diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index 2e2cd9e..5b09f7c 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -10,7 +10,9 @@ News
 
 - Allows the TestResponse to follow customised onclick buttons
 
-- PyQuery object now use the html parser
+- Response.pyquery object now use the html parser.
+
+- You can use the Response.PyQuery method to customize pyquery init.
 
 - Various docs / testing improvments
 
diff --git a/tests/test_response.py b/tests/test_response.py
index 5504173..5ad1583 100644
--- a/tests/test_response.py
+++ b/tests/test_response.py
@@ -304,6 +304,15 @@ def test_lxml_attribute_with_encoding_declaration(self):
         print(resp.body)
         print(resp.lxml)
 
+    def test_pyquery(self):
+        app = webtest.TestApp(svg_application)
+        resp = app.get('/')
+        self.assertRaises(ValueError, lambda: resp.pyquery)
+        pq = resp.PyQuery(parser='xml', remove_namespaces=True)
+        assert len(pq('svg')) == 1
+        pq = resp.PyQuery(parser='xml')
+        assert len(pq('svg')) == 0
+
     def test_html_attribute(self):
         app = webtest.TestApp(links_app)
         res = app.post('/')
diff --git a/webtest/response.py b/webtest/response.py
index c69cad7..8498339 100644
--- a/webtest/response.py
+++ b/webtest/response.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 import re
-from json import loads
 
 from webtest import forms
 from webtest import utils
@@ -494,6 +493,16 @@ def pyquery(self):
 
         Only works with HTML and XML responses; other content-types raise
         AttributeError.
+        """
+        return self.PyQuery(parser='html')
+
+    def PyQuery(self, **kwargs):
+        """
+        Same as `pyquery` but allow to pass arguments to initialize the
+        `PyQuery` instance::
+
+            pq = resp.PyQuery(parser='xml', remove_namespaces=True)
+
         """
         if 'html' not in self.content_type and 'xml' not in self.content_type:
             raise AttributeError(
@@ -504,7 +513,15 @@ def pyquery(self):
         except ImportError:  # pragma: no cover
             raise ImportError(
                 "You must have PyQuery installed to use response.pyquery")
-        d = PyQuery(self.testbody, parser='html')
+        remove_namespaces = kwargs.pop('remove_namespaces', False)
+        parser = kwargs.get('parser', 'html')
+        if parser == 'xml':
+            body = self.body
+        else:
+            body = self.testbody
+        d = PyQuery(body, **kwargs)
+        if remove_namespaces:
+            d.remove_namespaces()
         return d
 
     def showbrowser(self):