Characters / Housepets! — Dogs

Housepets! by Rick Griffin

Tropes: A to L | M to Z

Main Character Page | Cats | Dogs (Tarot) | Other Animals | Humans | Denizens of Heaven

This is the list of domestic dog characters in the webcomic Housepets!

• Tarot

Peanut Butter Sandwich (Canadian Pointer mix)

Graaaaaaape!

The closest thing the comic has to a main character, The Ditz and All-Loving Hero dog who lives with his sister Grape in Babylon Gardens.

Even as his life grows stranger and stranger, Peanut's character remains firmly rooted; He loves his family, friends, and partner, is a voracious lover of knowledge and pop culture, and looks for simple solutions even when things are mind-numbingly complicated. He's The Heart of the comic, and one of the most well-liked pets in Babylon.

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• Aborted Declaration of Love: Plans one towards Grape (with a dead chicken), but aborts upon hearing her on call with Max to ask him out. They sort of make up for it later.
• Accidental Adultery: When Tarot reveals that she and Dragon are two separate entities (Whereas Peanut assumed Tarot could simply turn into a dragon), he freaks out about the affection he let Dragon give him earlier.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Early on, a lot of dogs in the neighborhood ostracize him for his love of cats. Over time this dislike fades from all but Bino, as he's generally Loved by All for his kindness and fun.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Although Peanut is able to focus on specific issues that he's interested in, it's not that difficult for something to come along that draws away his attention. He has also been known to get into Unusually Uninteresting Sight territory a few times because of it, being completely glued into whatever he has his attention on at the time, missing important key bits of information.
• Babies Ever After: Becomes a father in the final strip.
• Badly Battered Babysitter: Ironically, not from the kids. While sitting King's pups, he becomes convinced there was a fourth child when he started who he has now lost, and he spends the entire day paranoid of such a possibility.
• Been There, Shaped History: A time-travelling Peanut introduces Ancient Egyptians to the story of Star Wars in 5000 BC, which as Sabrina points out, likely means he invented the Hero's Journey as well.
• Better as Friends: Initially with Grape, as the two decide they'd rather pursue other romantic relationships. However, the two become Friends with Benefits later in life, and continue to entertain the other's romantic interest in them.
• Bookworm: Peanut considers himself an avid reader, which is why it surprises him to find Pridelands has slipped under his radar for so long.
• Brother–Sister Incest: See Incest Subtext. Grape and Peanut's familial status is unclear, and the two aren't biologically related, but they're adopted by the same family and refer to each other once or twice as brother and sister.
• Brother–Sister Team: Temple Crashes with Grape at one point, alongside their usual inseparability.
• Brown Bag Mask: Implied to be the progenitor, or at least the one who always draws the symbols on them during Imaginates.
• Brutal Honesty: Never maliciously, but he tends to speak his mind or ask questions without thinking in ways that occasionally bother Tarot or his friends. She notes that 'Brutal honesty is usually your most admirable quality' on one such occasion. He seems to take note of this, as according to the Alt Text during their averted Spaghetti Kiss, he personally thinks it's going to make her fat but chooses not to say it.
• Buffy Speak: Can be prone to this as part of his ditzy personality in general.
  ''Hit the guy! Do a spin jump! Get the thing, Grape! Get the thing!''
• Camp Straight: Despite being emotional, effeminate, and cross-dressing once or twice, Peanut has never been alluded to being anything but straight, and has been with two women.
• Canon Foreigner: When he and the gang do their Pridelands Imaginate, everybody else plays a canon character from the book series. He plays Superdog, his comic book OC.
• Captain Oblivious: Has his moments, such as failing to realize he's standing on a cat's tail for an entire strip. He's also too engrossed in videogames at the time to notice Fido's Anguished Declaration of Love.
• Crazy-Prepared: Sometimes clashes with being The Ditz, but he brings a backup generator to Uncle Reuben's house, and paper bags to Keene's temple crashing for emergency roleplaying (which ends up being helpful).
• Chick Magnet: Surprisingly, a lot of women find him attractive. Grape reciprocates his feelings for her, Tarot ends up dating and having children with him, and Dragon breaks down into tears when he turns down her proposal towards him.
• Cuddle Bug: Many of the TV strips feature him cuddling up to Grape or Tarot on the couch, and outside of them he tends to be a big hugger.
• The Cutie: Peanut’s naive sweetness, tail-wagging Pollyanna-style optimism, and selfless devotion to those he cares about is adorable. Dragon even calls him 'cute one' when they (chronologically) first meet.
• Dissonant Serenity: Spends the first half of the Hot Springs arc in a calm trance induced by accidental pill ingestion.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Falls into a drunken stupor the moment he sees the cats in Rueben's barn.
• Divine Date: Unreciprocated on his end. Dragon briefly falls madly in love with him, which he allowed because he believed her to be another form of Tarot's. Once he clues in that they're two different people and her infatuation becomes more intense, he turns her down.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The thickness of his neck in comparison to other dogs is treated similar to Bigger Is Better in Bed in conjunction with the nudity taboo dogs have around collars in this universe.
• Dogs Are Dumb: Played With. He's definitely not as savvy as Grape, but his native intelligence is well above average. Unless he gets distracted.
