to big dogs, reluctantly took on Kisses and it was an instant connection, noting that raising a tiny pooch “is not like having a dog, it’s like having a squirrel-cat-bat thing.” Suddenly White was taking her squirrel-cat-bat everywhere with her, something
she once criticized friends for doing. Kisses also has a natural comedic flair. “She makes me crack up because she’s just so comical looking,” White adds.
When
White decided to get Kisses a companion she searched her local shelters for the right match. Ironically one of her ex-boyfriends was also looking for a dog and they decided to adopt Lucky together. “My ex started to get jealous because Lucky started to like me too much, so I let Lucky go, and he was pretty much my ex’s dog at that point.” But White soon heard that her ex moved to Japan and had given Lucky away to strangers. “I found out and started crying, [thinking] he doesn’t walk well, he’s very skittish, and has issues from being abused. I was freaked.” A year and a half had passed by and White got a call from the woman who had set up Lucky’s first adoption. He had been put back into a shelter where the staff had continually pushed back his euthanization date because he was so adorable. White decided to change Lucky’s name from Picasso to Lucky because “the third time is a charm and he had been in the pound three times and they kept him there so long.”
Today White enjoys life as a celebrity, mother, pet owner and successful advocate for animals. Kisses and Lucky will always be her best friends, united by compassion and fate.
– David Alex Andrejko