[[quoteright:250:[[GIJoe http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cobra-commander-kicks-a-puppy.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:250:Oh yeah, I ''went'' there.]]

->''I'd kill kittens and puppies and bunnies''
->''I'd maim toddlers and teens and then more''
-->-- '''Richard''', ''LookingForGroup'', "Slaughter Your World'"

Kicking the Dog is the fodder of anything resembling a modern-day Morality Play. A character performs an act so casual and immoral that you know that they are scum, incompatible with the [[KarmicProtection moral rules]] of the series that they're in. This is the [[RuleOfEmpathy audience's cue]] that it's "okay" for the character to [[KarmicDeath meet their end]], whether they actually get their just deserts or not. While not all villains kick the dog, dog kicking is a sure sign that the writers want the audience to be wary of this character, even if he is [[MoralDissonance nominally]] one of the [[AntiHero good guys]].

The key to this trope is that not only is the act evil, it's also pretty pointless to the actual plot. It establishes the character's morality, which is a useful endeavor, but the actual act itself is rarely important. It is the fact that it had no other point than to be evil, thus putting them on the bad side of the RuleOfEmpathy.

It doesn't ''have'' to be a literal dog-kicking. It's any act or statement that shows the character's [[{{Jerkass}} meanness]] or [[ObviouslyEvil out-and-out evil]], such as a boss demanding an employee come to work during Christmas when the employee's kid is [[LittlestCancerPatient in the hospital]], or stealing from a blind beggar's coin dish, or a vicious NoHoldsBarredBeatdown on the hero or one of his {{Nakama}} or {{Protectorate}}.

If an animal ''is'' used, however, a dog is usually the pet of choice, partly out of connotations of blind loyalty, partly from tradition. Arguably, however, substituting a cat can be even ''more'' shocking. After all, [[RightHandCat even bad guys like cats]]. So, the argument goes, if someone goes out of his way to harm one, they must ''really'' be a bastard.

Dog-kickings can be verbal as well, when a line of dialogue is used to shock the audience with its sheer repugnance. If it's uttered in the presence of the hero in an action series, he'll echo the audience's thoughts and tell the villain "[=~You're Insane!~=]"

This trope is common in horror-based MonsterOfTheWeek shows, often to set up the AssholeVictim for the TwilightZoneTwist. Anthologies are especially prone to this, as they have to set up their villains really quickly, since they only have one episode to tell their story. This can be played up by having the very same kick of cruelty be [[LaserGuidedKarma the cause of their downfall.]] At the very least, it is designed to let you know who is going to lose at the end. The opposite of KarmaHoudini.

In cartoons, [[AssholeVictim someone who does this]] can be [[KarmicProtection legally harassed]] by BugsBunny, Daffy Duck, [[{{Animaniacs}} The Warner Brothers and their Sister Dot]], etc. The ScrewySquirrel, however, doesn't need one of these.

A more benign, and more comedic, form of this shows the immorality of the villain by [[PokeThePoodle having them cheat at Solitaire]].

One possible origin of the trope name comes from Westerns, where three bandits would ride into the town, one would shoot the Sheriff, one would shoot the Deputy, and one, just to prove he is also evil, would KickTheDog.

If a character's KickTheDog moment is excessively horrible, cruel, or otherwise despicable enough to make an audience lose all sympathy for him, then he's crossed the MoralEventHorizon, if he's not [[CompleteMonster on the other side of it already]]. If the Dog in question is someone the character cares about and discovers BeingEvilSucks, then they've [[KickTheWrongDog Kicked The Wrong Dog]] and ''might'' be in time to avoid a FaceHeelTurn. If the dog belonged to a minion, expect it to [[HelpFaceTurn help]] cause a MookFaceTurn because EvenEvilHasLovedOnes.

Compare with CantGetAwayWithNuthin, AndYourLittleDogToo, KickThemWhileTheyAreDown, TheDogBitesBack. Contrast PetTheDog. Not to be confused with ShootTheDog.

See KickTheSonOfABitch for when it's less of a dog and more of a, well, you know.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Souther in ''FistOfTheNorthStar'' ''is'' this trope. He kidnaps children, forcing them to work on his massive pyramid, and poisons a supply of bread ''knowing'' that it will be stolen from him, just to serve as a warning. On top of this he kills the nicest guy in the series in an unimaginably cruel way.
** Kaioh, on the other hand, takes this trope rather literally. In a flashback we see him [[CardCarryingVillain decide to start being evil]] and then, as his first evil act... you guessed it. Oddly enough this is meant to be a serious scene. Of course he also plays this trope very straight in a variety of other ways...
* Kaiser in ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh GX}}'', following his FreakOut, originally just came off as [[DesignatedVillain an unfeeling, disrespectful jerk]] who liked dressing in black; if anything, his new bad-boy persona only [[DracoInLeatherPants increased his popularity]] in the eyes of the fangirls... until he nearly killed his little brother in a duel.
* To drive the point home, Jack Atlus of ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds}}'' [[spoiler:kidnapped a mutual friend, tied him up and put him in a rowboat placed in the sea during a violent storm in order to force Yuusei to choose between his SDD card or their friend's life]].
** And then there is Divine. That utter bastard...
* In the manga version of ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'', Kaworu Nagisa kills a kitten, going along with the Japanese switch of [[PetTheDog Petting The Dog]] with a cat. He [[JustifiedTrope justifies this]] by saying that, since neither he nor Shinji would care for the kitten, which was orphaned, it would die a slow, painful death through starvation [[ShootTheDog if he didn't intervene]]. Still, seeing someone squeeze the life out of a poor, innocent kitten is... disturbing, to say the least. Tokyo-3 may not have a Humane Society, and all the people there are probably preoccupied with more important things, but he still gained the FanNickname "Evil Manga Kaworu" for this.
* In ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'', Nanami Kiryuu is established early on as [[TheLibby a deceptive and manipulative bully]]. She's insanely jealous of her brother Touga's time, and that she idolizes him [[BrotherSisterIncest to an almost sexual degree]]. But she only ''really'' becomes freaky when shown in a flashback: She's six or so, and her brother gets a cute little kitten and pays more attention to it than he does to her, even while he's ''talking'' to her. Nanami puts the thing in a box and pushes it over a waterfall (into a water treatment center?). She does run away crying, so you could say she's not as cold as some. But then she says something like, "I'm sorry, [[IDidWhatIHadToDo I had to do it]]!" Brrrr.
** Interestingly enough, it was Nanami who gave Touga the kitten in the first place. To her credit though, the imagery heavily implies that she didn't understand the impact of her deed until the last moment and her final words were a futile attempt to justify the whole episode to herself.
* In ''ZeroNoTsukaima'' Louise, despite being the heroine, regularly kicks the dog. Only for "kicks" substitute "beats with a riding crop" and for "dog" substitute [[TheHero "Saito"]] who she treats as her dog (despite being her love interest). In the novels it does at least once genuinely cross over into DudeNotFunny, to the extent where it almost makes Louise look like a sociopath.
* In ''ElfenLied'', [[spoiler: Lucy lived in an orphanage when she was younger, where the other children often harassed her because of her [[UnusualEars cute little horns]] and [[EmotionlessGirl emotionless nature]]. Soon after she started caring for a puppy, the others forced her to watch as they quite literally kicked the dog and beat it to death with a vase, just to try and get her to show ''something''. They got more than they bargained for: [[BewareTheNiceOnes Lucy snapped and left no witnesses]].]]
** Played with near the very beginning of the series, when Mayu is first introduced. After leaving the house, Lucy stares for a while at Mayu's dog, which tied to a post near the front gate. It ''seems'' like she actually killed the dog for real... but the only thing she did was cut its rope. Which, given that it was quite obviously terrified of her, might actually count as a ''PetTheDog'' instead.
* The anime series ''{{Nightwalker}}'' includes a villain who feeds on dogs.
* Long before he became a vampire, Dio Brando, BigBad of ''JojosBizarreAdventure'', introduced himself to Jonathan Joestar by kicking his dog Danny in the head. Then later, he sets the dog in the incinerator and tricks the butler into to burning the dog to death. What an asshole.
** And then in Part 3, Vanilla Ice literally kicks the dog (Iggy) to reinforce his utter admiration of and loyalty to Dio. [[spoiler:Iggy had used his stand to create a sand-based image of Dio, and Vanilla Ice was enraged at being forced to destroy the image when it attacked him.]]
* Happens with cats in the manga of ''{{Sailor Moon}}'', when [[TalkingAnimal Luna, Artemis and Diana]] are wounded by Sailor Tin Nyanko and turn into ordinary, non-talking cats. (This Troper teared up a little at the sight of the three cats hopelessly meowing in Usagi's arms.) To make matters worse, one of [[BigBad Galaxia's]] minions, Sailor Lethe, kills them in the next chapter.
** And kills them by [[spoiler: tearing their bodies apart,]] no less. It happened to the other Senshi, but there was something incredibly creepy and upsetting about seeing it happen to cats.
* A ''{{Pokemon}}'' episode titled "Here's Looking At You, Elekid" features Jessie of Team Rocket forcing James to sell his Victreebel for a special Weepinbell. When the new Weepinbell evolves, she gets rid of it as well.
** [[TheRival Paul]] tops her as being the biggest {{Jerkass}} in the show by releasing Pokemon that lost fights. In his first appearance, he captured three Starly and [[StopHavingFunGuys kept the one that knew Aerial Ace]]...and later, despite the fact that it won against's Ash's Starly, released that one as well (in the same episode, no less)!
* Whenever Wakamatsu Madoka, the heroine's bitchy [[TheRival rival]] in ''FullMoonOSagashite'', looks like she might be getting too sympathetic, she is shown being cruel to her adorable pet pig, thereby cementing her reputation of bitchiness.
* We are first introduced to Teresa of the Faint Smile in ''{{Claymore}}'' when she casually splatters bystanders flicking the blood from her sword after killing a Yoma, then hints that failure to give the payment for her services to the correct traveller will result in more attacks and no help. In the next town she literally kicks a [[CuteMute young girl]] the local Yoma kept for 'entertainment' halfway across a street in an unsuccessful attempt to dissuade her from following. It was only after the kid's persistence and an encounter with bandits pushes her into MoralityPet status that we learn her name (Clare) and realize this is the {{Backstory}} of the previous chapters' protagonist.
* The climax of the ''RurouniKenshin'' movie has the Japanese army surrounding a small force of rebels, stopped while Kenshin goes in to try talking them (and their leader) down. Kenshin succeeds, only for [[spoiler:[[ManBehindTheMan the real villain]], an officer in the army, to have soldiers open fire on the surrendering rebels anyway, killing several, including the leader (who had acknowledged that he'd been wrong). True to the spirit of the trope, Kenshin (a TechnicalPacifist) snaps, goes [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Battousai]], and very nearly kills the officer]].
* Amusingly, ''{{Digimon Adventure 02}}'' uses this trope very literally: [[spoiler: with Ken, while still the Kaiser. He also kicks his Digimon, Wormmon, on numerous occasions.]]
** Done again near the end, where [[spoiler: one of the Dark Seed kids kicks a kitten. Likely a direct parallel of Ken's dog kicking.]] Both occasions of punting are cut from the dub.
* Fate Testarossa introduces herself to ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' by roughing up an [[MegaNeko enormous kitten]] for a [[MacGuffin Jewel Seed]]. She (Fate) [[CharacterDevelopment gets]] [[HeelFaceTurn better]].
* ''{{Mai-Otome}}'' viewers get an early glimpse of Tomoe's not-so-niceness when [[spoiler:she slaps around her so-called friend Miya and almost makes her cry when they botch a prank involving the sale and eventual damage of Arika's Garderobe uniform, and then tries to save face by coercing Miya into TakingTheHeat for the whole thing]]. She then took it a step further and [[spoiler:tried to kill Arika with Miya's GEM]]. And that's [[MoralEventHorizon just for starters...]]
* Hiten, a MonsterOfTheWeek from ''{{Inuyasha}}'', comes home with a woman, and when his brother Manten tells him that he failed to collect some jewel shards he discovered, flies into a rage and kills ''her'' for no apparent reason. Very gruesomely, too: in the manga he ''punches a hole through her head'', and in the anime, he uses a blast of lightning to ''fry her to a charred husk''.
* The very hateable SmugSnake Jonathan Glenn does that in ''[[{{BrainPowerd}} Brain Powerd]]'' when [[spoiler:he destroys Nelly's house with his brand-new Baronz]]. He had no reason to do that, he just wanted to show off his power and make Yuu suffer.
** And let's not forget a scene a few episodes before, where Jonathan basically tells Yuu (paraphrased): "[[spoiler:I have slept with your sister, and after that with your dear mom as well. They care about me more than they care about you! Hahahaaa!]]". Yeah, [[FanNickname Johnny Boy]] is a jerk.
* Despite being a hero (well, AntiHero), Lelouch from ''CodeGeass'' gets a definite KickTheDog moment when [[spoiler:he orders the slaughter of anyone connected with the Geass as part of a RoaringRampageOfRevenge for his close friend Shirley's murder. Since a Geass user killed her, his anger is somewhat justified, but taking it out on ''civilians and children'' is the point where it crosses into this or [[MoralEventHorizon the other trope]].]]
** It should be noted that Lelouch is prone to KickTheDog after a tragedy such as the death of [[spoiler:Euphemia, or the suspected death of Nunnally.]]
** This troper consider's Lelouch's [[spoiler: Imprisoning almlost ''the entire freakin' cast'']] the biggest KickTheDog moment in the entire series.
*** It would have been, if his intention hadn't been to [[spoiler:have them rescued by Zero (Suzaku) and for him to die in the end.]]
**** Still a KickTheDog though, and simply the last in the long line of dog kicking moments that Lelouch racks up during the last arc.
***** [[spoiler:Given the nature of his plan, the dog kicking moments and their effect on his reputation were intentional]].
** And you have to remember that the children that he's talking about are far more dangerous than the civilians. ''Far'' more dangerous. Not that that ''really'' justifies it, but just saying...
*** Which ties into ''another'' KickTheDog circmustance, since [[spoiler: the "dangeorus" kids are actually victims of TykeBomb oriented training courtesy of the scientists of the Geass orders. Who knows what these Geass-using children went through so they ended up like THAT...]].
* The ''PrettyCure'' villains are pros at this.
** In Episode 11 of ''FutariWaPrettyCure'', after assuming his [[{{OneWingedAngel}} monstrous form]] to fight Nagisa/Cure Black and Honoka/Cure White, Gekidrago [[spoiler:becomes so frustrated that he willingly attacks Ryota, Nagisa's little brother, just for having wandered near the scene of the battle. Terrible mistake. An enraged Cure Black declares [[{{ThisIsUnforgivable}} This Is Unforgivable]] and attacks Gekidrago with a vengeance... and, as one might imagine, the dumb oaf does not live to see the end of the episode.]]
** FemmeFatale Poisonny's tactics almost always involve some dog kicking, mainly using mind control over a group of bystanders and using them as meat shields. The brainwashing of two of Nagisa and Honoka's schoolmates in Episode 14 comes to mind.
** In ''[[{{FutariWaPrettyCureSplashStar}} Splash Star]]'', the very first thing Karehan (the first member of Dark Fall's [[{{QuirkyMinibossSquad}} Quirky Miniboss Squad]]) does is beat up Flappy and Choppy to force them to give up information about the Source of the Sun.
** It seems that villains, in that series, are at their worst when they're about to be killed by the heroines. In Episode 13 of ''Splash Star'', Moerumba destroys a glass sculptor's work in front of Saki and Mai just to prove his point that might makes right. [[spoiler:And that was his last episode, barring his resurrection later in the series.]]
** Shitataare, while a somewhat [[LaughablyEvil humorous villainess]], seemed to try her best to get under Saki and Mai's skin by repeatedly reminding them of [[spoiler:how [[DarkMagicalGirl Michiru and Kaoru]] were [[FateWorseThanDeath trapped in the darkness]] and forever lost]]. Pretty much the only villain who refrained from [[KickTheDog punting the pup]] in that season, other than Michiru and Kaoru themselves, was Kintolesky, because of his obsession with fighting fair.
** And let's not even go into what Gooyan did...
* {{Jerkass}} road racer Shingo from ''InitialD''. We first witness him [[spoiler:tapping the bumper of Iketani's car (which had just come back from being repaired after a horrible crash), and later when confronted, says that it's Iketani's own fault for being too slow. He continues his Kick The Dog moments by challenging Takumi to a match in which both drivers' non-shifting hands are taped to the steering wheel, breaks up a date between Itsuki and his blind date by crashing Itsuki's car, and during the race that he challenged Takumi to, attempts to crash Takumi's car in an attempt to end the match in a draw (since Shingo couldn't catch up anymore), and this is where his rampage ends: He misses Takumi and crashes into the guardrail instead. But this turns into a CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming when Iketani and Itsuki come across Shingo and ''offer to take him to the hospital'' instead of getting mad at him.]]
