With her eclectic collection of animals, Kellie Pickler plays ringmaster as the head of her self-proclaimed circus, both on the road and at home. The country beauty describes her furry brood as family and doesn't understand why some people can't understand her internal bond with them.

"Animals have filled so many voids -- when I first came to Nashville I didn't have any friends or family out here," Kellie tells DogChannel.com. She adds that her biggest pet peeve is when people say that an animal isn't going to Heaven. "I don't think you can look in a dog's eyes and think they don't have a soul!"

Of her six animals, Kellie describes her Chihuahua Moo Moo as a "metro-sexual" clothes horse, lovingly comparing him to 'American Idol' host Ryan Seacrest. "Moo Moo has a lot of clothes and goes to the puppy parlor to get pampered a lot."

Kellie's other animals include her Labrador Retriever puppy Nala, a python, two cats and the most recent addition, Bella, a one-pound marmoset monkey whom she calls the most explosive of the bunch. "She's a diva," the singer says of Bella. "She likes me, but she doesn't like the other animals at all."

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