Celebrity Catwalk

Comedienne Lisa Lampanelli has a pretty thick skin, as evidenced by the racy jokes she rattles off regularly on Comedy Central. But recently, she's felt herself softening up a bit, thanks to a near-weightless ball of fluff: her rescue Yorkie, Parker (named for Sarah Jessica, of course!).

"He's not a typical puppy — he doesn't freak out, run or chew," Lampanelli, a first-time pet owner, tells PEOPLEPets.com. "We tire him out by playing with him, running with him. He sleeps a lot, and likes to be on your lap a lot, too."

Though she used to laugh about people with small pets — "We had a joke, 'You may be a douchebag if your dog doesn't come up to your knee' " — seeing pint-sized parker at a New York City pet store rescue event changed her mind.

"I walked by on my way to lunch with a friend, and there's this 3-month-old Yorkie mix," she says. "I thought, 'Food's more important than dogs right now, if it's meant to be, it'll be there when we get back.' " Sure enough, after a three-hour lunch date, Parker was still hanging out.

The pup was up for adoption through A Cause for Paws, a small organization that rescues and places needy pets. "I figured, 'All right, this has got to be the way it is'," she recalls. "I go in, and [founder] Tony [Raimondo] says he's going to try and talk me out of it." He warned her about the work it takes to raise a dog, and told her to think on it for 48 hours while he called her references. But Lampanelli wasn't giving up so easily.

About a week later, Parker was hers. Though the comedienne was at first wary of potty training, she's since taken it all in stride. "Parker's been crapping all over my rug, and I'm not even upset," she jokes.