* In ''[[NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]]'', Marie's entire family —including her dog— are gunned down by the Neo Atlantian soldiers just because they're ''that'' mean.
* [[spoiler:Shizuru's]] attack on a [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway near-defenseless]] Yukino ([[spoiler:which resulted in Haruka's death]]) in ''{{Mai-HiME}}'' punctuated her FaceHeelTurn.
* In ''SaintSeiya'', Aquarius Camus is quite a KnightTemplar, and we get to see that clearly when [[spoiler: he uses his power to singlehandedly sink a frozen ship... which was the sort-of tomb of Natasha, the mother of Camus's disciple Hyoga. To be fair, Hyoga ''did'' need to outgrow his [[OedipusRex Oedipus complex]], but daaaaaamn.]]
* In ''YakitateJapan'', we see just how rotten Tsukino's stepsister Yukino is in a flashback, where Yukino ''throws the ashes of Tsukino's late mother onto a tree while [[NoblewomansLaugh laughing like a maniac]]''. [[MoodWhiplash A very jarring moment]] for a comedy about bread-making, especially since it's all but forgotten after that scene.
* ''OnePiece'' has a literal version of this. Before we even get a look at her face, the very first thing "Pirate Empress" Boa Hancock does is [[http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3523/3734706000_1bcc323ff1_o.gif kick a kitten]] that simply happened to be in her path.
** Hancock is absolutely smitten with this trope. In the very next chapter she destroys a clay statue of her that the tribe's children worked on, claiming that it ruined the aesthetics, before proceeding to toss the tribe's elder through a window, and if that wasn't enough, in the ''next'' chapter she petrifies three of Luffy's newfound allies when they try to reason with her. Luckily for the side of good, that just happens to be one of Luffy's {{Berserk Button}}s...
*** To be fair to her, at least half of this is a {{Jerkass Facade}}, and other half that isn't, she has a pretty good {{Freudian Excuse}} for it.
*** She's at it again, a few chapters later she comes across a puppy and a baby seal... [[KickTheDog guess what happens]]. [[spoiler: What makes this particularly notable is this is ''after'' her HeelFaceTurn, although technically, almost none of the Kuja even suspect she went through a HeelFaceTurn and oddly, [[DoubleStandard almost none of them were aware she was cruel to them in the first place.]]]]
***Is ThisTroper the only way who thinks this is a big hint Boa hasn't really changed? I mean, Oda might be making a point with TWO darling baby animals...
*** ThisTroper is convinced it's just Hancock maintaining her JerkassFacade [[TheMasquerade masquerade]].
**** It seems more likely that Oda-sensei is playing it for humor, given that there's no real reason for a baby seal or a puppy to be on Amazon Lilly and that they're the archetypal cute animals.
** Earlier in ''OnePiece'', there was an even more literal version of this when minor villain Mohji the Lion Tamer kicked an AngryGuardDog in his path. He then proceeded to cross the MoralEventHorizon by taking the only thing the dog cared about (a pet shop once owned by his deceased master) and ''burned it to the ground right in front of him.''
** Also subverted quite cleverly at the start of the Loguetown arc. When we first meet new villain Smoker, he is walking down the street looking generally sinister. A little girl running around with an ice cream cone accidentally bumps into him and ruins his marine uniform by getting chocolate all over his pants. Smoker gives the girl an intense, hard look....and then sweetly apologizes for bumping into her. He even gives her money to buy a new cone. Especially effective since up to this point, all the villains in One Piece had been irredeemable bastards; Smoker is the first antagonist with real moral complexity to him.
* We all know how the titular character from ''SuzumiyaHaruhi'' loves to [[TheChewToy mistreat]], [[RapeAsComedy molest and abuse]] the closest thing to a female friend she has, Mikuru. Naturally, this is PlayedForLaughs, but in the 2nd novel, there ''is'' a definite scene that crosses the line: During the filming of the Brigade's movie "The Adventures Of Mikuru Asahina", Haruhi (with the help of GenkiGirl Tsuruya) first puts tequila into Mikuru's drink, so she would act more realistic for the kissing scene. The next thing she does is to ''punch'' Mikuru on the head simply because she still wore her colored contact lens. She then continues to punch her several times because the [[WrongGenreSavvy "contact lens is supposed to fly out when your head gets smacked."]] After Kyon understandably yells at her that Mikuru is not her toy, she seriously replies "Well I've decided, Mikuru-chan '''is''' my toy!". This actually makes Kyon explode, trying to punch ''her'', but he is stopped by Koizumi. After Haruhi realizes what Kyon was about to do, she ''still'' doesn't get it, confronting him even more. This also shows just what a {{Jerkass}} she ''can'' be... though soon she [[CharacterDevelopment starts to get better]].
** This is slightly softened in the anime adaptation, where Haruhi ''does'' declare the same thing... but when Kyon is about to hit her for making Mikuru cry and Itsuki stops him, she stares away and looks remorseful. And not to mention Kyon, thanks ot Itsuki, realizes [[NotHimself that it's not in him to be physically violent]].
* In ''{{Gundam 00}}'' the Federation military unit A-Laws is established as pretty mean when they arrest an innocent Saji Crossroad for hanging out with a suspected rebel, who they both shoot and beat up for trying to run away. Saji gets sent to what appears a penal colony created solely to make the inmates' lives a living hel, and then the A-Laws test their brand spanking new killbots by letting them run amok in the colony.
** And then they get a KillSat... The first time it is used, a ''refugee camp'' gets destroyed. [[ItGotWorse It gets worse from there...]]
** The oft-cited "Nena attacks a wedding out of frustration/boredom" incident also counts, since her character was established one episode earlier as a [[GenkiGirl playful]] yet [[PsychopathicManchild mentally unstable]] [[{{Tykebomb}} child soldier]] (her older brothers are much less on the "playful" side... especially [[AxCrazy Michael]]). [[spoiler: And Nena partially redeems herself in the second season, anyway]]
* In one episode of ''FushigiYuugi'', while talking with underlings, Nakago takes a canary out of its cage and crushes it in his hands, just for the heck of it.
* ''NowAndThenHereAndThere'' plays this literally. Except it's a cat.
** And it's not kicked, it has its neck snapped when [[PsychopathicManchild Hamdo]] has a tantrum.
* In the end credits for "Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~", main character (and assassin) Zwei is depicted repeatedly shooting a target's sad-eyed dog after he's killed her. One assumes we're meant to take this to mean that he's edgy and dangerous in his brainwashed and confused assassin persona.
* In ''{{Eyeshield 21}}'', pretty much anything that [[JerkJock Agon]] does. Highlights include: taking Kurita's spot at Shinryuuji just to spite Hiruma, perving on, accosting and nearly assaulting Mamori, nearly taking Sena's eye out at the tournament drawing, beating up the [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold sympathetic Zokugaku Chameleons]], intentionally dislocating the rather puppy-like Mizumachi's shoulder in a scrimmage, pretty much all the nasty things he says to his less talented but much nicer twin brother, oh, and attempting to break the knees of a ''child in a wheelchair.''
* [[RomeoXJuliet Lord Laertes Montague]] does this regularly, but the worst (aside of the massacre) is [[spoiler: him forcing his ally Titus into a duel and killing him. ''In front of Titus's son, Mercutio''.]].
* Shortly after his introduction, [[SmugSnake Daranimaru Goryo]] of the Goryo group in Muhyo hears that an old woman is unable to pay for an exorcism, and then allows her to be possessed again, suggesting that her relatives could pay for it after hearing about her going insane.
* In ''BladeOfTheImmortal'', Shira not only kicks the dog, but [[spoiler: kills the dog Rin had befriended the previous night and tricks her into eating it]]. Of course, we already know Shira is beyond MoralEventHorizon and accelerating.
* ''TheWorldIsMine'' introduces its {{VillainProtagonist}}s by showing WildChild Mon casually toss the girl he was having sex with out of their moving car onto the freeway. Mon's [[strike: bitch]] partner Toshiya's slide into [[CompleteMonster complete monstrosity]] happens when he tortures and kills an elderly couple.
* In his early appearances, [[MadScientist Mayuri Kurotsuchi]] from ''{{Bleach}}'' was [[ObviouslyEvil clearly designed]] [[CardCarryingVillain to be loathed]] by the audience due to the near constant abuse he levelled towards his Daughter and Lieutenant, [[MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter Nemu Kurotsuchi]].
** There's also the part where he tries to kill Ikkaku when he refuses to answer his questions, before Kenpachi stops him.
** Gin Ichimaru is introduced by slicing off Jidanbo's arm (only making a gash in it in the anime) and suggesting that he should have died defending the gate. And then there's his falsely offering to help save Rukia and all his friends before her execution just to raise and dash her hopes.
** Byakuya does some pretty assholish things in the Soul Society arc, such as refusing to allow Renji to be treated when he's defeated, attempting to [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill overkill]] Ganjyu simply for being a Shiba, and openly insulting the more merciful Captains such as Ukitake. In fact, some believe that if it wasn't for his FreudianExcuse, he would've crossed the MoralEventHorizon.
* Miss Minchin in ''ShokojoSera'' literally does this, except that it's Kick The Cat, and the cat gets its revenge fairly soon. Ironically, she soon undergoes a probable HeelFaceTurn, and is seen [[PetTheDog holding the same cat in her arms]] an episode later.
* Deathsaurus in ''TransformersVictory'' leaves the Dinoforce to die on {{Atlantis}} after he gets enough energy to reactivate his evil fortress of doom. Tragically, they keep on stealing energy while under the impression that he's going to return.
** In previous series, TransformersSuperGodMasterforce Wilder does that early in the series. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw0sNG3BMWc Literally]].
* Grewcica in the ''{{Gunnm}}'' OVA kills the dog that Gally picked-up.
* In ''{{Kinnikuman}}'', Mixer Taitei does an almost literal example (but ratchets up the brutality) by needlessly killing a helpless puppy with his blender blades, thoroughly establishing him as one of the most monstrous heels Kinnikuman would ever face. In ''Nisei'', you also have Dialbolik/Tel Tel Boy killing famous wrestlers just to get an audience's attention.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* In AlanMoore's ''Miracleman'', the newly revived Kid Miracleman initially spares the one person that had offered kindness to his mortal alter-ego Johnny Bates, only to return moments later to viciously take the woman's head apart with a single blow, claiming that his earlier act of mercy would've been seen as a sign that the villain had "gotten soft".
* Cobra Commander did it in a panel of the ''GIJoe'' comic. The shot was so popular it was eventually redone as a pin-up some years later (the pin-up version can be seen at the top of this page).
* [[{{Transformers}} Megatron]] one-ups it by ordering the dog [[http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Murdered_puppy shot to death.]]
** Whereas [[TransformersSuperGodMasterforce Wilder]] kicked the dog himself ''and'' killed it because it annoyed him.
* In ''{{ElfQuest}}'', the Wolfriders bond with wolves, and the Gliders with giant birds. Just before the two groups meet, Strongbow spots one of the giant birds and shoots it down for a meal. It becomes an inter-tribal incident that sticks half the tribe in slavery and Strongbow in psychic torture for a couple weeks, before the tribes' leaders meet to discuss it. One of the proposed solutions is to kill Strongbow's bond-wolf: "My mount was slain while testing its wings! Why should the killer's mount live?" One of the Wolfriders protests that they cannot order the execution of the wolf -- "You might as well command us to kill our own children!" This is a little bit remarkable in that the death was caused by the good guys out of ignorance and not malice.
** In a much later issue, the animal-tamer elf Teir berated Ember for being willing to kill an animal who trusted her. "Would you kill the wolf who shared your fire if you needed some new furs?"
* In issue 4 of ''Infinite Crisis'', Superboy-Prime cemented his status by kicking Krypto the Superdog. You don't tug on Superman's cape, and you certainly '''don't''' kick his dog.
* In the ''{{Sandman}}'' issue about the serial killers convention, one of the convention attendees tells another that he got his start by cutting off the heads off of kittens.
** Notably, the said guy was the most sympathetic person in the convention. He clearly understood he was sick, but lacked courage to turn himself in. It's implied that he was looking for peer support for just that.
** Also in ''Sandman'', Desire does a unique kick the dog moment that doubles as a demonstration of what a MagnificentBastard he/she is: Desire tells a random party-goer how she can win and cruelly break another woman's heart. Apparently, he/she can figure such things out just by looking at people.
* Not that Jody from ''{{Preacher}}'' needed any further proof of his unredeemable bastardry, but in a feat fitting for the trope, he went beyond kicking Jesse Custer's pet dog Duke when it made the mistake of humping his leg: ''he nailed it by the head on a fence''.
**Ironically, in their final fight, Jesse would nail Jody in the head with a piece of the fence. In both terms. The fact Jody no-sells it gives one last demonstration of [[TheDeterminator how inhuman he is]].
* In a story from the 1940's newspaper comic strip of ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'', a giant thug is shown caring for a kitten. After attacking Batman and Robin when they show up (and hence causing the his boss undue suspicion) the thug's boss breaks the kitten's neck as punishment. While the crime boss ultimately ends up [[KarmicDeath drowning in a swamp]] while his thug stands by, the revenge is soured by the crime boss being able to shoot the thug to death before he's pulled under. The whole thing made this troper wish that the daily strip featured ThePunisher instead.
* Nothing demonstrates one's evil properties quite like [[http://www.superdickery.com/oneshot/23.html attempting to destroy an entire city of orphans]].
* Colonel Boris/Jorgen is generally considered ''{{Tintin}}'''s most unpopular villain. Why? He kicks Snowy down the rocket chute in Explorers on the Moon, breaking the poor thing's leg. To quote the Captain: "Monster! Vivisectionist!"
* [[Comicbook/{{Superman}} Doomsday]] has several, including crushing a small bird and beating up a little boy and his cat. To be entirely fair, though, it's not like he can help it, as he was raised to see anything and everything as a threat that must be destroyed.
* The first appearance of the DCU villains The Reach (evil super-advanced alien race, enemies of the third BlueBeetle) has the Reach negotiator stress how they're there to 'save the earth' and that the Reach 'come in peace'. The very next page introduces the Reach Negotiator's adorable minions... and he crushes one of their heads with his bare hand. Just so the audience wouldn't believe the whole 'we come in peace' thing.
* Various villains KickTheDog throughout ''KingdomCome'', but Vandal Savage [[NeckSnap snapping the neck of a secretary]] for putting the wrong amount of sugar in his coffee kinda takes the cake.
* In ''King of Klondike'', the eight chapter of ''TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'', Soapy Slick kidnaps Scrooge, steals his plot of land and reads his mail. When a letter from home reveals that Scrooge's mother had died, the villain mocks the young duck for it and tells his cronies to kill him. No wonder [[BadAss Scrooge went berserk and trashed the entire steamboat they were on]].
** Scrooge himself... well, [[http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i212/Kerrah_photos/ScroogeDishonest.jpg just watch]].
* In ''{{Watchmen}}'', a gang commits a horrid action when they [[spoiler: break into aged retired hero Hollis Mason's (AKA: Nite-Owl I) house and beat the shit out of him. Then the leader SMASHES HIS HEAD IN WITH A TROPHY MASON WON. Even the other members were horrified by that. Why did they do this? Because Nite Owl II broke Anti Hero Rorsarch out of jail. Mason had absolutely nothing to do with the action. That's right. A guy beat a harmless old man to death for ''worthless revenge''. This editor wanted him to die as horribly as possible. Luckily, you can see his corpse in the opening of Chapter 12]].
** Also, they [[spoiler: kill his dog.]]
** In the case of [[spoiler: Adrian Veidt]], it's more like "Kick the Cat": he [[spoiler: leaves his own pet lynx, Bubastis, to be vaporized during his attempt to get rid of Dr. Manhattan at Karnak. It doesn't even work. Poor kitty.]]
* In the latest volume of ''{{Empowered}}'', we see the mastermind behind turning the 'Capies' award ceremony into a deathtrap discovered by the titular superheroine. Upon the relevation of his identity, he gives a MotiveRant that seems tailor made to win sympathy from any reader who has bothered following the title (not to mention the [[NoRespectGuy No Respect Girl]] before him). Then he attempts to use the lives of Emp's lover and her best friend to extort sexual favors out of her. Empowered was not pleased, [[spoiler: and her suit was [[NotSoHarmless rather more intact]] [[CurbStompBattle than it appeared]].]]
