Pearl, a silky soft 3-year-old whippet mix, used to live outside as an abandoned stray. Now her home is a 4-by-9-foot kennel at the Animal Welfare League of Arlington. And you thought your studio was small.

Inside Pearl's house is a tennis ball, a few toys, and a Kuranda dog bed, which is special a chewproof, easy-to-clean cot you could, if you were feeling bad for Pearl and her brethren, purchase for the shelter off Arlington Mill Road. They run about $50.

As housing for dogs goes, the kennels at this shelter are bigger than some and certainly clean—even the one with the three puppies, which gets scrubbed down several times a day because, you know, puppies don't wait until they get out to the exercise yard. Pearl's neighbors are happy enough, but this isn't their real home. It's temporary and some of them are stressed out. They bark. They are a little skinny. They would like for you to pet them and walk them and take them home.

Volunteer Beth Burrous, a 49-year-old retired patent attorney who lives in Lyon Park, takes Pearl for a walk after cleaning a few of the kennels. Dogless and married to someone who may be allergic (he definitely is to cats), she's been getting her fix at the shelter for about two-and-a-half years.

When she started coming, "my husband was worried I'd come home depressed" after seeing the cooped-up pups. "But I'm not. I think because I know we're caring for them." There are more than 200 volunteers at the shelter, but more are always needed, especially during weekdays.

Before taking Pearl outside to the leafy, condo-filled surrounds of Shirlington, she straps an orange vest to her that says "Adopt Me." 

"It's good advertising," she says. She'll take dogs dressed this way through the shopping district where, she recalls, one family with three dogs fell in love with two attached to a dogwalker and promptly adopted them. Another time a woman saw Burrous walking a big, old basset, stopped, and had to have him.

Behatted and hot, when Burrous returns with Pearl, a woman dressed in an Arlington police uniform stops to inspect and seems smitten. Her beefy husband? Less so. He wants to know just how big Max, the puppy inside—a perfect 2-month-old catahoula with blue, blue eyes—will get. Pretty big, says Burrous. The beefy man is pleased.

Bunnies don't bark. They don't claw the top of your pillow at 3 a.m. They don't need to be walked. Neither your neighbors—nor likely your landlord—need know you have an adorable-eared roomate.

"We put bunnies in our newsletters, on our Web site. We take them to TV appearances. It's the first room here at the shelter....We put them anywhere we think they'll be visible," says Kay Speerstra, executive director of the Animal Welfare League of Arlington.

"Bunnies do take longer to adopt than dogs and cats," says Communications Manager Susan Sherman.

Although they're not pets for the absent-minded owner—bunnies will chew electrical chords and such—they're pretty much ideal for urban living. Rebecca Kingery, a volunteer at the shelter in Shirlington for more than 20 years, had three. 

"I always thought of myself as a dog person," she says. It's the reason she started coming to the shelter in the first place—to be near and walk dogs since she was a renter in Arlington County and couldn't own one.

The bunnies got a lot less attention, she says, so she started paying attention to them. Her first two rabbits were a "bonded pair." Nestle and Beatrix were attached to one another and had to be adopted together. "Once you have two like that, you understand," says Kingery. "They're very social."

The original two have died. She has a third and at the shelter Thursdsay, it's Kingery cleaning the cages of the seven bunnies available for adoption. All of them are spayed or neutered.

The kittens at the Animal Welfare League of Arlington live differently than the adult cats. Adult cats—including Sheba, the even-temptered black 10-year-old and Bennett, the 11-year-old orange tabby—have a divided, single-level home they can crawl through. But the kittens get the most affordable  condo in Shirlington.

It's two floors with multiple windows that fill it with light. A bathroom is convenenienly located in the main living space. Renovations, including occasional hair removal and an updated food bowl, were lovingly completed by the cleaning staff around 7 a.m. New carpet. Hammock included.

Still, these cats are looking to relocate. Interested adopters should call (703) 931-9241.

The photographer brought the hay bale and the fancy lace overlay, the backdrop, the soft light, and the assistant with the cat toys. Prior to the Animal Welfare League of Arlington opening to the public today, volunteer Robin Burkett of Paw Prints Photography turned the lobby into a portrait studio.

"I want your ears up, sweeties," she tells Nina (white bunny, brown spots) and Nala (white bunny, black spots). They're among the seven rabbits, the 60 or so cats, the birds, guinea pigs, a lone chinchilla, and dogs living together at the shelter in Shirlington on Arlington MIll Road.

Prior to Burkett's involvement and that of other volunteer pros, the shelter staff shot the animals for the Web site with varying degrees of success. "Black cats are the hardest. They turn out like blobs, with all of their features running together, unless you have somebody who knows what they're doing and has the right lighting," says 12-year staffer Susan Sherman, communications manager and experienced cat herder.

A come-hither look or a well-lit photo of perky bunnies are key to getting these animals out of their temporary homes and into their permanent ones (residents in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. can all adopt here). But the process of getting a good glamour shot is a bit of an ordeal.