• Drool Deluge: As a Dog Stereotype: Peanut first met Grape drooling over the bars of her cage, and a few strips feature Peanut's slobber as a punchline.
• Dumb Is Good: Although most dogs are rather dim in this comic, Peanut's Kindhearted Simpleton tendencies stand out in sharp contrast to smarter members of the species like Duchess, or even King.
• Easily Impressed: Despite being an Unfazed Everyman, mundane things often get him excited, especially Imaginates. When he's invited to Itsuki's house, he's ecstatic at getting to eat raw fish.
• Edible Theme Naming: Along with his sister. Peanut Butter is his given name, Sandwich is the family name.
• Entertainment Above Their Age: His interests include 50s musicals like Guys and Dolls, 80s films like Jurassic Park, Shakespearean works like Macbeth, and old videogames like Actraiser.
• Establishing Character Moment: Waking up Grape to complain about boredom, and following it up with an awful Pun.
• Everyone Can See It: His crush on Grape is not subtle, and even she eventually admits she can tell clearly.
• Failed a Spot Check: Early on, its revealed that he spent a large portion of his life with Grape (since childhood, as we later see) completely unaware that she was a girl. Later strips imply that Animals Lack Attributes is not in effect in this universe, making it all the more bizarre how he failed to notice.
• Fantastically Indifferent: To his first time seeing a Gryphon deity, to receiving a psychic girlfriend out of nowhere, to teleporting between dimensions... And so on and so forth, especially as the supernatural ramps up.
• Female Feline, Male Mutt: The Male Mutt to Grape's Female Feline.
• Fetishes Are Weird: In-universe, his interest in cats is seen as weird and bizarre during the comic's early years. Even Grape is initially disgusted when she realizes.
• Fetish: Peanut possesses a sexual interest in cats, including Grape.
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: Averted. Immediately after he finds out he can't be with Grape, he launches into a relationship with Tarot, and maintains good relations with both.
• Fix Fic: On top of writing a Superdog comic to save his favorite Draco in Leather Pants from Pridelands, he even goes out of his way to save her during the Pridelands Imaginate, with little regards of the effect it has on canon.
• The Fool: Uncannily lucky and kind-hearted as the trope dictates, and unflappably optimistic at that.
• Foolish Husband, Responsible Wife: Downplayed. Peanut and Tarot are both pretty bright, but Tarot has the advantage of experience, maturity, and precognition.
• Friends with Benefits: Slash maybe siblings. Peanut and Grape are described as doing 'Mushy Stuff' with each other offscreen, which makes Max blush and cover his waist area while watching. Despite this, both of them are in relationships, and nobody involved seems to mind (Although Max was apparently oblivious).
• Furry Reminder:
  • When Earl brings home a box of wet wipes, he demands to be able to sniff it for inspection.
  • When he meets Cerberus, he feels the need to sniff her as a fellow dog.
  • He sees no problem yelling across the neighborhood to talk with Tarot, evoking dogs barking at each other from their houses.
• Genius Book Club: Reads A Game of Thrones early on, immediately contrasting the Dogs Are Dumb trope despite appearances. Later books seen in scenes with him continued this trend, such as A Feast for Crows or All of Asimov and Le Guin's books.
• Genius Ditz: Apparently, he's a fast reader to the point of Super-Speed Reading ability.
• Genre Savvy: From all the movies, videogames, and comics he consumes, it doesn't take long for him to clue in on the supernatural or romcom trope he's become a part of this week. Funnily enough, when he writes his Superdog comics, he tends to lampshade the tropes of the genre to hell and back, and then uses them anyway.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing:
  • Gleeful to Grape's Grumpy. Unlike most examples of this dynamic, Grape loves him for his joy and is shown to frequently be Not So Above It All.
  • Also with Tarot, who tends to be a lot more easily annoyed than him.
• "Harmful to Pets" Reminder: His distaste for chocolate occasionally comes up.
• Henpecked Husband: A smidge. Tarot is very kind and loving to him, but because he naturally defers to her, she can be a bit pushy at times, like putting him in the doghouse for not greeting her enthusiastically enough.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Huge Guy to Tarot's Tiny Girl. Granted, among humans and even other pets he's not the biggest, but that just goes to show how small Tarot is.
• Incest Subtext: Less so 'Are they romantic' and more so 'Are they siblings'. Grape and Peanut are heavily implied to mess around on the side of their relationships, and Peanut had a crush on her for a long time before they settled as friends. This despite them being adopted by the same human owner, which constitutes siblings for pets, and their being referred to as brother and sister once or twice.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: His eyes are blue (Although it takes a while for the comic to show it), and he's one of the most innocent and loving characters in the comic.
• Innocently Insensitive: When he first meets Four Finger Discount, he accidentally makes multiple comments about his (lack of) arm before trying to play it off with a smile.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: With how often he hangs out with his sister and Tarot, it's not hard to see where it came from. He's very emotional and affectionate, and his interest in cat hobbies is clearly meant to reflect this in the Female Feline, Male Mutt metaphor.
• Insane Troll Logic: Despite his intelligence, is often prone to these. Upon learning about The Game, he immediately refuted any of Grape's explanations of its fakeness because 'that's not how you play The Game.'
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: After finding out she wants to romantically court Max, Peanut still offers to help her get ready for the date and sees her off while holding back tears.