* In ''FinalCrisis Aftermath: Run'' #1, the Human Flame--the archetypical small time thug who had killed MartianManhunter--returns to his family's home, embraces his wife, and tells her how much he had missed her and their doaughter. This is all a pretext to steal his car, with the daughter's bike still attached, while the wife is tied to a kitchen chair. Note that the Flame had already crossed a MoralEventHorizon by leading a shootout through a BrandX Chuck E. Cheese. But just when it looked like writer Matt Sturges was humanizing him as at least a loving family man, whammo!
**Don't forget that earlier, Flame wakes up in a hospital, his first action is to forcefully punch the young attending nurse, knocking her out. He then knocks a traction patient out of his bed while running away, rationalizing both actions by saying "they probably deserved it."
* Norman Osborn is master of this. List of his dog kicking moment he done only to [[SpiderMan Spider-Man]] is very long, and contains thing like [[spoiler: having sex with Peter's girlfriend, making her pregnant and killing after she gave birht to his children, making those children belive, that Peter's their father who abbadoned them, killing Peter's unborn child and steall it's body, kidnapping his aunt and replacing her with an actress, and reveal it after that actress died. All this so Peter could suffer.]] Oh, and he started infaumous Clone Saga too!
** In Dark Reign he has some new like [[spoiler: shooting two kids, because one of them was wearing Spider-Man mask, impregnants his son's ex-gilfriend ( He must relly enjoy steling younger guy's girls ) and makes him belive it's his baby, so he could manipulate him and kill in near future for biggest benefits (HIS OWN SON!). And there's possibility, that guy he's using as guinea pig in his laboratory is his other son, Gabriel Stacy.]]
* [[MemeticMutation When no-one was looking]], [[{{Superman}} Lex Luthor]] [[MemeticMutation stole forty cakes. That's as many as four tens.]] [[AndThatsTerrible And that's terrible]].
* In Superpatriot a [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi]] kicks one while in a good mood. This troper considered it as possible replacement for the current image. You can see it [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_most_evil_man_alive.jpg here]]
* In [[{{Hellboy}} BPRD 1946]], cute little girl (and head of the Soviet counterpart to the BPRD) Varvara shows her true colors when she [[spoiler:brutally murders Audo, a disfigured and mentally unwell little boy.]]
* Hey, maybe IronMan has a point. Maybe the registration isn't a bad thing. Maybe it's all for the greater good and the corrupt politicians won't manipulate the heroes once they're under their collective thumbs. OMG DID THEY JUST CLONE A GOD AND MAKE HIM KILL GOLIATH!!!?
** On the other hand, dog-kicking is contagious when it comes to Pro-Registration heroes. All right, Ms. Marvel, you know that Spider Woman II/Arachne is a traitor to the Pro-Registration side, you are to bring her down... but seriously, separating her with her dearest treasure (her grade-school daughter Rachel) is just... low. Maybe you've gone apologizing, but your friendship has been strained and if anyone's at fault it's ''you'', Carol.
*Just so you know Col. Stryker is evil before you even meet him, his legions kill two unarmed six-year-olds and leave their corpses in a playground for other small impressionable children to see. Then once we do meet him, turns out he murdered his wife and child, his most loyal henchperson, and Shadowcat who at the time was a cute teenage girl.
*Black Tom Cassidy killing squidboy. Although, that was a [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome CMOA]] for squidboy, I don't think a nigh immortal tree-god should have been that intimidated.
* [[CompleteMonster Junior]] from {{Secret Six}}: "Kill him. Leave body for his family to find. Also believe he had a dog. Kill dog."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Fic]]
* In the long-running yet unfinished {{Daria}} fanfic series 'The Look-Alike Series', most fans feel that the MarySue (some say GodModeSue or even BlackHoleSue) character of Lynn Cullen reached her KickTheDog moment when she threatened her when she wore a .45 pistol to school and threatened Quinn with it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* Averted in [[TheFellowshipOfTheRing The Fellowship of the Ring]] when the dog got smart, stopped barking, and backed into its hobbit hole so it wouldn't die. But then the Ringwraiths decide to chop off a hobbit watchman's head off and [[ImprovisedWeapons drop a door]] on the gatekeeper. Oh, and they try to kill all off the hobbits while they're in bed. Just in case you didn't realize that the creepy cloaked strangers aren't the embodiment of pure evil yet.
* In [[TheTwoTowers The Two Towers]] Saruman decides Wormtongue is now useless. Kicking promptly commences.
* In [[TheReturnOfTheKing The Return Of The King]] they don't so much kick the dog as much as throw the heads of the dog's friends at him.
* In AlfredHitchcock's classic film ''RearWindow'', just when it looks like Lars Thorwald didn't actually kill his wife, another neighbor's dog gets killed. Three guesses as to who strangled the unfortunate canine? Oddly enough, Thorwald was seen [[PetTheDog petting the dog]] and gently shooing it away in an earlier scene.
** Evil, but not gratuitous - the dog had discovered the corpse of Thorwarld's wife in the garden.
* Another AlfredHitchcock's example: in ''StrangersOnATrain'', MagnificentBastard Bruno Anthony uses his cigarette to casually puncture a little boy's balloon. Just for the pleasure of being a total dick.
** There's a likely homage in WesCraven's original LastHouseOnTheLeft, wherein we see David Hess as Krug do the exact same before his band of socially and sexually deviant weirdos get down to the more serious business at hand.
* A dumb racist in ''{{Terminator}} Salvation'' self-righteously screams at a frightened Chinese woman to "Speak English!!" on the prisoner transport. He deservingly [[DeathByRacism dies for his arrogance]] later, shot to bloody little pieces by a T600.
* In the 2007 ''{{Transformers}}'' film, Megatron gets to Kick The ''Human'': while he and Prime recover from a fall during their climactic battle, Megatron casually flicks a fleeing passerby in disgust. It's made somewhat funny that this passerby was in fact the director, Michael Bay.
* Villains in [[BMovie B action movies]] routinely do unspeakable things like this to family, friends, and property of the hero to set him on the path to violent revenge. One of the most flagrant abuses of the trope was in the Chuck Norris film ''Lone Wolf [=McQuade=]''. The villain (David Carradine) goes through all the usual atrocities, including killing or maiming the hero's entire family, until -- with the most dramatic music of the movie welling up -- he kills [=McQuade=]'s border collie and leaves him lying in the dirt. At that point, Norris's wooden features almost show real emotion as he sets his jaw and goes forth seeking vengeance.
* ''{{Equilibrium}}'' has a scene where the minions of the government of Libria kill a bunch of dogs. Off-camera, but still, it demonstrates very well the extent to which the [[KnightTemplar establishment]] will go to "protect" humanity from their own emotions. Of course, in their belief that suppressing emotion was necessary, they probably thought it a ShootTheDog, but it's for us audiences to decide, not them.
* The villain of ''PansLabyrinth'' kills a couple of hunters that he suspects are rebels, one by beating his face to a bloody pulp. It's very cringe-worthy, and basically has nothing to do with the plot beyond marking him as a huge bastard.
** What's worse, they may not even have been rebels. He finds the rabbits they were hunting in their pack after he shoots them, and then tells his subordinate not to wake him for such trivial matters. He may have killed them to teach his men a lesson.
*** He also orders that the rabbits be cooked for him, if not in the movie then in a deleted scene. Which pushes him that much closer to (or further over from) the MoralEventHorizon.
** Pretty much everything the Captain does in that movie is either kicking the dog or raping it.
* The Jet Li movie ''Kiss of the Dragon'' has a scene where the main bad guy forcibly injects the female lead, a woman he had tricked into prostitution, with her "fix" of heroin and sends her back to work on the street after she begs him to let her daughter go so that she can get out of the business. Apart from the earlier nasty things he did (such as framing Li for killing the diplomat), this scene marks him as a huge bastard worthy of the [[ToThePain very nasty death]] that Li gave him.
** He does have a [[RightHandCat pet turtle]].
* In ''{{Scarface}}'', Sosa's evil is made clear by his lack of qualms about the children that will be caught in a hit's collateral damage.
* For the first 45 minutes of ''ThePrincessBride'', it appears that Prince Humperdinck, if somewhat a hunting-loving milquetoast that Buttercup doesn't love, is more aloof and uncaring than out-and-out evil...until he tortures Wesley to death (well, [[OnlyMostlyDead mostly]]) on Count Rugen's crazy sucking machine, and lies to Buttercup to make her think Wesley abandoned her.
** The book is much more to the point on the subject - the first time we see Humperdinck, he's in his Zoo of Death, where he keeps wild animals for the express purpose of killing them when he's bored.
* And who can forget the destruction of Alderaan by {{The Empire}}'s Death Star in the original ''StarWars''? This one's heinous enough to be MoralEventHorizon material, considering that it was an ''entire planet'' and that Tarkin did it as a YouSaidYouWouldLetThemGo on Leia, who he had moments before given a SadisticChoice.
* In ''Ernest Goes to Jail'', Ernest's Evil Twin throws Ernest's small dog into the garbage can to stop it from barking. The dog was physically uninjured, but it apparently had no way of getting out before the real Ernest came along and rescued it, a day or so later.
* Done by a corrupt cop in ''AmericanGangster''- he shoots the dog.
* This happens in many, many {{Bollywood}} films, such as the Captain beating his servant in ''Lagaan''.
* In ''OneCrazySummer'', Aquila Beckersted gloats over his victory over the protagonists and punctuates his villainy by literally kicking a little girl's dog and putting it in an animal hospital.
* In ''BatmanBegins'', just to make good and sure that the audience is set against Detective Flass, a corrupt cop, he cheats a street vendor out of his money before Batman interrogates him.
** Oddly enough, ''Batman'' himself inadvertently invoked this not once, but 4 times in ''TheDarkKnight''. The Bat, who won't kill, casually throws one of the Chechen's dogs over the railing in a parking structure, and then at his confrontation with the Joker, knocks three dogs down a stairwell. From the top.
* Early in ''DogSoldiers'', Captain Ryan, a Special Forces commander, ironically fulfils this trope by literally shooting a dog. Not ''that'' kind of ShootTheDog, just killing it for no real reason.
** Later on in the movie, he attempts to shoot ''another'' dog to get it to stop barking, but he is thwarted when another character vomits on his head.
* Don't forget Glenn Close's character from ''FatalAttraction'' [[spoiler: killing and cooking the pet rabbit of the protagonist's daughter]].
* In the 1970s {{Blaxploitation}} film ''{{Shaft}}'', the title character grabs one of the BigBad's {{Mooks}} and uses him as a human shield to try and escape. The villain shoots and kills his own henchman. He lets Shaft live only because he has to report back to his employer Bumpy that the BigBad hasn't killed Bumpy's daughter, that he has taken hostage.
* ''SnakesOnAPlane'' has a businessman who grabs another passenger's pet chihuahua and throws it to the snakes in an attempt to buy himself some time. Everyone in the audience likely cheers when, a few seconds later, [[DeathByPragmatism a snake eats him]].
** The audience in [[NoSoup4Me this troper's]] cinema [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome cheered a few seconds earlier]] when they finally killed [[TheScrappy that goddamn dog]]. The thing was more sickening than [[Series/{{Heroes}} Mr. Muggles]].
** That's funny, cause the exact opposite happened to This Troper. I recall, when he was immediately killed by a snake a few seconds later, the theater cheered and clapped (one woman next to me leaned over to her boyfriend and said "God don't like ugly"). I guess more dog lovers in Detroit?
* The Sheriff of Nottingham from ''RobinHood: Prince of Thieves'': "Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans. No more merciful beheadings... and call off Christmas!"
** [[MrDeath This troper]] found this rant (and others like it) to be the most entertaining part of the character.
* ''AmericanPsycho'' had a very literal example. When the dog of the homeless man Patrick Bateman has just shot to death starts barking, Bateman coolly stomps it to death, shutting it up. Later, he is at an ATM when a kitten starts rubbing against his leg. He picks it up, the scene playing like an unlikely PetTheDog (or kitty) moment... until the ATM screen reads "FEED ME A STRAY CAT," and Bateman (almost) obliges.
** The book has Patrick being cruel to many more animals-- and then there's that unfilmable scene with the starved rat, a Habitrail tube, and one of his female victims...
* ''BackToTheFuture Part II'': There's a scene in 1955 where Biff gets a hold of a bunch of kids' balls and while listening to them plead to have it back mocks them and then throws it onto a second story balcony. Not that it wasn't already obvious Biff was a jerk, but it was over the top.
* In the movie ''[=U-571=]'', the captain of the Nazi U-boat orders his men to slaughter survivors from an Allied cargo ship over his crew's protests.
* In ''SweeneyTodd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'', in order to make the AxCrazy protagonist sympathetic, they had to show his nemesis, Judge Turpin, sentencing an eight-year-old to death.
** This is actually a stand-in for a considerably [[{{Squick}} less endearing]] moment in the stage version. While spying on Johanna through a hole in the wall, the judge rants to himself about how beautiful she's grown in the years he's cared for her. [[spoiler:He gets so worked up (and naked...) in the process that he has to self-flagellate to restrain himself from raping her, while praying for his arousal to go away. It doesn't work, and indeed, the whipping actually ''drives him to climax''. And then he throws his bathrobe back on and rushes into Johanna's room to inform her that they're getting married.]] Naturally, he's singing the entire time.
** This troper believes the scene was meant to draw parallels with Signore Pirelli's rather cruel treatment of his ward Toby, especially when he is soundly bested by Sweeney at the shaving contest in the marketplace. The scene in question shows that Judge Turpin is even worse than Pirelli -- and it immediately follows the scene where Pirelli becomes Sweeney's very first victim.
** Judge Turpin is a dog-kicking machine in general throughout the musical. Besides the above sentencing of that kid to death and lusting rather creepily after Johanna, there's his transportation of Benjamin Barker, the man who would become Sweeney Todd, for life because he lusted after the man’s wife, there’s his cruel treatment of Anthony and Johanna in general, which culminates in having Johanna thrown into [[BedlamHouse a madhouse]] for defying his plan to marry her, and even a MoralEventHorizon moment with the "Poor Thing" scene, which has him raping Lucy at a masked ball that he has Beadle Bamford take her to soon after having her husband transported.
** The Beadle’s a bastard as well. In addition to his role in the "Poor Thing" scene, in the movie, he savagely whips Anthony after Turpin throws him out of his mansion for "gandering" at Johanna. In the stage version, the Beadle’s even crueler -- he snaps the neck of the poor little bird that was Anthony’s gift to Johanna before threatening him with the same if he ever sets foot on their street again.
* The Joker in the first TimBurton ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'' movie had a number of examples of this, such as terrorizing Vicki Vale, disposing of his last girlfriend Alicia offscreen so he could be with her, and gassing a museum and a parade full of innocent people (though the last one was foiled by the Batman), but the worst was probably cold-bloodedly executing his unquestioningly loyal BattleButler Bob after asking him for his gun following said foiling.
** Because [[DethroningMomentOfSuck Batman stole his balloons.]]
* In ''Advent Children'', Kadaj kicked the dog when he convinced Rufus he needed to tell the truth [[spoiler: by tossing Tseng and Elena's bloodstained ID cards at his feet]]. It would have been a much more gruesome moment if... [[DisneyDeath well...]]
* In [[Film/TheIncredibleHulk the new Hulk film]], Blonsky arrives at Bruce's apartment with his tranquilizer gun only to find he's already run for it; he shoots Bruce's dog instead (complete with comedy yelp noise).
** In the screening this troper attended, many of the audience reacted in distress to the moment, some remarking aloud that a tranq dart intended to knock out a human (in fact, a human who could become the Hulk!) probably hurt the dog. Nobody found it funny, but it did cement the latent super-villain as the vilest of characters.
* In ''{{The Monster Squad}}'', Dracula all but cements the fact that he is an utter bastard right near the end of the movie when he confronts Phoebe, a little girl who is five years old and has the amulet that he wants to destroy so that the creatures of the night can rule the world, with these words: "Give me the amulet, you bitch!" If calling a five-year-old a bitch isn't Kicking The Dog, this troper doesn't know what is.
** The actor playing Dracula actually refused to do the scene in more than one take.
*** And the actress playing Phoebe was genuinely terrified when she saw his "evil" contact lenses.
* Agents Johnson and Johnson in the first ''Film/DieHard'' have an exchange in which they determine that their plan to stop the terrorists (which was actually a vital part of Hans Gruber's XanatosGambit) could end up with 25% of the hostages dead, but they dismiss it as being an acceptable casualty. Presumably this is to obliterate any sympathy one might have for the fact that they get blown up by Gruber five minutes later.
