Dusty Rhodes Once Tried To Keep A Pet Donkey In His Apartment

The Texas Outlaws, the tag team of Dusty Rhodes and Dick Murdoch, quickly rose to professional wrestling success in the early 70s, but it would later be a personal matter that perhaps earned them true "outlaw" status. 

Texas natives Rhodes and Murdoch began their professional wrestling careers a mere two years apart — 1967 and 1965, respectively. While "The American Dream" drove to Boston, Massachusetts to start his pro wrestling career, "Dirty" Murdoch began much of his early work in the Midwest. 

The duo would soon finally cross paths to forge a run as multi-time tag team champions. In late 1968, they won their first set of belts, becoming the North American Tag Team Champions in the NWA. In the following three years, Rhodes and Murdoch continued their winning ways, racking up more gold in the National Wrestling Federation, World Championship Wrestling (Australia), and again in the NWA.

Beyond the ring, the two formed a friendship on the road, and at home. Eventually, the tag team partners became roommates, moving into an apartment together in Edina, Minnesota. Shortly after that, Rhodes and Murdoch welcomed, or "smuggled" in, a third member to their household.

Dusty Rhodes was no stranger to cowbells, as seen in his various Texas Bull Rope matches, but he wrangled in a different kind of animal to his apartment. "We had a donkey named Zeb," he once told Bleacher Report. "And he was a very entertaining son of a b*tch, okay?"

Rhodes continued to describe a couple of fascinating skills his pet mule had learned over time. "He could take a handkerchief off his back leg and untie it. He could kneel down and bow, and he was a rodeo donkey."

Although Rhodes and Murdoch attempted to take care of their pet discreetly, they failed to keep Zeb contained on one occasion. "It would go down the hall and proceed to just go to the bathroom," Rhodes said. Eventually, their landlord discovered the donkey's dirty deed in the hallway and threatened to kick the two out of the building. "Gentlemen, you can't have a donkey in a place like this," the landlord told them.

This would mark just one of many "rebellious" acts by the duo, as they also dressed in cut-off shirts and crudely cut jeans to look like Daisy Dukes in public on a few occasions. Rhodes thought highly of Murdoch, calling him an all-time great, while also using him as an example during his classes at WWE's Performance Center.