• Idiot Savant: While not outright stupid, Peanut is naive and happy-go-lucky. However, Word of God has said that "I think he is a super genius, he is not just particularly aware of how much he knows". Indeed, Peanut has shown to be an exceptionally fast reader, having read every book at the local library and the entire Pridelands book series, of which there are already several instalments, and even understands the architectural signs of prehistoric civilisations.
• Interspecies Romance: What he wishes he could have with Grape. He's into cats as revealed very early on, but not so much that he can't also fall in love with Tarot. Finally averted when it's revealed they were actually in love for a long time and have continuously been doing lover related stuff since then, including dating. Maxwell just thought it was 'super cute'
• Keep the Reward: Interestingly, while helping King and Fox in Heaven's Not Enough, he doesn't even try to ask for a chance to visit Heaven with them, simply waving them goodbye while standing at its staircase. He would later get this chance in Heckraiser, though.
• Keet: Peanut has a ton of infectious energy that spills over into his dealings with others.
• Kindhearted Simpleton: Peanut doesn't question much in his strange life, and isn't among the most intelligent members of Babylon Gardens, but always tries to see the best in people and carries with him an infectious enthusiasm that makes him well liked all around.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: He points out when the comic begins to shift genres from slice-of-life to supernatural, and seems in some way aware of the reader, referring to an 'unseen audience' watching them and judging their actions.
• Love at First Sight: He and Tarot meet, presumably exchange a few words, and hook up. Granted, Peanut is very lax on love and was looking for a relationship in general, and we later find out Tarot was forced into it by Dragon, and only learned to love him for real after some time spent with him in that role.
• Loved by All: African princes, time travellers from centuries in the past, and celestial dieties like him from the moment they meet due to his optimism and kindness. Tarot even gets annoyed at one point by Kitsune's continued fondness for him when Kitsune's been a capricious bother to her personally.
• Love Hurts: His crush on Grape goes unrequited and leaves him crushed emotionally, even as he helps her with her date with Max. Averted with his next relationship with Tarot, which is perfectly happy for both parties.
• Mailman vs. Dog: Averted. He acts perfectly cordial with the mailman, taking the letters he's handed whenever he comes, and is even called a traitor by Bino for this.
• Manchild: Peanut is old enough to hold a committed relationship and have puppies, but is childish even by dog standards, still playing make-believe games with his friends and sister to this day. Those traits make him a pretty good babysitter for the cubs and puppies around Babylon Gardens, as Let's Imaginate Jurassic Park shows.
• Manic Pixie Dream Guy: Towards Tarot. She approaches him as an Emotionless Girl, and through his sheer emotion begins to slowly fall in love with him and eventually reject Dragon's control for him.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Feminine Boy to Grape and Tarot's Masculine Girl.
• Mr. Imagination: He's implied to be the one who came up with the Imaginates, impromptu and amateur plays that rely on minimal props and imagination to adapt well-known stories.
• Meaningful Name: Aside from Mr. Sandwich's affinity for Theme Naming, his fur color does resemble that of peanut butter.
• Muggle–Mage Romance: With Tarot. Peanut never gains power of any kind throughout the comic's run.
• Nerds Are Sexy: Peanut writes his own comics, loves movies and videogames, and reenacts plays with his friends, but catches the interest of Tarot, Grape, and the Physical God Spirit Dragon across the course of the comic.
• Nervous Wreck: Despite his usual calmness, Peanut is sometimes prone to stressing out over small things. Save the Date is all about his intense panic over the belief he may have lost one of King's puppies.
• Nice Guy: Friendly, affectionate, and loving to all those around him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • Peanut's good nature leads him to believe e-mailing Res Grape's fanfiction is the best idea, which horrifies her when she finds out.
  • His stubborn insistence on discussing his relationship with Tarot (Slightly understandably, since she ditched him the night before) during Temple Crashers 2 slows her down immensely, allowing Keene to more easily activate the Mana Pool.
• The Nose Knows: Insists on sniffing Earl's packages as soon as they come in, and is able to identify the scent of the ferrets when he gets a letter from them announcing Theme Park Land.
• Not Blood Siblings: Grape and Peanut's Friends with Benefits relationship seems to invoke this. Both are separate species and not blood related, but adopted under the same household in a relationship often compared to siblings elsewhere in the comic.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: In his roleplay game with the other dogs, he finds himself put off by their pursuing of female NPCs in-game, clearly preferring gameplay. Ironically, he would go on to be the only father of the group.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Not always, but once or twice he plays up his own stupidity for his benefit. On Christmas 2008, he pretended not to realize Bino wanted to give him a prank gift, and bought for him first the best present he could think of, guilt tripping Bino with his seeming innocence into aborting the prank.
• Odd Friendship:
  • He's immediately enthralled with the wolf pack, befriending Miles as serving as one of his aids into human society early on, although Miles would go on to be closer with King.
  • He gets along well with Satau while he knows him, a time traveler from Ancient Egypt, and delights in showing him facets of the present day.
• Offscreen Reality Warp: Pillow Fort features him building the titular in 100 seconds while Grape is looking away, summoning hundreds of pillows and blankets to himself to do so.