* As far as Kane Hodder was concerned, [[EvenEvilHasStandards kicking dogs is too evil]] even for [[{{Friday the 13th}} Jason Voorhees]]: "Jason can pull people's limbs off and beat them to death with their own arms, things like that, but he's not gonna be kicking any dog. You know, you gotta draw the line somewhere."
** Michael Myers from the ''{{Halloween}}'' series apparently doesn't share the same sentiment, having killed at least two pet dogs over the course of his many rampages.
*** And eating one of them, apparently. "He got hungry..."
* Early in the first ''{{Terminator}}'', the titular character ''had'' to run over some children's toys to establish that he is evil. Never mind that he'd already killed (at least) two people in exceptionally ruthless fashion.
** Let's also count the moment in T2, where the T-1000 actually kills John's dog.
* Invoked in ''{{Film/Spider-Man}} 3'': the actor playing [[NecessarilyEvil the Sandman]] asked the director if he could be shown punching a police dog while fleeing from the cops, so it would be clear that he wasn't an IneffectualSympatheticVillain. (It was only a puppet, but it gets the point across well enough.)
* Used almost to the point of gratuity in {{No Country For Old Men}}; [[PsychoForHire Chigurh]] arbitrarily murders random innocents several times, based solely on whim and the outcome of a coin toss. He even takes a potshot at a pigeon he passes while crossing a bridge. Ironically (the irony being that he's the most terrifyingly competent and relentless assassin in film history), he misses. Utterly lampshaded early on by Deputy Wendell, who, upon surveying the scene of the drug dealers' massacre in the desert, remarks: "Aw, they even shot the dog." As if the pile of dead bodies and truckload of heroin weren't big enough clues that ''these are bad people''.
* Juno from ''TheDescent'' gets a few of these, such as revealing she purposely led the group into the wrong cave without telling anyone where they were going, or [[spoiler:leaving her friend who she accidently stabbed to die slowly and painfully.]] This was before she becomes a fairly heroic uber-BadAss.
* Hunter "Raoul Duke" Thompson has one of these in ''FearAndLoathingInLasVegas'' when he [[spoiler:suggests selling Lucy into prostitution.]] Although it's really hard to tell whether or not he was serious.
* The one-eyed "bible salesman" in ''OBrotherWhereArtThou?'' beats two of the protagonist senseless with a branch to steal whatever it was that they were keeping in that shoe box they were guarding so closely. When he finds out it's a frog (which they thought was a [[BalefulPolymorph cursed]] friend), he squeezes the thing dead on his palm, and violently throws it against a tree, making one of the heroes cry. [[spoiler:He later gets what's coming for him when a burning cross drops on him.]]
* In [[InvasionOfTheBodySnatchers The Invasion]], it's not clear what would be so bad about the new world order that's taking shape, until [[spoiler:it's made clear that anyone not affected by the change would be executed, rather than simply kept out of positions of influence and allowed to live out their lives]]
* Literally happens in ''Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy'', after the title character accidentally throws a burrito at a BaddassBiker. In retribution, the biker destroys something that Ron Burgundy loves: his puppy Baxter. [[spoiler: Baxter returns at the end, wet but unharmed.]]
** More specifically, he ''punts the dog off an overpass''.
*** "THE MAN PUNTED BAXTERRRR!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH AAAAH AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"
* The 1950s version of ''ShowBoat'' whittles Pete's role down to one of these scenes, taking a slave's necklace on the grounds that she probably stole it, then actually performing his role and mucking things up before being fired.
* In the 2008 film adaptation of ''TheSpirit'', the Octopus (the Spirit's nemesis) dons a Nazi uniform and gleefully melts a white fluffy kitten, seemingly just for kicks.
* In ''WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', Judge Doom demonstrates The Dip by melting a tiny, adorable shoe toon in it.
* In ''Film/{{Superman}} II'', a boy in a small town taken over by the Phantom Zone criminals makes a break for it on horseback for help. Seeing this disobedience, General Zod almost casually signals Non to stop him, which is done by taking a police car flasher light and throwing it hard and accurately enough to apparently kill both kid and horse with one blow. When a woman wails he was just a boy, Ursa purrs sadistically, "And he will never become a man." When this troper saw this is at the age of nine, all he think was "Oh, just wait till Superman gets you!"
* In the ''SuperMarioBros'' movie, Koopa kicks his pet dinosaur Yoshi.
* In ''Birth'' - when her fiancée beats up (ish) the kid. Though this isn't just a pointless act, I think it still sets up the fiancée for a fall.
* In the Toho film ''KingKong Escapes'', the villain [[NamesTheSame Doctor Who]] shoots the old man on Kong's island when he comes to take the ape, just responding to his warnings not to take the ape with "Yes. Kong's mine now." before killing him.
* In the classic John Ford western ''TheSearchers'', John Wayne is frequently compared to the antagonist- a Comanche chief named Scar- but is differentiated in that while Wayne [[PetTheDog pets the dog ]] before Indians raid his family's home early in the film, when we later see Scar at his camp before the cavalry raids them, Scar throws a rock off screen at a yapping dog, and we hear a pathetic whimper a second later.
* In ''The Meteor Man'', the BigBad doesn't kick the dog, he ''throws a dumpster on the dog!'' [[spoiler:[[IGotBetter The dog got better]]]].
* {{The Mask of Zorro}} does this with resident baddie Captain Harrison Love. For the first fourth or so of the picture, Captain Love seems less like an evil villain and more like a lawman who is only an antagonist because the hero of the movie is an outlaw. Well, we can't have that sort of thing in our summer blockbusters. In order to avoid actually having to deal with moral complexity, we're treated to an {{Anvilicious}} scene where Zorro is conversing with the Captain and he randomly takes a human head out of his desk drawer. To drive the point home, he tells our hero that he keeps the heads of everyone he kills, because he just loves killing people so very much.
** He doesn't produce just any head - it's the head of ''Zorro's brother''.
* If you weren't convinced yet that Jane is a little off her rocker in ''Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?'' by the time Blanche's pet bird goes missing, you'll be quite assured to know Jane's mental status when [[spoiler: she kills the bird and puts it on a dinner plate to horrify her disabled sister]].
* This trope is kind of spoofed in ''{{Blazing Saddles}}'' when baddie Mongo punches a horse.
* JamesBond examples:
** Occurs in ''LiveAndLetDie'' when Kananga slaps Solitaire in the face after she sleeps with Bond.
* In ''TheWizardOfOz'' it was clear from the first second the Wicked Witch of the West appeared that she was ... well, ''wicked'', particularly when she threatened Dorothy's poor dog in the TropeNamer for AndYourLittleDogToo. However, for most of the movie she's more of a DesignatedVillain, since all she wants is to get her sister's shoes back. When she really gets solidified as evil comes at one of three points:
** When she orders one of her {{Mooks}} to drown Toto anyway, even after Dorothy agreed to do whatever the Witch said, a KickTheDog moment that involved an actual dog. Or ...
** When she locks Dorothy in the room with the evil hourglass (the one that would kill her once it ran out) and the crystal ball, makes Aunt Em appear in it, and then sadistically mocks her once she's completely broken down. Or ...
** When she finally has Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion cornered. As she prepares to attack, she gloats, "The last to go will see the first three go before her." Even the most generous AlternateCharacterInterpretation can't make that anything but pure sadism.
* In {{The Butterfly Effect}}, the Evan's enemy Tommy [[spoiler: burns his dog alive after seeing Evan kiss Kayleigh, Tommy's sister]] when they're 13 years old. It's an even more impacting scene than when Tommy's violence is first established by [[spoiler: beating a boy in the movie theater with the metal queue pole, and then smiling at Evan as security drags him out]].
* Sir John Conroy literally kicks a dog in ''The Young Victoria''.
* ''[[ThreeNinjas 3 Ninjas]]: High Noon At Mega Mountain'', where male lead villain Lothar shows that he's a big unsympathetic jerk. First, on his way back to central control, he steals a kid's ice-cream, with the kid crying after that. Later on, fifteen-year-old Rocky, the oldest of the heroes tries to save his girlfriend from [[ChainedToARailway becoming roller-coaster roadkill]]. With a sword, Lothar engages into battle with the unarmed Rocky, to the point that they climb up the roller coaster tracks.
* [[TheShawshankRedemption "Give him another month to think about it."]]
* ''X-Men: Last Stand'' - While the director took pains to make Ian Mc Clellan's Magneto a complex AntiVillain with sympathetic goals, his slow slide toward the MoralEventHorizon is punctuated with increasingly cruel kick-the-dog moments. In particular is the [[http://www.hulu.com/watch/13141/x-men-the-last-stand-mystique-turns-human scene]] in which Mystique [[spoiler: is hit with a "cure dart" and turns suddenly into a beautiful, stricken, and supremely vulnerable human woman. Without a trace of emotion, Magneto informs her that she is no longer "one of us" and leaves her lying naked on the floor. Even his (new) head mook looks at him with a "WTF? That's cold" look. The cherry on top (of the dog turd) is his comment as he walks away: "Such a shame. She was so beautiful."]]
** Not to mention the fact that she had just ''saved him''.
** He also gets major dog-kicking points in the scene where his forces fight against the goverment. He uses ChessMetaphors, telling his protege, Pyro for them to wait until the pawns (his other followers) exhaust themselves. In this moment, like the above scene, Magneto violates is own standards of decency, since if nothing else, he supposedly cares about mutants.
* At the beginning of ''Film/SkyBlue'', Locke orders a decaying rig to be jettisoned. When one of the Diggers protests that they need time to evacuate, Locke shoots him and threatens to kill the other if he doesn't comply, thus resulting in the deaths of numerous other Diggers. He also kicks several more dogs ''hard'' at the end, but telling would be spoileriffic.
* Subverted in ''Local Hero'' due to ValuesDissonance. After Mac has adopted a rabbit he accidentally hit with his car and takes it to the village, the villagers cook and eat it. They turn out to be good people anyway.
* Used in a very interesting way in the film ColdTurkey. A town is trying to give up smoking for 30 days, so we know they aren't really "bad" people, just highly frustrated. That said, someway into the movie, a man literally ''kicks a dog'' and it hilariously goes flying.
* Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in {{Dune}} when he pulls the [[NightmareFuel heart plug]] from one of his slaves and then does something [[{{squick}} too gruesome to describe here]].
* In NachoLibre, the wrestler who had originally won the battle royal for the opportunity to fight Ramses, Silencio, is fighting against a child beggar over a loaf of bread.
* Near the end of ''HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'', [[MagnificentBastard Lucius Malfoy]] literally kicks the [[strike: dog]] Dobby.
* In the [[RecursiveAdaptation musical film version]] of ''LittleShopOfHorrors'', Audrey II, after a blatantly evil [[spoiler: phone call]], reaches into the change slot of a pay phone to see of there are any coins. AndThatsTerrible.
* Done literally in the Charlie Chaplin silent short ''Sunnyside'' when the villain kicks a dog belonging to a young boy. The antagonist repeatedly kicks Charlie himself in the rear throughout the entire film as well.
* Early on in ''{{Metropolis}}'', Joh Fredersen fires one of his overworked assistants for failing to report an accident at the [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic Moloch]] Machine, effectively dooming him to working in the deplorable conditions underground.
* Done literally in the film ''Hitler: the Rise of Evil'' to make absolutely certain that the viewer would understand that Hitler is not to be liked at all.
* The protagonist in ''{{Drag Me to Hell}}'' [[spoiler: sacrifices her kitten]] in an attempt at placating the demon set upon her by a {{Gypsy Curse}}. [[spoiler: It doesn't work when all is said and done.]]
* InglouriousBasterds: Zoller, the subject of Goebbels' propaganda film, is portrayed through most of the movie as a kind, generous, patriotic, somewhat lovesick suitor. The guy is even a film buff. And in one of his last scenes, he shudders at watching Goebbels' glorification of his bloody war heroism. In his ''last'' scene, he takes joy in accidentally hurting Shoshanna after she turned him down one more time, barks commands and threats at her and generally gives off a rape vibe. This is the scene that makes it OK to kill him.
* In [[DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney]]'s ''SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs'', when the Queen is on her way out to poison Snow White, she passes a skeleton reaching for a jug of water just outside his dungeon cell. "Thirsty?" she mocks; "then have a drink!" and throws the jug at the skull, destroying it.
* In ''ReturnToOz,'' the Nome King enjoys a long sequence of kick the dog moments as he becomes [[HumansAreBastards steadily more human]]: to begin with, he reveals that his supposedly innocent contest is actually a death trap for Dorothy's friends, and forces Dorothy and the others to keep playing by threatening to incinerate them; then he sends the childlike Jack Pumpkinhead to participate, clearly enjoying Jack's terror; finally, he reveals that he now owns the Ruby Slippers and mockingly congratulates Dorothy for [[NiceJobBreakingItHero letting them fall into his hands.]]
* In the (remarkably boring) 2000 horror thriller ''The Calling'', one of the signs that the sweet US girl's cut little son is evil incarnate is that he kicks away his dog. In case that other hints [[spoiler: like not missing his mom one bit, trying to psychically murder a little girl for hogging the swing and impaling a guinea pig]] didn't work.
* In the Shooter, the protagonist sniper reveals that he would have just hid in the wilderness if only the bad guys hadn't [[beserkerbutton Shot his dog]] first.
* Played ridiculously straight in PointBreak, when [[KeanuReeves Johnny Utah]] is thrown a Rottweiler, and immediately punts it off a second-story balcony.
* In the French film ''Forbidden Games'' (''Jeux Interdits'') it's not enough that the Nazis kill Paulette's parents. They have to kill her dog, too!
* The 2009 Japanese film ''Goemon'' probably has one of the most evil examples of this thus far. Saizo tries to assassinate the (mostly corrupt) ruler of Japan, Hideyoshi. Naturally, he fails, and is captured. After Goemon breaks him out, Hideyoshi and his men attack Saizo's home, kill his wife, and abduct his baby son. Being told that his son's life will be spared if he turns himself in, he gladly allows himself to be boiled alive in a giant vat of oil, in front of the entire city. Hideyoshi kicks him into the oil, and this is where the moment comes: when Hideyoshi throws his baby son into the vat 10 seconds later, alive. Literally every ther character, be it good, evil, or in between, were disgusted by this act at best. ''At best.''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* In the original book version of ''TheDeadZone'', the first sign we have that Stillson is evil under his affable exterior is when, after making sure the owners of a particularly annoying dog aren't home, he teargasses it and kicks it to death.
** Another StephenKing example: in ''Dark Tower: The Waste Lands'' Gasher not only kidnaps Jake and takes him on a journey during which he threatens and beats him so much it's virtually all one long KickTheDog moment, but he ''starts'' the journey by instructing him to throw Oy, his newfound pet [[NonHumanSidekick Billy-Bumbler]], off a suspension bridge, and then he literally takes a kick at Oy as he runs away. Needless to say, he gets his KarmicDeath as it's Oy that leads Roland to the lair of Gasher and his buddies.
** And another: in ''TheGreenMile'', Percy gets two -- when he stomps Mr. Jingles, and Delacroix's execution.
* In the ''{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Small Gods'', High Exquisitor Vorbis harpoons a porpoise. Not only does he intend this as a slight against what he regards as a harmless superstition, but if there was any doubt of his evil, it is gone.
** It's worse than that -- he forces the ship's captain to do the harpooning. The captain knows better than to say no to the Exquisitor when challenged to prove he harbors no heretical superstitions, e.g., that the souls of sailors are reincarnated as porpoises.
** Earlier in the book, Vorbis turns a tortoise on its back and props it with pebbles to ensure that it cannot right itself. The tortoise is a protagonist, but Vorbis doesn't know this at the time; he just wants to see how a tortoise dies.
*** And later, when considering if Vorbis might have made a better ChosenOne than Brutha, Om comes to the chilling realisation that if Vorbis had ''known'' the tortoise was the god to whom he had supposedly dedicated his life, he'd probably have done it ''anyway''.
** In ''Hogfather'', Mr. Teatime kills a dog by nailing it to the ceiling. This isn't even because he was trying to be cruel; he simply didn't want it to bark while he was working. Which just shows that he's evil ''and'' [[PsychoForHire crazy]].
