Mar 22 2010 1:00pm
The Real-Life Runways' Menagerie: Cats, Dogs, Horses and Hamsters!

More than 30 years after their band split up, the real Runaways are still making noise — and so are their pets.

Cats, dogs, horses and even a hamster have joined the families of the former members of the groundbreaking all-girl rock band.

While rhythm guitarist (and later singer) Joan Jett shares her Long Island, N.Y., beach home with three cats — Greta, Stephanie and Dion — lead guitarist Lita Ford and singer Cherie Currie say their lives wouldn't be complete without their dogs.

Lita Ford
Ford gets a kick out of her two Chihuahuas, Rascal and Churro, especially when they bark at their reflections in the windows of the island home she shares with husband Jim Gillette and sons James, 12, and Rocco, 8, in the British West Indies. "They're so funny, like 'Yeah, I'm tough, I'm cool, I can kill you,' " Ford laughs.

The Chihuahuas, now almost 3 years old and weighing in at 4 lbs. each, joined the family after the mother-and-son Dachshunds they had for 17 years passed away. "My wiener dogs, they were like my mascots," says Ford, whose family also has a hamster named Taco.

"I was absolutely heartbroken and then I saw this little Chihuahua puppy and I'd heard how cool they are. People are always baggin' on them because they're so little, but I tell you what," she says, "they've got the coolest personalities. They are wonderful little dogs, and they're really easy to travel with."

Cherie Currie
Currie adores her Pomeranian-mix puppy, Kaylee, whom she adopted during The Runaways movie shoot in 2009 (the film is based on her new book Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway). But sometimes Kaylee's curiosity gets the best of her.

"She just got skunked in my back yard—squirt in the face," says Currie with a chuckle. "But she's the most loving, most exceptional little being."

Kaylee helped Currie move past the death of her previous Pomeranian mix, Katie, who struggled with liver problems. "They say [Kaylee] had been in the pound for two months and she had had a cough so they kept putting her in the hospital section and people never got to see her," says Currie, who's now a chainsaw artist. "I'm just in love with her."

Jackie Fox and Vicki Blue
Two of the band's former bass players are also animal lovers. Jacqueline Fuchs (stage name: Jackie Fox), now an attorney, is the L.A. cat-care columnist for Examiner.com.

And bassist-turned-TV-producer Victory Tischler-Blue raises Andalusian horses on her Palm Springs farm. "I've had horses my whole life, and Andalusians are incredibly beautiful," she says. "After seeing Bo Derek in 10 and realizing she had Andalusians, I got into them." Tischler-Blue plans to release a photography book featuring the animals, Pura Raza Testosterone, later this year.