• Off the Rails: Because of the God-Mode Sue powers of the character he chooses to play in the Pridelands Imaginate, he very quickly forces the plot off the rails just by doing what anyone would logically do in that situation with Flying Brick powers.
• One of the Girls: Both in the male/female and cat/dog dynamics; Peanut doesn't hang out with very many members of his species or gender. He doesn't seem to have many close male friends, and the one time he tried hanging out with Joey's group he found himself put off by the way they roleplayed, preferring his simpler style of play. Because his sister is a cat, a lot of felines tend to act warmer towards him on top of that.
• One of the Kids: Bailey and King, Kitsune and Kix, and even Gale trust him with their kids because he's not too unlike them, and they enjoy his Imaginates. Most interactions between him and children end well, including the rowdy wolf cubs.
• Opposites Attract: Cheery and animated in comparison to Tarot's aloof calmness. Over time, these tendencies of his would lead to Tarot becoming a Defrosting Ice Queen, and balance the two of them out into a better couple.
• Otaku: Emphasized more in the earlier days which showed him carrying handheld videogames when he went out frequently. Peanut is a fan of a great many pieces of media, which make him very Genre Savvy when he becomes introduced to the world of the supernatural.
• Out of Focus: In Heckraiser, he and the rest of the primary quartet sans Tarot completely vanish from the plot for years, only showing up at the end and during a brief baking aside.
• Perpetual Smiler: In contrast to nearly every other member of the main quartet, which spend a lot of their time frowning.
• The Pollyanna: Nothing particularly gets Peanut down, with a few exceptions in earlier strips, like realizing he can't be with Grape.
• Power Fantasy: Lives one out through Spot, as pointed out by Grape when he begins powergaming as him in a Pridelands Imaginate.
• Psychic Link: Tarot has imprinted on Peanut, allowing her to speak telepathically with him across long distances. Unfortunately, it only got used once before the fight between her and Spirit Dragon over Peanut caused the link to break.
• Precious Puppy: During his flashback arc, Peanut is a much smaller and cuter puppy. Many of his character traits then would not fade with age.
• Real Men Don't Cry: Inverted. He even tells Grape that "crying is good for anxiety".
• Secret-Keeper: Joey's cat Cosplay until he found out the cats already knew, Sabrina and Fido's forbidden relationship, and Res's role in creating the Pridelands books series. He unintentionally was one to Maxwell when it was revealed Peanut and Grape were lovers due to Maxwell not taking their romantic gestures seriously enough.
• Seen It All: Goes with Fantastically Indifferent. Even when seeing Cerberus for the first time, a titanic three-headed dog, his first reaction is to sniff her like any other dog.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Peanut is rarely involved in Celestial storylines anyway, but the first indication that he won't be important to Heckraiser is when Tarot gets up and leaves him without a word in the beginning.
• Sleepyhead: Not to the extent of Grape, but a good number of the television-focused strips feature him napping on the couch.
• Slouch of Villainy: In the Christmas Imaginate, having slain the Grinch and gained the throne of santa, he performs one in a coat and santa hat.
• Smarter Than You Look: Because of his childishness and ditzy tendencies, it's easy to forget he's a voracious reader and a pretty sensible person when push comes to shove, especially among pets. For example, he's apparently familiar with the eras of Ancient Egyptian history and corrects Max on them.
• Songs of Solace: Is said by Grape to listen to "Weird Al" Yankovic when he's sad.
• Stable Time Loop: Peanut creates one entirely by accident while attending Psycon. First he encounters his future self, who explains that he got here by walking into a neighboring booth. Doing this sends him several minutes into the past, where he tells his past self about the booth... and goes right back to work as if nothing had happened.
• Still Believes in Santa: References him as a real person in a Spot comic, and assumes Uncle Reuben is him.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: The wise guy to Tarot's straight man.
• Super-Speed Reading: Although it goes against the typical usage of the trope in that in this case it doesn't suggest super intelligence but rather just a lovable quirk. He did mention having cleaned out the local library, though.
• Terrible Artist: His drawings for Spot (Superdog) are a bunch of simple sketches a five-year-old might produce. Paired with poor quality writing full of self-inserts, plot holes, and Mary Sue characters, Peanut’s comic strip is a textbook example of Stylistic Suck.
• Unfazed Everyman: Between experience with Tarot and having seen a lot of movies, he tends to take the adventures he becomes caught up in in stride.
• Weirdness Censor: He's surprisingly lax about having a psychic girlfriend, being friends with another psychic, subsequently discovering that All Myths Are True, and finally finding out that said girlfriend has some sort of partnership with a freakin' dragon who is ALSO in love with him.
  Sabrina: ...Nothing ever fazes you, does it?
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: Dating Tarot grants him access into the greater Housepets multiverse, and grants him knowledge of magic(k) and Celestials. Fortunately, The Masquerade Does NOT Kill His Dating Life, as his dates with her tend to involve accompanying her to visit Heaven and other realms.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Wears a dress to marry Grape in one guest strip, and cosplays Judy Hopps for Halloween with noticable breast padding.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: He admits that when working on Superdog comics, he usually has no idea where he's going and is just writing what seems cool to him. It shows.