** In ''Witches Abroad'', [[strike:Lilith de Tempscire]] [[spoiler:Lily Weatherwax, Granny Weatherwax's sister]] turning some drunk coach drivers into beetles and crushing them. Might qualify as crossing the MoralEventHorizon, given the dog had probably been kicked fairly severely by this point. The scary part is, [[KnightTemplar she thinks she's the good one]].
** In ''CarpeJugulum'', after the Magpyrs [[VillainousBreakdown lose their cool]], they kill Igor's patchwork dog Scraps and abduct Queen Magrat and her infant daughter.
* In one book, the ''{{Animorphs}}'' set out to put a stop to the workings of a certain VillainWithGoodPublicity. Their plan resembles an EngineeredPublicConfession, only instead of confessing to anything, the villain was set up to have a KickTheDog moment on live television.
** [[spoiler:Literally so.]]
* In ''ASongOfIceAndFire'', as if there weren't enough evidence that Joffrey Baratheon is a psychopath, other characters relate an incident where he cuts open a pregnant cat.
** There's also Viserys Targaryen, who actually has a dog kicking moment in every scene he appears in in ''A Game of Thrones.''
* In ''The Algebraist'' by IainMBanks the Archimandrite Luseferous primarily stays off-stage kicking the dog repeatedly, acting as a horrible encroaching threat we know is ready and able to bring if not thwarted...yet never meeting the protagonists or directly interacting with the main plot. In one scene he uses the undying severed head of an enemy as a punch-ball.
* Maybe [[ValuesDissonance the cultural standard is a little different]], or perhaps it's at least partly for shock value, but this editor has read a number of horror shorts (most by [[RumikoTakahashi Takahashi Rumiko]]) in which the villain's first evil act is killing a dog. Sometimes eviscerating it.
** A girl and her pregnant dog go too close to an evil place, and end up having to spend the night there (I think she got knocked out); the evil goes into the dog, destroys it and the babies, and emerges in the form of a horrible fleshless sort of puppy that the hero later has to defeat.
** A boy in high school finds out that the girl he was betrothed to as a child is coming to see him. He scoffs at the custom, since he has a girlfriend and all. His fiancée takes it a little more seriously. She can control little shapeless monsters who eat things, and has already murdered at least two people and a dog (it barked at her, so she poisoned it to feed her new pets). Then, to frighten her fiancé's girlfriend into staying away, she kills the girlfriend's dog.
** There's a series (this editor forget which) in which... demons? vampire spirits?... take over bodies shortly after death. One little boy dies and gets possessed this way, and his mother can't bring herself to destroy him, so she hides him. Brings him animals to kill and eat. However, despite the numerous pets who go missing and the eviscerated corpses that show up all over the place, the fact that he's killing animals and not people works against KickTheDog, seeing as (a) the boy lives, (b) he's victim more than villain, and (c) the killing of pets was literally the lesser of two evils.
** Let's not forget that pet standards differ by culture. Whatever is the pet norm is the one thing you would never even consider eating. For Americans, it's dogs and cats. For those in India, it's cows. We have no problem eating beef, and we joke about how Asians might serve dogs and cats in restaurants (There's a Cat in the Kettle at the Peking Moon). And, of course, some people eat horseflesh... and right now there's some little kid out there realizing that their breakfast sausage was made from Wilbur.
*** And Finns eat reindeer. Goodbye, Rudolph! We hardly knew you!
** Standards also change with the times, notably before spaying and neutering became the norm. In ''Emily of New Moon'', Emily is on vacation when she receives a letter saying her cat has had kittens. She matter-of-factly hopes she'll get to see them before they're drowned; her relatives only spare one. On the other hand, there are actual KickTheDog moments in the book, when we learn that Teddy's pathologically jealous mother has drowned and poisoned various cats because she thought he loved them more than her.
* Since Zedar in the ''{{Belgariad}}'' didn't kick the dog (he only betrayed his loving God and his brothers, set off all the tragedy in the entire book and tried to destroy the world), apparently a lot of fans thought Belgarath might have been hitting the metaphorical pup himself when he decided to stick the other man in rock for all eternity. Which just goes to show, really.
** If you read the books more carefully, you'll see that Zedar absolutely ''had'' to do a lot of the various things he did. If he hadn't then the entire sequence of events that led up to the reunification of the two purposes would never have happened and/or the Dark Prophecy would have triumphed. Add to that the idea that in reality everyone was merely a pawn of either or both of the prophecies and incapable of independent actions it's not hard to see why he retains some sympathy.
** In the prequels however, he does get a fair range of dog molestation moments, including offering immortality to a queen for the murder of the King of Riva and his family, before letting her down as the whole army of three countries-and-a-half comes to avenge him.
** Indeed, the main question is why Belgarath feels ''guilty'' about it, even though Zedar ''[[KillItWithFire set someone on fire]]'' without feeling the slightest bit guilty about it.
** The series also contains an example of a literal dog-kicking, although it is only distantly heard by the characters as an abruptly silenced barking followed by a yelp. It's also revealed that Taur Urgas' favoured son and crown prince was a CompleteMonster who, as a child, amused himself by dropping live puppies in boiling water.
* This trope goes back to Victorian times, where in ''OliverTwist'' Dickens had one of the two main villains (Bill Sikes) repeatedly kick his dog on numerous occasions. The dog even went down with Sikes when he accidentally killed himself.
** In the Roman Polanski film adaption, the dog lives, though Bill attempted to drown it because it was mentioned on his wanted poster.
** In the musical adaptation ''Oliver!'', Bill tries to kill it, but it not only runs away, it leads the chase right to him.
* In ''Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell'', one of our first glimpses of Mr. Drawlight is a flashback to when he threw someone else's cat out a third-story window because he feared it would shed on his clothing.
* Amazingly, Thomas Harris' most horrific (to this editor) scene does not occur in any of the Hannibal Lecter books, but in ''Black Sunday''. As if Harris believed the reader needed further convincing this far in of just how nuts the pilot was, we get a scene in which the pilot brings a kitten to his wife as a gift, then gruesomely kills it [[spoiler: via kitchen garbage disposal]] when they quarrel.
* Pulp villains often indulged in this. One of The Spider's villains actually gave a puppy the plague and then hit it with a stick for good measure.
* In ''HarryPotter and the Deathly Hallows'', Harry finds a letter from his mother that indicates that the Potters had a cat when Harry was a baby. Harry briefly wonders if the cat died when Voldemort destroyed the house. An example of kicking the cat when no dog (other than Sirius?) is handy.
** In the same novel, Voldemort is seen forcing [[spoiler: Draco]] to torture people instead of doing it himself, just to watch him suffer, and almost killing an innocent muggle child, just because.
** You would think Snape's decision to mock a ''fourteen-year-old girl's'' awkward appearance, completely humiliating her in front of all her classmates and causing her to run off in tears, would be enough to establish he's a complete jerk. But no, he's still DracoInLeatherPants.
* It was this reader's feeling that the novel ''Children of Men'' [[spoiler:has its VillainWithGoodPublicity do several such moments within the last chapter, (with the implication that he's done more like them)]] simply to avoid any MoralDissonance for the heroes, or risk them not having an adequate excuse to [[spoiler:get him out of there when they'll]] try and build a better world.
* This is the characterization of the Harkonnens in ''{{Dune}}''.
*The arrogant landowner Mr. Hazell kicks the old doctor's dog in ''Danny the Champion of the World'', simply because he's in the way. So the doctor selects an extra-blunt needle for the man's injection.
* EvilSorcerer Pryrates in TadWilliams' ''[=~Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn~=]'' series does this literally: he crushes the head of a puppy under his foot. He does it not even because the dog annoyed him, but because he knew it would shock the hero (who he didn't see as anyone special at that time). And this is just his EstablishingCharacterMoment--''[[CompleteMonster he gets worse]]''.
* The easiest way to figure out who the villain is in the ''HonorHarrington'' books is to see who has the most misogynistic internal monologue, with frequent use of phrases such as "that bitch" or "putting her in her place."
* Emily Bronte's ''WutheringHeights'' has Heathcliff actually hang his future wife Isabella's puppy.
** Right in front of her. Then he tells her he'd like to destroy anything and everything she loves. [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys She marries him anyway]].
* The ''StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' book "[[JediAcademyTrilogy Dark Apprentice]]" has a fairly obvious kick the dog moment when Admiral Daala orders her commanders to level an unarmed colony on Dantooine. This despite Daala stating that the planet "is too remote for an effective demonstration." The obviousness of this trope is made evident when she subsequently observes that she wouldn't "have another opportunity to catch the New Republic so unprepared." So why waste the opportunity on a ridiculous, out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-target? To show just how cold, evil, and [[GeneralFailure tactically inept]] she is, of course.
** In the same trilogy, Moruth Doole is shown to have a slave harem where he essentially rapes female Rybets, and then uses the offspring as slave laborers in his mining operation. If that doesn't make him evil enough for a KarmicDeath, then he is also guilty of having the offspring murdered when they get large enough to challenge him.
*** That's pretty MoralEventHorizon-worthy, particularly for a series like Star Wars.
** In the XWingSeries, Flirry Vorru gets a moment that is simultaneously this and KickTheSonOfABitch. He was an Imperial Moff who got sent to Kessel for massive corruption; typically he's urbane and civilized, but when he "disciplines" an unlikeable lesser criminal who had recently been gut-shot, the Rebels he's working with make a note on how quickly his mood changes.
---> Vorru's right hand struck fast and slapped Thyne on the belly. The younger man howled, then, as he doubled over, Vorru grabbed him by the neck and slammed his forehead into the table. Thyne, glassy-eyed, rebounded and Vorru flung him from his chair. "For some people, discipline is a ''lesson''. For others it is a lifetime."
* In JamesThurber's ''The13Clocks'', the wicked Duke imprisoned children in the tower for sleeping in his camellias.
* Vikram Chandra's ''Sacred Games'' starts off with a man taking revenge on his adulterous wife by tossing her cute little puppy out the window.
* In China Mieville's ''PerdidoStreetStation'' it comes up three times this troper can remember.
** First, a character explains a remaking in which a woman, tired of her baby's crying, ends up shaking it. She ends up [[spoiler:having the baby's arms attached to her face. Knowing Remakings, they probably worked.]]
*** That particular Remade woman [[spoiler:reappears in ''Iron Council''. The arms DID work. And ew.]]
** Later in the book, we find that [[spoiler:Lynn's head legs (she's a Khepri, with a head that is essentially a giant scarab beetle) have been ripped off one by one when some gangsters think that Isaac stole their drug making moth.]]
** The worst though was [[spoiler:Isaac, the protagonist.]] He [[spoiler:ends up crushing a terminally ill man in a press, knowing that if he pulls his punches at all, the moths can't be killed. It was necessary, but still, overkill for a hero!]]
* In [[DresdenFiles Turn Coat]], Butcher had [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Lara Raith]] casually feeding a couple of crippled henchmen to her wounded sisters and herself. This may have been to remind the readers that while the [[HorneyDevils White Court]] vampires were not as openly manevolent as the other courts, they were still predators.
* Eeluk in ''[[{{Conqueror}} Wolf of the Plains]]'' declares himself the new khan of the wolves and exiles Temujin's family, taking their ger, ponies, and all their possessions to force them to die on the steppes, then kills the clan bard for the crime of protesting this was evil. Just to make things worse, he does this ''during Yesugei's funeral''.
* In the novel ''AmericanPsycho'', insane serial killer Patrick Bateman kills a dog (along with his owner), and casually mentions tormenting a puppy to death. When at the zoo, he throws coins to the seals, just because he saw a table asking people not to do so.
* In ''One Shot'', by Lee Child, Jack Reacher is helping investigate a shooting spree. A police officer mentions that after arresting the suspect, they sent the dog to the pound and it was put to sleep. Reacher says, "That's cold... the damn dog didn't do anything wrong." Bear in mind that Reacher is a giant of a man who kills several people with his bare hands in the series.
* The midpoint of ''[[TheCulture The Player Of Games]]'' sees main character Jernau Gurgeh unmotivated and on the edge of a HeroicBSOD due to the culture clash he's experiencing: to the Azadians, Azad is the epitome of SeriousBusiness, involving life-and-death stakes, while to Gurgeh it's nothing more than an interesting game. Since Gurgeh quitting the Azad tournament is not in accordance with [[TheChessmaster Special Circumstances']] plans, his [[TheHandler Handler]] takes him on a quick tour of the city that amounts to a kick the dog moment for the entire [[TheEmpire Empire of Azad]]. The [[LetsGetDangerous result]] is exactly what SC wanted.
* In ''The Curious Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde'', the very first time Hyde is described, he is seen by the narrator walking down a street and running into and trampling a girl without so much as breaking stride. Fits the trope even more appropriately because for Hyde, there was no real hostile intent behind the action: she just happened to be in his way while he was walking.
*In ''The Knife of Never Letting Go'' it practically becomes a running theme that any villain in the book will hurt the main character's pet dog. [[spoiler: First one man cuts half of his tail off while trying to kill his master, another kicks him in the face so hard that it injures his eye and breaks some of his teeth, and ultimately the BigBad kills him by snapping his neck.]]
* In order to ensure that we don't sympathise too much with Alaric from the ''{{Warhammer 40000}} GreyKnights'' novels, who is otherwise pretty much a "pure white" hero, he spouts stolid KnightTemplar dogmatisms from time to time, such as threatening a techpriest with death for admiring some advanced technology unavailable to the Imperium.
* John Wyndham's ''Midwich Cuckoos'' kill a dog and a bull that respectively bit and chased one of their number.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* In the SNL skit "Natalie Portman Rap", Natalie says: "I'll kill your fuckin dog for fun so don't push me!"
* As above, horror anthologies are particularly prone to this. ''TalesFromTheCrypt'', ''{{Monsters}}'', ''TheOuterLimits'', ''TheTwilightZone'', and so on all did it from time to time.
* ''{{MacGyver}}'' was romanced by a female assassin. How were we told that she wasn't going to be charmed by his goodness and turn good? She killed a dog.
* Likewise, the charming suitor of a friend of the family on ''SeventhHeaven'' was revealed to be a wife beater after he threatened to kill a dog.
* In the pilot of the teen drama ''HiddenPalms'', Cliff is revealed as being unhinged when he is shown kicking a pug.
* In the miniseries which launched the [[ReVision reimagined]] ''BattlestarGalactica'', Caprica Six's villainy is announced when she kills a baby seconds into her first onscreen appearance. However, in a move typical of the series' tendency to favour moral complexity over black and white morality, on her reintroduction during the second season, Caprica develops into a much more layered and sympathetic character. Despite her having not only [[KickTheDog kicked the dog]] but committed genocide. On the third hand, it was [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation often theorized]] that Caprica had killed the baby out of either dispassionate curiosity, or even a strange desire to save the baby from its inevitable death in a nuclear holocaust.
** To this troper it seemed like a pure accident. She was fascinated how such a frail neck could support the big head, and in the process of feeling its durability, she found out that it wasn't quite as strong as she thought.
** In the DVD commentary, it was revealed that the scene was a strong candidate for being cut in editing--however, the actress, Tricia Helfer, had such a strong expression of ambiguous guilt and grief walking away from the site of the killing that it was kept.
** A lot of fans thought that Tom Zarek [[spoiler:ordering the execution of the entire Quorum of Twelve]] during TheMutiny fit this trope, even though his ruthless action makes sense in a coup where you have to seize power first and worry about how it looks afterwards. The problem was while Zarek had been ''accused'' of any number of nefarious deeds, the audience had never actually seen him commit an atrocity until that point.
* On ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Giles' books contain an anecdote about Angelus nailing a puppy to the wall. Buffy finds such a story shocking enough that she refuses to let Giles tell her any details, saying, "I don't have a puppy. So skip it!"
** Also, it was on Valentine's Day.
** Angel, Drusilla, and Spike then spend several episodes announcing that they are feeding on puppies and babies ForTheEvulz. Mostly OffstageVillainy, but Drusilla did carry around a puppy for the express purpose of feeding on it later.
** Later, after much BaddassDecay, a defanged Spike keeps his hand in the evil game by dealing black market kittens to demons.
** In another episode (or the same one, possibly) Buffy witnesses a poker game among demons, where they use kittens instead of money. At this point, Buffy has become so jaded that she just remarks, "Why don't they just gamble with money and buy the kittens themselves?" She then gets a hold of herself and liberates the kittens.
* In one episode of ''{{Hustle}}'', the crew are conning a woman seeking vengeance on her ex-husband. One of the reasons they take his side is that she killed his dog.
* Agent Dobson's [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown hitting of an already-unconscious Shepherd Book]] in the ''{{Firefly}}'' pilot was a very intentional KickTheDog moment (and is [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] as such in the commentary track), designed to make Mal gunning him down without a second thought as he heads back on board later go down easier with the audience.
