Only 11 years late, but I agree that it is a "Southern Thing". While I grew up in Oklahoma, which is "sorta Southern", but not really, my father's family all settled in Mississippi after immigrating from Ireland, and lived there for a few generations before scattering further west. At any rate, he used many "Southern" terms that few others in Oklahoma seemed to use. I can only attribute that to his family's connection to Mississippi. When he would pet his favorite cat, he would call her "Pitty Sang", which I, even as a small child, translated to "Pretty Thang" or, more properly, "Pretty Thing." I had never heard anyone else use that term, until I read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" many years ago. Until then, I had thought that was just my father's own unique term of affection. So, perhaps not so unique, but certainly affectionate.