King Milton (Pembroke Welsh Corgi) / Joel Zechariah Robinson

Heaven's not enough.

^{Click here to see Joel Robinson} "You're exactly the same as they are. Animals."

A former human and member of PETA, who was transformed by Pete to fill a role in a game between godlike beings.

Despite being tugged along by forced he can barely understand and put through a Forced Transformation, King fights hard against the external forces keeping him from who he wants to be, and eventually pulls through as a better person than he began as by the end.

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• Affectionate Nickname: From Sasha: Kingy.
• Affluent Ascetic: It's implied Keene's allowance to him is far more money than he knows what to do with, but he continues to live with his wife in Wolf House, even after animals and humans finally begin to approach true equality and he could theoretically leave. When he takes Bailey to the movies, they go to a rundown and disgusting neighborhood joint with only four rows of seats.
• Always Save the Girl: At their wedding, King privately vows to move Heaven and Earth for Bailey, and ends up taking that rather literally. He stares down the closest thing Housepets shows to God, tricks both sides of the Cosmic Game into stalemate, and risks prison to make sure she doesn't suffer under Pete's thumb like he did.
• Amazon Chaser: The girl he goes for is a Southern Belle who's spent her life working on a farm, and holds considerable strength despite rarely showing it. She's also twice his size, but that's not exactly uncommon.
• Ambiguous Criminal History: He alludes to having been to prison at least once before the arrest that leads him to Pete. Said crimes are never mentioned, but likely serve as motivation to leave his human life behind.
• Ambiguously Bi: After spending the entire arc shooing off Sasha's affections, the final strip of Be Mine features Kevin sleeping with him and Bailey in the same position as Sasha previously did, with his arm over King cuddling him affectionately. King's response is to stare at the ceiling and heavily blush, although it's unclear if this is attraction as it was with Sasha or just discomfort.
• Animal Lover: Downplayed as a human. According to him, he continues to tell himself he genuinely likes animals, but hates humans owning them, and a part of him refuses to truly look at them as equals. This changes when he becomes a dog himself.
• Appropriated Appellation: After choosing life as a dog over life as a human, King keeps the name Pete gave him and rejects Joel entirely.
• Attractive Bent Species: King, who had been involuntarily changed from a human known as Joel to a Welsh Corgi, is said by Fox, to have the potential to "be a real ladykiller". Later, said changed character is seen hitting on several female canine characters, albeit under the influence of orange soda. Duchess refers to him as "mouth-frothingly adorable". Later he finds himself attracted to Fox's cousin Bailey, and needs to remind himself "Don't go native!"
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Subtly. By watching Pete and toeing the line over the course of several months while in his captivity, he takes notes on what the God is and is not allowed to do. From this he deduces that he himself is being used as a pawn in a Cosmic Chess Game, and a few of the rules.
• Babies Ever After: The below mentioned Happily Ever After comes with three puppies, Rook, Ace, and Olive.
• Barred from the Afterlife: After Pete transforms him and before he makes the decision to stay as a dog, Sabrina explains that his soul is in limbo due to a problem during his Forced Transformation. As he's technically neither a dog nor a human, he can't enter either Species-Specific Afterlife. Later entries in the comic would Retcon this slightly by showing all species allowed into the same Heaven.
• Become a Real Boy: For a while, becoming human again is his greatest wish. He eventually grows past this, realizing his life with a wife and friends is much better than his life as an escaped convict and failed activist.
• Berserk Button: Given how rough the cosmic game was for him, after it ends he reacts very negatively to any suggestion that he do anything involved with it again.
  Bailey: Then if we're so hard up (trying to find a babysitter), why not ask the kitsu-
  King: Don't say it don't even think it. He sees.
  Bailey: Hon, do you need a lie down?
  King: Yes, always.
• Big Damn Heroes: King arrives in Australia just in time to break up the fight between Sabrina and Bailey, which his wife presumably would have lost given her severe lack of experience.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Given King's height, he's the Little Guy to a lot of people. One Big Guy who stands out is Miles, a large and muscular wolf he lives and holds a friendship with.
• Bigotry Exception: He initially considers dogs to be simple-minded and stupid, even after becoming King. The first two exceptions he makes are to Sasha (Whom he sympathizes with for having an abusive owner like him) and Fox (Who's a lot more mature than the rest and genuinely kind to King). Of course, this eventually falls apart as he warms up to dogs and eventually marries one.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: While it's unclear if they were ever abusive to him specifically, King's parents' abusiveness is integral to the direction his life ended up taking. When he becomes a father himself, he treats his children with nothing but love.