** Soon fortified when he threatened to shoot [[TheCutie Kaylee]] in the throat, after already almost killing her once by accident.
** Not to mention that he spends the entire scene before Mal takes him down [[PutDownYourGunAndStepAway pointing a gun at the head of a traumatized, terrified River]], who's on the verge of tears the whole time. And Jayne indicates that Dobson knew what the Alliance [[MindRape had done to River]], and was ''still'' intending to bring her back to the Academy so they could keep experimenting on her. So yeah, Dobson. Good luck on getting those sympathy points, man.
** To be fair he might not have known: "I know what you did for your sister, that doesn't make you a killer." While that was likely a by the book attempt at manipulation, could anyone really be confident if he knew? On the other hand he did earlier call River a "precious commodity" (which may not have been very bright either under the circumstances).
*** Dobson was not just mean, he was incompetent at his job and he broke under pressure far less then the main characters (who were not professional agents except for Book in his MysteriousPast) ever had to face. Which qualifies him as a DirtyCoward.
** Jubal Early from "Objects in Space" very quickly goes from witty BadAss BountyHunter to [[CompleteMonster unpleasant bastard]] right around the time he ties up and threatens to rape Kaylee.
*** At least Early was doing this for functional reasons. I thought Jayne's constant insulting and harrasing a disturbed person in front of her and her big brother for no particular reason was rather despicable. But I never liked Jayne and indeed his point was really to be hyperbolically repulsive.
* In an episode of ''{{Hercules The Legendary Journeys}}'', Hercules goes to the underworld where he briefly unites with his wife and children who were murdered by Hera. The family dog is there too. As Kevin Sorbo says in the commentary "You can tell she's evil. She killed my dog too!"
* The minor character of Devo Damars from the 1991 ''Beverly Hills, 90210'' episode "Ashes To Ashes". (Quote from ''TelevisionWithoutPity'' Mondos Extra by reviewer Cleophus Wayne: ''Next is the slightly sad spectacle of Devo wearing a loud dress shirt and holding flowers, yogurt, and a bag of tamales while shooing away a small dog that continues to nip at his ankles. It's quite the empowering scenario for any young black man, I must say. Two of Beverly Hills' finest slowly pull up in their patrol car. "Don't you like animals?" they ask.'') Which is apparently enough to get him labeled a troublemaker by the cops, because it ends up with him getting arrested for walking around without a car (gasp!) and not knowing his girlfriend's home address.
* Played for laughs in the pilot episode of ''NewTricks''; DS Sandra Pullman -- a central protagonist of the series, and a decent if uptight police officer -- is forced to shoot a vicious dog that is attacking her during a raid on a triad gang's headquarters. Although the shooting was reasonable and justified given that it was attacking her, the resulting public outcry over the incident completely derails her career and makes her a laughing stock, resulting in her 'promotion' to the head of the [=UCOS=] team. To make matters worse, the incident also kick-started a chain reaction which led to some poor kidnap victim jumping out of a window blindfolded in the process... which everyone ignores, because they're too busy being outraged about the dog.
* If it wasn't any clear after just the first few minutes of ''Damages'', Patricia "Patty" Hewes soon solidifies her reputation as a [[MagnificentBastard magnificent bitch]] by orchestrating this trope as part of a XanatosGambit.
* In ''[[TwentyFour 24]],'' Drazen uses a hostage to get Jack to back down, and then shoots the hostage, either just for the fun of it or to have one less person to keep up with.
* In the fourth season of the HBO series ''[[TheWire The Wire]]'', Marlo Stanfield brazenly walks into a convenience store and steals several small items in full view of a security guard. The guard follows him outside and asks why he would do something so foolish, leading Marlo to deliver one of his most memorable lines ("You think it's one way...but it's the other way"). He then has the guard (who took the job to support his family) murdered for questioning Marlo's actions. Later on in the fifth season, he gains the trust of "Proposition" Joe Stewart, a long-time player in the Baltimore drug trade, and supposedly makes arrangements to get him out of the country to lay low. Joe shows Marlo around his house, commenting on the history of the city. Then, Marlo reveals that he never was going to get him out of the States, and that Joe's nephew sold him out. He then has his enforcer, Chris, execute Joe while he stands watching the entire act.
* The writers behind ''MadMen'' seem to be engaged in a perpetual puppy punting contest. In Season One alone, the charming and unnervingly likable [[MagnificentBastard Don Draper]] brutally humiliates Sterling by sabotaging his meeting with the Nixon campaign in [[VomitIndiscretionShot spectacular fashion]]. This, of course, only comes off as a prank compared to when Don [[DrivenToSuicide drives his loving younger brother to suicide]] by forcing him to accept a bribe to stay out of Draper's life. And all of this is utterly ''blown out of the water'' by [[HelloNurse Joan's]] absolutely brutal subversion of the RomanticTwoGirlFriendship. Not only does she brush off her roommate's heart-wrenching confession with "you've had a hard day," she proceeds to bang a guy right in front of her. Now that's pretty much worth a field goal right there.
** A notable moment involving a literal dog has the seemingly alcoholic Duck Phillips abandoning his dog to get his drink on in peace. Chauncey, we hardly knew ya.
* Betty from ''UglyBetty'' literally kicks a puppy in a daydream she has when she's imagining she's Wilhelmina, the shows resident dog kicker.
* Done literally in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MduR-MzfzdI this]] commercial. The dog did deserve it though.
* ''{{Farscape}}''. In "That Old Black Magic" Crais receives a direct order from Peacekeeper High Command to end his pursuit of John Crichton and return to base. His second-in-command Lt. Teeg destroys the message and assures him that [[HaveYouToldAnyoneElse no one else knows about it]]. Crais repays this loyalty by [[NeckSnap breaking her neck]] to ensure that no one ever will.
* In ''MalcolmInTheMiddle'', Reese has a phenomenally evil moment in "Evacuation" - he barters his way up from having the only plastic cups in the makeshift shelter to, among others, taking a man's watch in exchange for five blankets; giving an old, disabled man a blanket in exchange for his scooter and, eventually, having two diabetics bidding against one another for insulin. INSULIN.
* Played fairly literally in the season finale of ''TrueBlood'', where Drew Marshall [[spoiler: the real name of Rene, who's committed all the murders of the women]] kicks [[spoiler: Sam, who's in his dog form]].
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': In season 3, BigBad Arthur Petrelli, a SmugSnake for the ages, is basically the AnthropomorphicPersonification of dog kicking. Without any other characterization to get in the way, he can truly embody it on this plane. Let's take a look:
** Psychically paralyzes his wife.
** Kills off the most consistently entertaining character.
** Gives his son a hug just to steal his god-like powers
** Keeps threatening to re-cripple Daphne.
** Throws Hiro off a roof.
** Decapitates someone who was being helpful (this didn't sting too much because the other dude didn't have much characterization, it happened off-screen, and he didn't use his bare hands - I guess it would have been too interesting to show him with blood all over his suit).
** Tells a warlord to kill his ''other'' son (who he tried to kill in the past, too).
** Maintains only one tone of voice throughout...and unfortunately, it's ''not'' that of a LargeHam
* Several characters on ''{{Lost}}'' have fulfilled this trope:
** Benjamin Linus has several dog-kicking moments in season 3, in order to build him up as an unsympathetic villain before revealing he is a more complex character. This is best epitimized when Ben shakes a bunny with a pacemaker to death, but later reveals the bunny never had one to begin with.
** Martin Keamy takes [[spoiler:Ben's "daughter" Alex]] hostage in order to coax him out and into imprisonment. Ben tries to call his bluff by saying she means nothing to him. Keamy then emotionlessly shoots her in the head and walks off.
** Phil, an annoying MauveShirt DHARMA Initiative security person, is present while Radzinsky and Horace Goodspeed interrogate Sawyer as to the whereabouts of Kate. When Sawyer won't talk, Phil says he knows a solution, promptly punching Sawyer's girlfriend Juliet in the face. Executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse confirmed this scene was meant to be a kick the dog moment for Phil, and combined with Sawyer's promise to kill Phil for his action, all but confirms Phil will meet an untimely demise.
*** [[spoiler:Which he does]]
* At the end of the ''LegendOfTheSeeker'' episode "Fever," Darken Rahl has a kill the cat moment, a cat he had been cuddling just a second before, after getting a piece of particularly bad news. Bad Darken Rahl!
* In the ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' "Datalore", Lore, after changing clothes with Data and leaving him unconscious, then kicks him in the head, showing the viewers just how much a bad guy Data's EvilTwin was.
* In the ''DoctorWho'' episode "Utopia", [[spoiler: the newly awakened Master]] immediately demonstrates his competence as a villain by shutting his enemies out of the control centre and setting the Futurekind on them. However, his KickTheDog moment comes when his longtime loyal assistant Chantho threatens to stop him with a gun. He turns on her with an exposed electric cable with the chilling remark, "Oh ... now I can say I was ''provoked''."
** And, amazingly, the episode "The Waters of Mars" dares to do this to the much-beloved ''Tenth Doctor himself''. The Doctor's declaration of himself as the [[AGodAmI "Time Lord victorious"]] who can choose [[MoralEventHorizon who deserves to live or die]] is a conscious effort to prepare viewers for the fact that the Doctor's approaching [[TheNthDoctor regeneration]] is neccesary and [[IncrediblyLamePun timely]]. The Doctor is even [[WhatTheHellHero called on it]] by the very woman he is saving, and [[spoiler: her subsequent suicide]] pulls him up sharply (although the episode ends on an ambiguous note, so we're not sure if he [[WhatHaveIDone accepted]] or [[IgnoredEpiphany ignored]] this revelation).
* Conner Temple of ''{{Primeval}}'' thought he'd got a stroke of good fortune when he met hot geek [[TheMole Caroline Steel]]...that is of course until she stuck the team mascot, and adorable lizard by the name of Rex, in the refrigerator attempting to freeze him to death and exposing herself to everyone (except naive Conner) as a stone-cold bitch.
* After veering back and forth for three seasons of ''ArrestedDevelopment'', George and Lucille Bluth cement themselves as unlikable people after learning that a woman Michael is on the verge of marrying is both mentally retarded and incredibly wealthy; they opt to conceal these facts from Michael and speed the wedding along, in the hopes that they can exploit her in order to restore their own fortune. This is only topped in the SeriesFinale when [[spoiler: Lucille reveals that they only adopted Lindsey as a gesture of spite towards [[SitcomArchNemesis Stan Sitwell]]. She freely admits that they never actully wanted Lindsey, and kept her adoption a secret (raising her as Michael's twin) to preserve their own image. This fact puts Lucille's [[AbusiveParents psychological abuse]] of Lindsey in a much darker light.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* '''Triple H''' from {{WWE}} ''Monday Night Raw'' joked about this trope saying, "I'm gonna beat Batista like a bag of puppies."
** Trips is quite good at forcing {{Heel Face Turn}}s doing this, especially if it looks like he'd become a good guy himself. However, GenreSavvy Batista didn't suffer the same fate as Randy Orton (and a year later, Ric Flair) did.
* Authority figures in ProfessionalWrestling often KickTheDog by placing commentators, referees, valets, and other non-wrestlers into wrestling matches with particularly brutal heels (villains), who then proceed to [[SquashMatch demolish the hapless non-wrestler with glee]]. This is a sort of double-dog-kick, as it serves as a kick-the-dog moment for both the authority figure and the wrestler who does his dirty work.
** An example of a wrestler bullying a commentator was used to kick off The Undertaker's most recent FaceHeelTurn in late 2001, when The Undertaker forced Jim Ross to join Vince [=McMahon=]'s Kiss My Ass club.
*** Taker's first HeelFaceTurn was brought about by then partner Jake "the Snake" Roberts trying to take a steel chair to Miss Elizabeth, the wife and manager of "Macho Man" Randy Savage, with whom he had a serious feud.
* More literal, when Chris Jericho needed to make a FaceHeelTurn before his [=WrestleMania=] match against HHH, he was given the responsibility of watching over HHH's dog. His negligence of the dog led to its OffCameraDeath.
** Jericho had been a heel for half a year prior to that SoBadItsHorrible angle, though.
* Another method for this involves a tag team or stable splitting with one member pulling a FaceHeelTurn and absolutely brutalizing his partner for whatever petty reason the new villain has been stewing over. Examples include Edge and Christian, Shawn Michaels and Marty Jenetty, the Hardys (at least twice), Jericho and the WWE team during Survivor Series 2001, Rey Mysterio/Eddie Guerrero (again, at least twice), Rey Mysterio/Chavo Guerrero, Rey Mysterio/Spike Dudley...
** Let's not even go into how many of these Rey's gotten. Big Show slamming him into the turnbuckle while in a stretcher, Eddie Guerrero's brutal FaceHeelTurn...really sucks to be the smallest fish in a tank full of piranhas, especially when the Cruiserwight Title's been dropped.
* Randy Orton from 2006 onwards. Talk about a GenerationXerox...and he takes it one step further by having a punt as his other FinishingMove.
* Matt Hardy turned on his brother Jeff by knocking him in the head and costing him his first-ever WWE Championship against their mortal enemy, Edge. Jeff refused to fight him. Matt verbally assaulted and berated Jeff for two weeks and beat up a mutual friend mercilessly. Jeff refused to fight him. Matt called Jeff out and backhanded him to the ground. Jeff refused to fight him. Matt cost Jeff a chance to be in the Money In The Bank Ladder Match at Wrestlemania 25. Jeff STILL refused to fight him. Then Matt came out, carrying the burnt collar of Jeff's dead dog, and admitted he was the one who had killed Jeff's dog (and burnt his house and tried to kill him several times, but it was mostly about the dog here). At this point, Jeff finally snaps and proceeds to open the proverbial can of whoopass.
** What the hell? He never admitted to trying to KILL Jeff Hardy or having burned his house down.
*** He didn't flat out say it, but the implication was so heavy that you couldn't really take it to mean anything else. At any rate, his mention of the dog was still what finally pushed Jeff over the edge.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* This scene in the continuing examples in ''BlissStage'':
-->[[JerkAss Keenan]] [[HandsomeLech Caine]]: Man, [[{{Moe}} Sara]] is getting all girly and clingy and shit...lousy lay, too.\\
[[MurderTheHypotenuse Josh Preston: Fuck. That. Noise.]]
* Surprisingly rare in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}''. KickTheDog barely ''begins'' to describe the treatment of choice for civilians, cute fluffy critters, and even ''entire planets''. Even MoralEventHorizon barely begins to cover it.
* In MagicTheGathering's Weatherlight saga, Greven il-Vec threw Vhati il-Dal overboard. The set's designers admitted that they created Vhati just so Greven could kill him and show how evil he was.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Theatre]]
* {{Stephen Sondheim}}'s ''Assassins'': Sarah Jane Moore shoots her dog for barking, then stuffs the dead dog in her purse -- but it's played for laughs.
** As far as marking her as a credible threat goes, Sarah Jane's real KickTheDog moment is when she turns her gun on ''her infant son'', because he wanted an ice-cream. Thankfully, she doesn't pull the trigger.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''[[SlyCooper Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves]]'', during a briefing in the "Cold Alliance" episode, Bentley remarks that he saw bad guy General Tsao "kick a puppy, ''twice''!" Taken less literally, Tsao also [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain shows himself to be a misogynist]] when Sly confronts him about his plans to marry the Panda King's daughter in a ShotgunWedding.
-->'''Sly:''' She doesn't want to marry you!
-->'''Tsao:''' She's a woman, she doesn't know up from down.
** Ironically enough, the Panda King got a moment of his own in the first game when he caused a village to be destroyed by an avalanche when testing out his fireworks.
* ''[[Borderlands]]'': You're told to get an important macguffin from a bandit leader named Krom. You know nothing about him except for that. Problem is, he's the first major villain that doesn't wear a mask, so players might think he has some secret, sympathetic past. What's the very first thing he does when you see him? Shoot a cowering Claptrap in the face and push it off a cliff. He. Must. Die.
* ''SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters'' Just... Soul Nomad. If anyone would like to try and list all the stuff that goes on even WITHOUT counting [[spoiler:Demon Path]] BE THIS ONE'S GUEST!
** At one point you meet Hawthorne, an influential merchant; his daughter, Tricia, is an archer who joins your party. But then you find out that [[spoiler:Tricia is the most recent of about half a dozen "daughters" Hawthorne ''bought from a child slavery ring'', the others all having "disappeared" sometime before their 17th birthdays]]. Of course, it does make you feel a little better about [[spoiler:Hawthorne being killed in front of you]]. This plotline only gets worse in the spoiler-blocked thing mentioned above.