"BBBBffftttt!" This is a loose spelling resembling one of Burkett's attention-getting noises. Ann Nguyen, her assistant, stands behind her waving a fuzzy blue tail topped by a bell and attached to a stick. Sheba who is, as you might suspect from the name, a black cat, is not terribly interested.

She'd rather bolt, but eventually Burkett gets a shot without hands in it. Back in her cage, the 10-year-old cat is all purrs and face-rubs through the slats in the small fence. Burkett's photo is a better one than the one on her cage, but it doesn't capture this cat's sweet nature.

No photo can. "We have people who want to fill out their applications and adopt online....it's just not the same. You have to come down here and get to know the animals," says Sherman.

Next up is Elva, who came to Arlington by way of the Potomac Higlands Animal Rescue group based in West Virginia, which has been providing animals to the shelter for a deacade.

Elva is also a little freaked. Burkett's prepared with instructions for her assistant. "Keep walking. Keep walking. Now flail your arms."

It’s still a good day to be a gangsta in “Arlington: The Rap,” but Remy Munasifi is moving on. Creatively (to a video for the Tax Foundation), not physically. The star of the smash NoVa hit on YouTube (as well as “Partly Cloudy: The Rap” and the only slightly less-hilarious one about 2 percent milk) actually does love him some Clarendon.

His homage to his new hood—he grew up in McLean and moved to Clarendon about a month ago—went up mid-June, caught e-mail and Facebook fire, and is now getting a touch cold. Still, for those of you who have yet to experience the existential question: “Why are all these dudes wearing brown flip flops??,” here you go:

Housing Complex notes that some of the filming took place in Munasifi’s phat Clarendon pad. Munasifi agreed to play along with this angle. As a result, we bring you…

Ten Questions for YouTube Star GoRemy:

1. How many hits did you have to get to be able to score a place in Arlington?

Hmm, I'm really not sure. I got invited to be a partner by YouTube in November 2007, so that was helpful. My YouTube channel has over 30 million video views, so somewhere between zero and 30 million, I guess.

2. Is getting a condo there a dream fulfilled?

Well, everybody was saying, "now is the best time to buy!" As if anybody knows. If you're not offering me advice from your massive yacht at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday, I'm not listening. I did want to buy, but ended up renting. I'm a pretty impulsive person. I went to West Virginia last fall to visit some friends and thought to myself: I should live here! So I got a place there, sight unseen. I moved back to Virginia four months later. So when I decided I wanted to buy a place in Clarendon, my dad tactfully suggested, since I can be a bit impulsive, I rent something first to see if it's really something I want. So I'm in a trial period right now, renting in a condo building. I now realize what he meant.

3. What else can you tell us about your sweet-ass crib?

It's filled with ladies. And by "ladies" I mean "pencils." There's nothing in the fridge. I got some artwork framed, but the frames are all on the floor, since I don't know how to hang them.

4. These condo fees you mention in “Arlington: The Rap”: What do you get for them?

I guess that would be a bit of poetic license there. No condo fees since I'm renting. "Condo fees" sounds funnier than "rent." To me, at least. We have a pool on the roof here. It's like 3 feet deep. I'm pretty sure you could jump over it if you ran fast enough. When I got the building tour, I thought it was a puddle.

5. Do you own a pair of brown flip-flops?

I don't own any flip-flops. I do own a brown face, however.

6. What's the lamest comment you've heard/read about your Arlington piece? Paraphrasing is fine. I see there are a lot to choose from [more than 3,200], so I don't expect you to memorize them.

No lame comments at all! If someone watches my video and doesn't like it, I can't complain. They gave it a shot by checking it out. That's a tremendous gesture in itself.

[Editor’s Note: This, in fact, is a totally lame comment: "The sentiments espoused by the revolting maker of this video and his gross and spurious accomplices indicates a stunted and retarded worldview. This performance is a pollution upon the fair name of our county, and indicates the level of mentation common to those seen knuckledragging their way through the shops and along the sidewalks in the Clarendon area."]

7. What's the best comment you've heard/read?

I made a video about an online role-playing game called "Warcraft: The Rap." In the video I played a character who was a member of the "Alliance faction." One commenter wrote something like, "That's what Alliance people look like in real life? ROTFL at Alliance." I ROTFL'd at that comment myself. For readers who don't know, "ROTFL" is "rolling on the floor laughing." It's a great thing to do if you're sad. Or on fire.

8. Clarendon or Court House? Discuss.

I have to go with my home, Clarendon. You just can't deny the 'Dizzle. It's a great place to live if you're a fan of fine dining or construction.

9. Why do all the thugs live in Arlington?

The toughest people are just drawn to the toughest places. It gets pretty rough in between the yoga studio and the gelato place.

10. What are you working on next?

Perhaps a home-improvement project? I want a gold toilet.