• Bully Magnet: He's barely spent a week in Babylon Gardens before Bino sours his reputation on dogs yet again, and when he visits Fox's extended family he's repeatedly picked on by rowdy human children.
• Can't Hold His Liquor: Or orange soda, in this case. One drink has him dancing on the table, waving his collar around and calling for everyone to get naked.
• The Chain of Harm: The single good point Pete had about his life is the cycle of abuse he participates in. His parents abused their pets, who abused him, and as an adult he takes out his frustrations on animals (although notably he draws the line at actually hurting them, somewhat averting this).
• Character Development: As a human, Joel refuses to see animals on the same level as him despite their being equally sapient. Without realizing the irony, he later argues with Bailey because he thinks she should be more indignant about being treated as lesser by her family.
• Character Narrator: One of the few characters who gets narration text boxes on multiple occasions, such as at the beginning of The Unbearable Lightness of Being A Dog.
• Character Title: The arc The King And I and the spinoff prose story All The King's Men are named after him.
• Chess Motifs: Quite obviously associated with the King piece, which he even wears on his collar.
• Chick Magnet: Fox says King has potential to be such. Given that female dogs as varied as Bailey, Duchess (who considers herself above most male dogs), and Sasha have found him sexually attractive, he’s got a point. The one obvious aversion is Tarot, who bluntly turns him down by revealing she knows he's human, which sobers him up instantly.
• The Chosen One: As Pete's avatar, destined to fight for him against the forces of Dragon. Noticeably, Pete never says he needs to protect the Earth, which Tarot's responsibilities do include.
• Christianity is Catholic: King seems to belive in purgatory which is almost exclusively a Catholic belief.
• Civilized Animal: As a human-turned-dog, he rejects a lot of typical canine behavior. He repeatedly wards off others from sniffing his butt, and as a parent refuses to give his child a tongue bath.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Peanut and Grape, the main characters of the first years of Housepets, were largely upbeat and comedic characters who got into grounded antics within their home and neighborhood. King not only brings in an air of cynicism, but much more serious stakes and a grander setting with the Cosmic Chess Game.
• Cosmic Plaything: After finding out about the astral D&D game, he can't help but feel like a pawn being manipulated in a supernatural chess game he has no control over.
• Curtains Match the Window: As Joel, his hair and eyes are both brown.
• The Cynic: King refuses to believe things are gonna turn out well for him, and unfortunately for a good chunk of his life, he's completely right. This verges on Flat-Earth Atheist at points, since when he enters Heaven he's so cynical he refuses to even let himself enjoy its true bliss and happiness.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His childhood is largely vague, with the sole exception of the memory he recounts to Fox in their first meeting; Emancipating his dog and cat from his abusive parents, and getting subsequently abused out on the streets by them. He alludes to a criminal history once or twice after that, which is implied to be the reason he has to work with PETA over more respectable animal rights groups.
• Dark Secret: His being Joel Robinson, and holding a close friendship with someone he kidnapped in his past life.
• Deadpan Snarker: As with Tarot, the avatar on the other side of The Game, he frequently finds something to comment blithely on in every situation.
• Death Amnesia: Averted. He's shown to remember the experience of being in Heaven far better than Fox (And later, Breel) when they return to Earth.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Averted. We find out in Heaven's Not Enough that both of his parents are dead (Although it's implied his father might not have gone to Heaven), but the only memory he recounts of them is their abusing his pets and possibly himself.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: His relationship with Bailey significantly warms him up from his initial hateful personality, and teaches him to enjoy life more.
• Determinator: When it comes to freeing Bailey from Pete, King travels all the way to Australia, stands up to multiple Gods and calls them out, and finally gives up on his human life entirely.
• Deuteragonist: Is usually regarded as Housepets' second protagonist next to Peanut, and appears with him (alongside a friend each, Fox and Grape) on one version of the comic logo.
• Didn't Think This Through: He tries to call Pete's bluff about only giving him a year more to decide whether or not he would become his avatar, pointing out that Pete doesn't need him. Which is correct; Pete can take his wife instead.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: King doesn't have much respect for gods, ironically, since he's implied to be Catholic.
  • When he meets the benevolent Bahamut, King screams in his face for allowing Pete and Dragon to run rampant on Earth and stealing his free will. Bahamut allows this to a point before eventually refusing to take it anymore, reminding King of his place.