** The Thurists (cultists who worship a World Eater) [[spoiler: infect towns with a deadly plague because their "god" tells them to]]. But the real KickTheDog moment comes where Kanan reveals that [[spoiler:10 years ago she killed young Danette's parents]]. Then [[ViewerGenderConfusion he]] laughs about it.
** [[spoiler: Levin]], whom you originally believe is your ally, [[spoiler:attacks Layna, reveals that he's a World Eater and reveals that he killed his sister Euphoria]]. Then, to add insult to injury, [[spoiler:he resurrects Euphoria just long enough to rub in the fact that she was a soulless puppet and Endorph was a chump for falling for her. On top of the shaming and asskicking Gig and company dish out before this insult, he wins the grand prize from Endorph afterward -- one [[PhantomBrave Psycho Burgundy]] to put him to final rest.]]
** [[spoiler:Gamma and Joules' entire HannibalLecture, which is followed by their attempt to devour Feinne purely for power]].
* ''TalesOfSymphonia'' has several; all of the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Desian Grand Cardials]] get at least one involving doing some manner of nasty stuff to an InnocentBystander, and [[spoiler:Mithos]] gets a particularly {{anvilicious}} one when he's revealed as a villain by nearly killing one of his former {{nakama}} and [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown kicking him while he lies defenceless on the floor]] while [[EvilLaugh laughing evilly]].
** This game also features a literal version of this trope as [[spoiler:Colette kicks a dog after having lost her humanity at the Tower of Salvation. This is not done to portray her as a Heel, but to underscore the fact that her personality as gone, as she is the game's dog lover.]]
* In ''{{Snatcher}}'', a pair of the titular RidiculouslyHumanRobots attempt to search Katrina's house for a list of Snatcher-run hospitals hidden there. When they fail to find it, they slaughter her dog, Alice, gut it violently, and throw it through Katrina's window, entrails hanging out. In the original Japanese, uncensored version, [[{{Squick}} it's still twitching]].
* In ''[[JakAndDaxter Jak II]]'', the Krimzon Guard -- a fascist organization led by Baron Praxis -- that holds Haven City in the grip of oppression at least seems to have a redeeming trait in that they keep it safe from the monstrous Metal Heads. Then, partway through the game, you find out that they've been [[MonsterProtectionRacket bribing the Metal Heads to make ineffectual attacks for them to thwart]] -- rather than staying quiet until they can stage an effective assault -- in order to justify their brutal rule as necessary in face of this danger. Because, y'know, just being fascists who tortured the main character for two years didn't make them bad enough.
** And in the first cutscene after Jak escapes prison, you get this little gem.
-->'''Krimzon Guard:''' By order of his eminence, the Grand Protector of Haven City, Baron Praxis, everyone in this section is hereby under arrest for suspicion of harboring underground fugitives. Surrender and die!\\
'''Daxter:''' Ahh, excuse me sir, don't you mean surrender ''OR'' die?\\
'''Kor:''' Not in this city!
* ''TheWorldEndsWithYou''. Oh, where to ''begin''...
** Megumi Kitanji has one [[EstablishingCharacterMoment the]] ''[[EstablishingCharacterMoment instant]]'' [[EstablishingCharacterMoment he introduces himself to the players]], [[spoiler:saying that Neku's entry fee is now Shiki, so instead of restoring her to life like the Reaper's Game promises, he instead sends her to a state of limbo, on pain of death if Neku loses]]. That in itself was a jerk move, but he later ''blantantly abuses the rules he's supposed to uphold'' when he [[spoiler:says that now ''every single player'' is now Neku's entry fee, so he puts ''all'' thier lives on the line, ''when Neku needs them to even play the Game without getting killed'']]. Is it any wonder he's listed in TWEWY's own entry as a ''JerkAss''?
*** It's stated in the Secret Reports later that [[spoiler:Kitaniji is actually a step below the guy who actually has the power to revive the fallen who win the Game, and was using Shiki's instatement as Neku's entry fee to cover that up.]] The [[{{Jerkass}} jerkery]] still holds [[spoiler:about using every other Player as Neku's entry fee for the final week. He's just very fortunate [[HeelFaceTurn Beat]] was the only Reaper who didn't have intentions of leaving his ass out to dry]].
** Let's not forget Mitsuki Konishi, resident passive-aggressive [[TheBaroness Baroness]]. In her chapter, she crushes Beat's cute pet Noise into a pin [[spoiler:just ''minutes'' after we found out said pet Noise was Rhyme after being BlessedWithSuck so that Beat could resurrect her in human form]]...[[PsychoticSmirk All with a grin on her face]].
* In ''FinalFantasyVIII'', Seifer actually goes and kicks a mongrel the first time he's in the party.
* In ''FireEmblem 7'', TheVamp Sonia sends her daughter Nino and teenage contract-killer Jaffar to kill the Prince of Bern for [[BigBad Lord Negal]]. She also gives Jaffar an order to kill ''Nino'', then [[OmniscientMoralityLicense justifies it]] HannibalLecture style by saying that the Prince's killer must be killed to avoid panic in Bern. Nino and Jaffar don't go through with it, and actually [[DefectorFromDecadence defect to your side]] after a QuirkyMinibossSquad member runs her mouth about Sonia's plan in front of Nino.
** Even worse was the fact that she just promised Nino that she would hug her, ''just once'', if she finished the mission. Worse still, she kills her foster father and reveals that she killed her entire family of mages when she was a baby, by using her as a human shield. Making her a combination of Adolf Hitler and Lord Voldemort.
** And from the same game, just in case you didn't know that [[WellDoneSonGuy Prince Zephiel]]'s father Desmond was one huge bastard, they show him ordering a baby fox to be killed. A baby fox! A baby fox Zephiel had given to his baby sister Guinevere! And Guinevere was Daddy's favorite!
*** This editor was actually thrilled to learn that [[spoiler: Zephiel grew up to kill his father, after Daddy tried to kill him ''again''.]] Does that make me a bad person?
**** What made it awesome is ''how'' [[spoiler: Zephiel killed him. Basically he faked his own death and when his father came up to his coffin during his "funeral" [[NotQuiteDead Zephiel jumped out and stabbed him]].]] '''Awesome'''.
* In the John Woo game ''Stranglehold'', BigBad Mr. James Wong is shown early on to be an utter bastard when he reveals during his meeting with Tequila that he intimidated his own daughter Billie into breaking up with the CowboyCop on pain of death eighteen years ago while she was still pregnant with their daughter Teko -- and ordering a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown on Tequila on top of it. Eighteen years later, after charging Tequila with the task of rescuing her and Teko from the Zakarovs and the Golden Kane, Wong decides to stick the knife in by [[spoiler: ordering Tequila's own partner Jerry to betray Tequila by murdering Billie after Tequila took out Damon Zakarov and trying to kill him as well, both to protect his syndicate (Damon had threatened to force Billie to reveal everyone on the payroll of her father's syndicate in order to keep Damon from killing Teko) and to deny Tequila the woman he loved forever in true rat bastard fashion]].
* Most of the later assassins in ''NoMoreHeroes'' enjoy kicking the nearest canine. Since the viewpoint character isn't exactly a friend to all living things, this is probably there to justify the bad guy's eventual gory deaths.
** Number 2, [[spoiler:Bad Girl, states that she feels no remorse about killing anyone while slaughtering clones for fun]], Number 3, [[spoiler:Speed Buster, kills a major trainer in a rather messy manner]], and Number 7, [[spoiler: DestroyMan, cheats so consistently it's remarkable.]]
** As a twist, a good bunch do ''not'' kick the dog, however. In comparison...
* In ''[[AssassinsCreed Assassin's Creed]]'', every single Templar that you're assigned to kill gets at least one KickTheDog moment (breaking a test-subject's legs, pushing somebody into a pile of burning books, murdering a priest out of paranoia, etc.) before you kill him.
** Except, of course, for the slave trader. Because do you really need any other reason to kill a slave trader?
** Apparently horrible storage conditions for the slaves, as mentioned on this very wiki. "Even Altair seems vaguely appalled."
* Oh, sweet Jesus, I get to be the one who mentions this! In ''{{Overlord}}'', you have a tower, which, naturally, is your base of operations, housing an armory, a forge, even a private chamber for your mistress. It also features a jester, (a brown in a jester's outfit, kinda like a toned-down MonsterClown,) who will laud your various accomplishments, and whom you can kick in the head. It serves no purpose, has no effect on your corruption meter, and if you do it enough, the jester will cower in fear of your mighty boot, and later comment on how mean you are to jesters. But you are supposed to be an EvilOverlord, and the fact is, the game lets you do some pretty, ''ughh'', [[AntiHero heroic deeds]]. So you need to kick the jester, to prove to yourself that you're still evil.
* In ''DestroyAllHumans 2'', Crypto panders to the Black Ninjas by saying that the Furon god Arkvoodle (Or "Darkvoodle," as the ninjas put it) is so evil that he eats kittens for breakfast, and that he's hungry now and wonders if they have any kittens. The Black Ninjas are unimpressed, saying that they eat babies for breakfast.
* In ''The Bard's Tale'', if you decided to adopt the cute puppy that the Bard will show some actual affection for -- a Druid stops the group to allow their Griffith to stomp on the dog, breaking the poor thing's spine as it gave a pained cry. A literal {{Kick The Dog}} and {{Player Punch}} in one swoop. Cue this troper giving the boss as much painful looking action as she can.
* ''CallOfDuty 4'' makes it a point to ensure the player won't feel any sympathy for either Khaled al-Asad's revolutionaries or Imran Zakhaev's Ultranationalists. Al-Asad's troops do such pleasant things as mass-executing civilians in broad daylight, publicly executing President Yasir al-Fulani on national television, and [[spoiler: detonating a nuclear bomb inside his own city.]] Zakhaev's Ultranationalists routinely murder civilians, bomb civilian villages indiscriminately, and conduct another mass execution in a village for no apparent reason except to be complete bastards.
** The Ultranationalists murder the civilians because they don't want to take the chance that the civilians will rebel and damage their long-range bombardment equipment. They bombard other villages and targets to try and defeat Loyalist forces. And they perform the second mass execution so that they can use the village to hide [[spoiler: Al-Asad]] without fear of being discovered. Sure, they're all evil reasons, but they're not indiscriminate. [[spoiler: Firing the nuclear missiles at the US, now ''THAT'' is a KickTheDog moment.]]
*** WELCOME TO REALITY!
* The announcers in ''{{Gradius}} Gaiden'' will give you words of encouragement if you run out of lives early on, but later on, they rub your defeat in your face with more disparaging comments:
--> "Poor boy..."
--> "Get outta here, forget about it!"
--> "Hahahahaha!"
* The first thing a minor villain does during his introduction in ''{{Fable}} 2'' is kick the player's dog.
** That bit-part bandit is nothing compared to Reaver's puppy-punting spree. Upon his introduction, [[spoiler:he kills a sculptor and an artist trying to capture his likeness, sends you off to get your soul drained by {CosmicHorror ancient demons} so he can stay eternally youthful, kills a character you've known since childhood, and then informs you cheerfully he's just betrayed you to the very person who...dammit, Lucien needs a new section.]]
*** The stories around Lord Lucien in your childhood depict him as a noble, if somewhat eccentric man. In fact, he even offers to adopt you and your sister, both homeless orphans... [[spoiler:unless he gets exactly the result he does get from a simple test which reveals that the two of you have the blood of heroes, at which point he shoots your helpless, unarmed sister in the head, and then shoots you in the chest, sending you out a window in a tall tower.]] You get better. After this point, he becomes a fairly standard BigBad, but at the end of the storyline he reveals that [[spoiler:again, to try to cut off the heroic bloodline, he's personally murdered your spouse and any children you have, and then literally [[ShootTheDog kills your dog]] when it takes a bullet to save your life.]]
*** Sometimes when a villager sees your dog, he/she will taunt your dog and then kicks the dog in the face.
* In ''SuperRobotWars Original Generation 2'', Archibald Grims (a recurring enemy character for the first part of the game) merely comes off as a minor {{Jerkass}}. It's not until you've fought him a few times that you find out that he actually is a sociopath -- his solution to digging up a rumored lost-technology giant robot is to bomb the area, blasting away the sand covering the robot as well as the pesky civilians who were digging it up the hard way. A subordinate even tries to reason with him, and Archibald seems to consider for a moment.
--> "I see. Yuuki, are you trying to say you don't like unnecessary bloodshed?"
--> "Not in this situation, Sir."
--> "What a shame. But I do. Especially from non-combatants!" (Cue maniacal laughter and screamy civilians)
** Axel Almer also performs this when he tore Alt Eisen's arm just so he can get a trophy and proof for beating his nemesis. This only happens in the GBA version, though. In the remake, [[JustifiedTrope he just does that as a precaution if this Kyosuke is the same with Beowulf.]]
*''WorldOfWarcraft'': Choose a Blood Elf in ''The Burning Crusade'', and you're required to kick many dogs (or cats, as it may be.) Play a death knight in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', all you do under the Lich King's control is kick dogs -- [[spoiler:oh, and kill your best friend]].
** Also in the opening cinematic a Blood Elf cuddles with a small magical creature, only to destroy it so she can absorb its mana.
*''JadeEmpire'' lets you indulge in a little dog-kicking, if you're evil enough. When your karma meter hits rock bottom, the cute little dogs running around in the background become targetable - interacting with them lets you kick them, making them explode, and drops a health power-up.
*''BioShock'' does this indirectly in an event that could also be considered a [[MoralEventHorizon Moral Event Horizon]]. Dr. Suchong [[spoiler:forces the protagonist, Jack, who was a genetically conditioned child in Rapture to snap his new puppy's neck. Jack is mentally conditioned to obey him, even though the child protests profusely.]] This just demonstrates how much of a huge dick Dr. Suchong was.
*In the Japanese dub of ''MegaManLegends'' (Dubbed Rockman Dash in Japan), when you reach a scene where you have to get the dog Paprika away from Tron, players have the option of just merely kicking the dog, causing him to scamper away. Sadly, this is not present in the english dub.
* In ''Planescape: Torment'', you get to experience flashbacks to previous incarnations of your character, the Nameless One. One is dubbed the "Practical" Incarnation. Pretty much everything he does is dog-kicking and MoralEventHorizon-crossing. And yet, it's implied that [[spoiler:something your original self, the Good Incarnation, did before he repented was so far beyond the MoralEventHorizon that the Practical Incarnation is a near saint in comparison.]]
* It's the first thing you see the "protagonist" of ''Postal 2'' do after he gets out of his trailer on Monday morning. And then it gets better. It's just that kind of game.
* ''AceCombat 4: Shattered Skies'' has a cutscene where the Erusean invaders set up an anti-air gun post on top of a hospital in the narrator's hometown. It also reinforces Yellow 13's AntiVillain status by having him be disgusted by this.
** Some Leasath chair forcers from ''X: Skies of Deception'' rain bombs on a defenceless city [[ForTheEvulz just because they can spare the ordnance]]. The Hamlet special forces unit goes as far as to unleash a biochemical agent on Santa Elva in what may be a crossing of the MoralEventHorizon.
* ''{{SaintsRow}} 2''. Boss, the character you play, does a ''lot'' of this.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* [[http://www.vanvonhunter.com/vvh232.html A hilarious literal example]], from the {{webcomic}} ''Van Von Hunter''.
* As soon as the villain, [[spoiler:Frans Rayner]], of the D.A.R.E To Resist Ninja Drugs and Ninja Violence story arc is introduced, he [[http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=18&issue=4 gets into this trope.]] It could be see as his MoralEventHorizon... but they are just mooks [[YouHaveFailedMe who failed him]] because of Dan [=McNinja=]'s IncendiaryExponent.
* This is [[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2006/11/18/episode-771-no-good-deed/ parodied]] in an ''[[EightBitTheater 8-bit Theater]]'' strip.
* At the end of a ''PennyAndAggie'' storyline, Charisma rants to her illegitimate son's face that he exists to ruin her life, after a series of events he had no control over, in front of her boyfriend. Needless to say, he leaves her soon after.
* In ''SluggyFreelance'' Aylee[[spoiler:'s evil clone]] gets one of these after she goes through her corporate executive transformation. She attacks the gang's Halloween party and leaves all the guests unconscious outside and taunts Riff with the knowledge that she can kill him and everyone he knows ''so easily''.