  • When Pete realizes he's going to lose The Game, he turns massive and demands King attack Tarot, even snatching his Fate off his neck to turn him human again. King calmly stands up and presses a finger to Pete's beak, flippantly and steadfastly refusing.
• Does Not Like Magic: Tarot's clairvoyance puts him off to her, and he's got bad history with nearly every other magic(k) user he knows, with exception to perhaps Sabrina.
• Dog Food Diet: A non-poverty example. King mentions in All The King's Men that other pets are usually allowed to eat human food as well, but Pete specifically forces him into a diet of dog food to toy with him.
• Dogs Are Dumb: The notable aversion alongside Tarot, since he used to be a human. He looks down on dogs in general for their naivety and optimism initially.
• Dog Stereotype: A small dog with a short temper, like many of his breed are stereotyped as.
• Dude, Where's My Reward?: Immediately after confronting Pete and ending The Game, Joel approaches Kitsune and demands the boon he's earned. Said boon ends up being the choice between a human or dog life.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: To earn his happily married life with Bailey, he needs to stand up to forces far beyond his comprehension and make them blink multiple times over.
• Easily Forgiven: Fox forgives him after a quick thrashing when he finds out who King used to be, and nobody else in the series comments on feeling betrayed. Granted, King spent quite a long time building a good reputation for himself before his secret came out.
• The Eeyore: He's easily the most pessimistic dog out of the cast besides Tiger. Not surprising given all he’s gone through between the species change, sad background, and insensitively manipulative treatment by Pete.
• Establishing Character Moment: He's introduced in tandem with his coworker at PETA, bickering over their methods and pointing out the flaws in their plan of kidnapping a pet, but going along with it anyway. This tells the reader that he's going to be an Only Sane Man, and Even Evil Has Standards.
• Expert Consultant: Considered one by the K9PD on animal transformations, and he's brought in to talk with Marion after they hear his story.
• Extreme Omnivore: While adapting to dog life, he takes a liking to the dog food Pete feeds him in an attempt to spite him. While it's suggested his new biology may be part of it, he also explains he ate the stuff once as a kid.
• Eye Colour Change: It's subtle, but his eyes are brown as Joel and silver as King.
• Face Framed in Shadow: As with all humans, his first appearance features him in a dark van that deliberately hides his facial features.
• The Faceless: For a bit in his very first appearance, as with all human characters. The first clue that he's going to be important is when he turns to the camera and reveals his face plainly.
• Fake Relationship: Briefly engages in one with Duchess to win a dog pageant.
• Fantastic Legal Weirdness: His citizenship and legal owner bounces back and forth a few times, as a human-turned-dog. The ECP gives him a place to live at Wolf House and makes Keene (A ferret) his legal owner, but later gives him individual rights like marrying and working. By the end of the comic, everything seems to be mostly smoothed out as animals and humans are both approaching equal ground.
• Fantastic Racism: As a human, he's rather torn on pets; he derisively calls them animals, but continues trying to help them in what he sees as benevolence despite his grudge. His joining an Animal Wrongs Group isn't on purpose, and he comes to hate their methods even as he's working for them.
• The Farmer and the Viper: For saving his pets from his abusive parents as a child, he's rewarded by being abused by them himself. This scarred him early in life, and while he continues trying to help animals as an adult, he makes it clear he doesn't enjoy interacting with pets.
• Fish out of Water: King has some trouble adapting to life as a dog, which Pete fondly enjoys teasing him with while owning him.
• Foil: To Tarot. Both are the temperamental Only Sane Man, and both are avatars for their respective side of the Cosmic Game. However, King is openly rebellious and contemptuous of Pete, while Tarot stays loyal and hides her resentment for Dragon. King doesn't hesitate to show his frustration and anger, while Tarot tries to remain The Stoic, although isn't always perfect. Tarot understands the rules of Magic(k) and how the Celestials operate, and frequently works under their rules, whereas King learned about The Masquerade far more recently and tends to get annoyed by its needless complexities. All of this and their respective histories have led to a bitter relationship between the two, even despite their teaming up to end The Game initially.
• Fool for Love: His encounter with Bailey is one of the earliest moments his cynicism fails him, and she gives him a reason to genuinely love his life.
• Forced from Their Home: In a rather unconventional way, since the home he had with Pete disappears after he finds out about The Game. He's moved into Wolf House overnight, and stays there for the rest of the comic.
• Forced into Evil: Joel doesn't realize he's joined an Animal Wrongs Group until he's forced to kidnap a dog, and at that point it's too late to back out.
• Forced to Watch: Bino's goons hold him down and very nearly break the watch representing his Fate in front of him.
• Forced Transformation: Pete transforms him into a dog against his will to be an avatar in The Game.