** K'Z'K gets one when he [[DemonicPossession takes over Gwynn's body]] (the second time). Trying to kill Riff, Torg, and Zoe? Well, they ''did'' foil his evil plans; there's some legitimate revenge motivation going on there. [[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=010308 But trying to kill Kiki]], cute TalkingAnimal who [[IncorruptiblePurePureness never means anyone any harm]]? Then you've gotta pay.
* New KnightTemplar Xaphrael kicks the dog within his first half dozen strips in ''{{Misfile}}'' when he nearly chokes resident IneffectualSympatheticVillain Cassiel in [[http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=1062 this strip]] (for doing her best to get Rumsiel in trouble).
** Mileage varies apparently, this Troper views Cassiel as not sympathetic in the slightest, and that Cassiel really should've taken the hint after Vashiel gave the same exact threat quite some time ago. Not to mention, in that case, reporting what Rumsiel did may well have had serious repercussions.
* In ''AwkwardZombie'', the AuthorAvatar [[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic1-090108.php does this literally]].
*[[AristocratsAreEvil Kubota]] from ''OrderOfTheStick'' has kicked several puppies. He not only orders his men to kill a pregnant woman ([[ActionMom which doesn't work that well, but still...]]) wasn't enough, he seals the deal by [[spoiler:poisoning and killing his assistant Therkla, just so he can make an effective escape]]. This last act might even put Kubota [[MoralEventHorizon into even worse territory.]]
** Vaarsuvius [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0597.html threatening Elan with death]] when Elan says that he will not cover up for Vaarsuvius [[spoiler:killing Kubota]]. In addition to suggesting that Elan had an affair with Therkla behind Haley's back. Note that Elan is ''[[AmbiguousGender hir]] team-mate''.
** [[spoiler:Vaarsuvius's first act after making a DealWithTheDevil in the comic could also count as one...as well as a MoralEventHorizon. Killing the dragon in revenge was one thing. Reanimating her so you can use her to kill the dragon's entire family...that was ''seriously'' over the line]].
*** Yet also [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome incredibly awesome]].
*** Perhaps not quite a MoralEventHorizon. The character is still sympathetic, and working to redeem themself. But if there was any doubt of just how evil [[spoiler:Haerta was in life...]]
** Seriously? No one's mentioned Xykon yet? He kicks the dog in almost every strip he's in.
* Very literal instance in ''GeneralProtectionFault'', in [[http://www.gpf-comics.com/archive.php?d=19990101 one of Trudy's earliest appearances]], complete with [[GigglingVillain giggle]]. This turns out to be one of her ''nicer'' traits as the strip progresses.
* Belkar constantly complains about not getting to kick any dogs. Although, he does eventually cross the line with his teammates when he kills the oracle.
* ''QuestionableContent''. [[http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1307 Sven.]] Not funny, Jeph. Not funny.
* MinionsAtWork. [[http://www.minionsatwork.com/2009/03/minions-153-freshly-cribbed.html Well, I don't feel really good about who we stole the candy from but you have to admit . . . it was easy]].
* Misty Snow from {{Shadowgirls}}. She was racist in the age of 5, and when she grew up, she becomes a teenage [[TheLibby Queen]] of {{Jerkass}}. Her biggest feat in kicking a dog? She [[spoiler: made Lin betray her best friend Becka for popularity, and led her in a trap, but instead of embarrassing her in public, like Lin thought it would end, Becka almost gets ''raped'' by three guys. And Misty was meanwhile playing with Lin's guilt, and thinking about it made [[FateWorseThanDeath Fate Worse Than Death]] even worse.]]
** And if you think Misty's bad, just wait until [[spoiler: she becomes [[DemonicPossession Possessed By]] [[GodOfEvil Mother]] [[EldrichAbomination Hydra]], who surpasses her in kicking a dog like hell. And she has [[http://www.shadowgirlscomic.com/comics/con-recoverage-part-one/ this]] promo art.]]
* Several times in ''SlightlyDamned'':
** First, we have the as-yet unnamed [[KnightOfCerebus hooded archer]], whose first action in the story is to [[spoiler:kill Sakido]].
** Shortly afterwards, we're introduced to Lazuli and Talos, two demons who got their kicks out of tormenting Kieri.
** And shortly after ''that'', we learn Kieri's bunny form was a curse from a rabbit spirit (go figure), who did it to her for the lulz.
*For the first part of {{RPG World}} Galgarion is comes across as a [[LaughablyEvil comical]] somewhat [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain harmless]] villain. But as CerebusSyndrome set in, Galgy got several suprisingly evil moments, including his [[http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20020619.html attack on the Mubble village]], the [[http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20030212.html slaughter of a turncoat henchman's family]] and finally [[spoiler: [[http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20030824.html murdering Reka.]]]] Some or all of these might count as crossing the MoralEventHorizon as well.
* The Chosen of Battles in KeychainOfCreation. When she first shows up, her moral status is indeterminate: sure, she's trying to sequester the group's precious artifact, but it had just been stolen by the villains for world-ending purposes. Then, after one of the team gets it back, the Chosen of Battles looks like she's ready to throw down on the group -- until Marena points out that that [[http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0238.html would be illegal]]. Fortunately, the conundrum of whether we're supposed to sympathize with the Chosen of Battles or not is solved in the very [[http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0239.html very next strip]], as she immediately chooses to try and steal the artifact and bait the rest of the group into attacking her first (so she can "defend" herself) by attempting to behead Secret, on the legal technicality that even though she is a defector from team evil and working for the protagonists, she's still an Abyssal Exalted. Going straight for [[TheWoobie the Woobie's]] neck just to get around a bureaucratic roadblock in your path is what we call "a signal".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* Appears on ''HomestarRunner'', in Teen Girl Squad Issue 11. So-and-So is getting chewed out by her obnoxious manager at Shirt Folding Store when the manager is suddenly punched out by an astronaut ("MEET A FIST!"). The explanation for this behavior?
-->'''Astronaut:''' *ckhk* She killed my dog.
-->'''So-and-So:''' Um... 'kay.
** Also referenced in the Strong Bad Email [[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail193.html rated]], where Strong Bad claims that some of his favorite movies have been banned in Transylvania, "where you're required by law to eat puppies for breakfast."
**Strong Bad is also known to kick The Cheat, even though he's not really a bad guy.
* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcbazH6aE2g Richard kicks a dog, literally]].
* Flint, BigBad of ''Bunny Kill 4'', does this big time when he [[spoiler:kills Ruby, Snowball's potential love interest.]] Oddly enough, this makes him the only BigBad of the series to do something truly villainous onscreen.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* In the fanfic KingdomHearts: The Short and Honest version (found in the [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanficRecs/KingdomHearts fanfic recs/ page]]) Clayton from [[{{Tarzan}} Deep Jungle]] mentions "punting a few puppies off a cliff".
* In the animation [[http://www.ninjai.com/ Ninjai]] the bigbad for no real reason what-so-ever attacks the hero's little bird friend. The bird get's his own back though.
* ''{{TheSagaOfTuck}}'''s Principal Nickerson has no qualms about assigning detention to students who skip class to commit suicide. Just so you know how badly he deserves the RoaringRampageOfRevenge.
* ''SurvivalOfTheFittest'' character [[TheAtoner JJ Sturn]]: [[http://z10.invisionfree.com/SOTF_V2/index.php?showtopic=3091&st=0 This (NSFW)]] thread.
** To summarize: He has sex for one last time with his girlfriend (Rosa Fiametta), then breaks up with her while insulting her. She slaps him, and then he decides to [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beat the crap out of her]] while continuing to insult her. He's TheAtoner for a reason.
* In the video [[http://www.bchealthcoalition.ca/content/view/228 The Unspeakable Deeds of Bill 42]], it's not enough for the character representing the bill to fine people for meeting to air their grievances. He has to up the evil quotient by deliberately knocking over a woman's crutches.
* At SuperHeroSchool Whateley Academy in the WhateleyUniverse, the head of the Alphas, Don Sebastiano, is the master of this. As an example, he tells Hekate how he can handle a deviser, and demonstrates by destroying a different deviser's invention in such a way that nearby girls think the deviser was attacking them. Best part? Said deviser is known around campus to be mentally ill. What a classy guy.
* In a recent episode of YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries, Marik mentions that he once kicked a puppy. "And it was very cute".
** Actually, that was bakura (he ''killed'' the puppy). Marik [[MoralEventHorizon banned teamfourstar]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* BugsBunny and similar LooneyTunes characters usually wait until someone does this to start tormenting them.
** ''{{Animaniacs}}'' once broke the FourthWall, in an episode featuring a nice but overbearing nanny who smothered the Warner Brothers and their Sister Dot. Wakko Warner almost hits her with a "funny" mallet, but then walks away dejected because he can't bring himself to do it. The story cuts to a father watching the episode with his son, and he explains this very trope.
*** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PujUHjFb2_k Thankfully, Slappy Squirrel has no problem with kicking puppies. Or blowing them up. A rare example of KickTheDog being applauded]]
* Spoofed in one of the episodes of ''{{The Tick}}'', when the heroes pretend to be villains, up to a point where they are confronted and asked to literally eat some kittens to prove they are evil. They refuse, blowing the cover.
* In ''FamilyGuy'', an evil corporate boss almost performs it literally. After saying his evil plans to instigate children to smoke out loud, he pets a dog and, seconds later, throws the dog out of the window and shoots it instead of kicking.
* ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'':
** Princess Azula's very first scene and her memorable exchange of dialogue with her Captain served to support what the writers had announced about her before, that unlike her brother, Azula is no sympathetic AntiVillain but a [[PsychoForHire cold-blooded sociopath]].
** A more classic dog-kicking (more properly, turtle-duck kicking) scene with Azula is a flashback to her as a young girl, throwing rocks at cute innocent little turtle-ducks floating in the palace pond. Given that even as late as the season 3 premiere, the turtle-ducks were shown ''still'' fleeing in panic whenever the older Azula walked near the pond, she seems to have done this a ''lot''.
** She also destroyed a sandcastle in The BeachEpisode.
** Jet was also subject to a [[http://www.iroh.org/screencaps/ep10/ep10-188.png visual]] kicking the dog (feeble old man) moment in his initial appearance.
** When Mai was introduced, she agreed with Azula to back out of a hostage change ''for her own baby brother'', making herself look like a cruelly EmotionlessGirl who doesn't care about anything except obeying Azula because [[spoiler:[[HiddenDepths that's what she wants her to think]].]]
* Played straight with Pizzazz of the Misfits kicking a cat in the first version of "Take A Hike, Jack!" in the ''{{Jem}}'' episode, "Old Meets New."
* In ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'', the Grinch's dog Max suffers many indignities at the Grinch's hand.
* In ''TheSimpsons'' episode "Homer vs. The Eighteenth Amendment", the detective Rex Banner has a kick the dog moment of sorts; he decides to test the catapult with which the town is about to fire Homer out of for violating the law with a harmless cat. This is probably to set it up so that you don't feel very sorry for him [[spoiler: when he gets launched from the catapult a minute later]].
* Porter C. Powell of ''TransformersAnimated'' at the start of season two. Sari's father is missing in action. What does he do? Steals his company, kicks Sari out of her home with nothing but the clothes on her back and informs the poor girl that there's no papers to prove she even ''exists''. Particularly jarring since Sari was the first human sidekick [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap that the audience actually liked]].
* Ursula in the wedding scene of ''TheLittleMermaid'' lays a classic one into Eric's EvilDetectingDog.
** Not to mention when we're first introduced to Ursula, where she's munching on adorable, terrified little shrimp that squeal in her grasp. ''*Shiver.*''
* Syndrome in ''TheIncredibles''. First, he mocks Mr. Incredible for the apparent death of his family. Then, he encourages Mr. Incredible to kill his henchwoman Mirage. Mirage survives, but her respect for her boss doesn't.
** Mr. Huph, Bob's boss at the insurance company, sees a man being beaten and mugged and thinks nothing of it besides "Let's hope we don't cover him!"
* In Disney's version of ''PeterPan'', Captain Hook shoots one of his own men for singing off key. Later, when another mentions that Wendy made no splash after walking the plank (she got rescued by Peter), Hook tosses him overboard just to hear a splash.
* The Sheriff of Nottingham in the Disney version of ''RobinHood'' (who, ironically enough for a Dog Kicker, is a wolf...) goes as far as to steal money from a disabled beggar (who is hiding the money in his cast and he beats his leg to get to it), children, and even from Friar Tuck's church. He does all this with an almost jovial countenance, as if he was just playing an innocent joke... and to top it off, he calls it "his job"!
** Prince John also seems to cross this when he orders Friar Tuck to be hanged [[spoiler: as bait to trap Robin Hood]]. Now, hanging anybody is pretty bad, but Friar Tuck is a man of the church. Even his advisor Sir Hiss seems horrified by this.
* [[TheRescuers "What makes you think anyone would want a homely little girl like you?"]] In a sickeningly sweet voice. After trying to get Penny to ''like'' her.
* Mina and the Count, a cult favorite from the WhatACartoon show on Cartoon Network had the count carelessly smacking a screeching cat away within the first minute of his introduction. Fortunately, he gets his comeuppance in the most hilarious way.
* Cruella de Vil, villain of Disney's ''OneHundredAndOneDalmatians'', has three in one scene. First, she crushes Nanny behind the door as she enters the house. A moment later, she stubs out her cigarette in Anita's cupcake, and follows by flicking ash into her cup of tea.
* Professor Ratigan of ''TheGreatMouseDetective'' casually kicks, knocks over and generally abuses his mice minions while they're singing about how great he is. Mid-song, he EXECUTES one for calling him a rat, then frightens the rest into finishing the song.
* An episode of ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries,'' "A Bullet for Bullock," is a DayInTheLimelight for Bullock that consists largely of Bullock kicking every metaphorical dog he sees. Prior to this episode he seemed like a sour cop who bent the rules a little too much (although he prided himself on never taking a bribe), but he established himself as an absolutely unsympathetic [[JerkAss dick]] when a reporter offered to help him if he waited a few minutes, and he ''rummaged through her office'' instead of waiting.
* ''AquaTeenHungerForce'' - usually the crap Shake pulls is funny, but he crosses the line when he takes Meatwad's adorable pet kitten and fry it in a microwave. Fortunately all the animals he abused come back from the dead and try to ram him into the microwave.
** CrossesTheLineTwice in "The Marines", where Shake ''decapitates a kitten with a jig saw''.
* In ''TeenTitans'', Starfire's sister tries to frame her for a crime ''and'' steal her boyfriend.
** Slade injects the Titans with nanobots to blackmail Robin into being his assistant.
** Control Freak steals James Bond's gadgets, then pushes him off the Eiffel Tower.
* In ''{{Mulan}}'', [[BigBad Shan-Yu]] captures a pair of Chinese scouts (and mockingly congratulates them on finding his army), then lets them go to tell their Emperor he is coming. As they flee, he turns to one of his henchmen, an archer:
--> "How many men does it take to deliver a message?"
--> [nocks arrow] "One."
** Later, after having his pet falcon steal a small item from a nearby village to confirm the presence of the Chinese army there, he orders the attack:
---> "Besides, the little girl will be missing her doll. We should return it to her."
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Truth In Television]]
* As mentioned in PetTheDog, AdolfHitler had a pet dog whom he was very fond of. By the end of the war, he killed it so the Soviets wouldn't get it. Though the writing team of RealLife were probably a little paranoid [[CompleteMonster if they thought that at that point anyone needed reassurance that Hitler was evil]].
** So ShootTheDog then. Both literally and metaphorically.
** To be fair... if the Soviets ever found out it was Hitler's dog... HighOctaneNightmareFuel would ensue. I imagine dog gore would cover every inch of whatever camp it would be brought into. These WERE the same people who had their country raped, pillaged, and obliterated by the Nazis, and after the war was over, they pretty much returned the favor, complete with mass raping German women. Considering Hitler's dog is [[SoYeah not human...]]
** This Troper was told that he did it in order to test if his cyanide capsules worked. He had resently decided that Himmler, the guy who gave them to him, was working against him.
* [[http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2008/07/16/pup-stamper-busted-–-scared-of-chihuahua/ This]]
* [[http://www.thetripwire.com/news/2008/12/05/riaa-wins-8k-default-setlement-against-chronically-ill-teen/ As well as this]].
* [[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/cambridgeshire/8329496.stm/ And again...]]
* All-around excellent guy [[http://encyclopediadramatica.com/David_Motari David Motari]] was booted out of the Marines for pulling a real-life KickTheDog stunt while on a stint in Iraq. Needless to say, he is not well-liked. By anyone.
* Michael Vick, who did far more than just kick his dogs.
[[/folder]]
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