• Freudian Excuse: As a child, Joel Robinson fled his home with his pets to escape their abuse. After only a few nights, his pets became just as abusive to him as his parents had been to them. What happened is unclear, but it left him with a trust issues for animals afterwards.
• Fun Size: Due to his size, a lot of people consider him cute. Lucretia's motherly instincts even lead to her treating him like one of her puppies, forcing him into a hug by the fire.
• Furry Ear Dissonance: For a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, his ears are disproportionately large, each being the size of his head. We never see another member of his breed to confirm if this is part of the style or unique to him.
• Geek: Played Dungeons N Dragons in college, and eagerly accepts a proposition from Joey to play with his group.
• Genre Savvy: An interesting case with King is that he's genre savvy enough to figure out the things Pete is going to do with him. He just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He figures out that he's being used as a chesspiece and a few of The Game's rules, but when he tries to use them to his advantage against Pete, it fails spectacularly.
• "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: Albiet by someone who is far from a good guy. Pete springs Joel from prison for his own means and turns him into a dog, making it impossible for anyone to ever track him down again.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing:
  • Due to his Pet the Dog moment with her early in the strip, he often finds himself caring for Sasha to get her away from her abusive owner. Sasha is a ditzy Manic Pixie Dream Girl, a stark contrast to King's cynical outlook on life.
  • Another with his wife Bailey, who tends to be much more cheerful. The two balance each other out after marriage, with King becoming happier in general in their relationship.
• Going Native: Appears to gradually have become more comfortable with his new canine form, to the point of marrying Bailey and having children.
• Good Costume Switch: In Heaven's Not Enough, having been turned back to human by Pete, Joel is forced to wear a disguise to leave Wolf House. The outfit he chooses is a grey hoodie and robin's egg blue bandana, perfectly matching Bailey's bandana and fur color to show he is dedicating himself to rescuing her and completing his Heel–Face Turn.
• Happily Ever After: After The Game ends, King and Bailey's love life is essentially relegated to Romantic Comedy plotlines, and they're gently brushed aside to allow for new protagonists like Marion.
• Happily Married: Gets married to Bailey at the end of the "King and I" story arc, and given its depiction, it’s a happy union. Eventually gets promoted to a father of three.
• Harmful to Minors: Abused by his (presumably more mature) dog and cat as a child, after running away from his parents with them. How he got away from them and back home, if he did, is never stated.
• Headbutting Heroes: With Tarot. Long after The Game ends, the two continue to be on bad terms, to the point he won't even entertain the idea of letting her sit his kids.
  "Hey Tarot, statue's in the closet. I'll be waiting across the block, so if you need anything, don't."
• Heel–Face Turn: The earliest and most prominent. Joel Robinson is a wanted criminal and kidnapper. King is a loving father, husband, and friend.
• Helicopter Parenting: Some elements of this. He fawns over his puppies excessively early on, but slowly comes to shed these traits after allowing Peanut to babysit them goes well.
• Heroic Dog: Albeit a Knight in Sour Armor who generally tries to avoid adventures in stark contrast to Tarot.
• Heroic Resolve: Despite seemingly being beaten effortlessly by Pete and abandoned in human form, he travels to Heaven and Australia in quick succession and fights hard to get Bailey back.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: King has let it slip a few times that he doesn't think highly of himself. Even when he was still Joel, he fully recognized and acknowledged that PETA did many amoral things, and that kidnapping and trying to kill Fox was wrong. He mentally refers to himself as a loser at one point (also suggesting that he's thought this about himself for a while), and when he proposes to Bailey, he tearfully admits that he has several flaws and makes mistakes, and that he doesn't really think that she'll say yes. She does anyway.
• Heroic Vow: On the day of his wedding and during the Big Damn Kiss, King silently swears to Bailey that 'Whatever the cost, I will move Heaven and Earth for you'.
• Humanity Ensues: When he finally gets used to being a dog, starts a relationship with Bailey, and begins to find joy in life again, Pete kicks him one final time by taking his wife away and turning him human again.
• Human Pet: Quite literally. King's treatment under Pete raises some frightening questions about how other pets may be treated by abusive owners, and he in fact bonds with Sasha over their shared mistreatment at the hands of 'higher' species.
• Hypocrisy Nod: When King lays into Bahamut for letting Pete's actions go unpunished, Bahamut rightly responds that King is also getting off scot-free for his earlier crimes. Fortunately, by this point King has become a much better person, and is willing to sacrifice that freedom for Bailey's sake.
  "I'd still rather get everything I ever wanted and not worry about this morality crap."
• I Choose to Stay: Given the choice by Kitsune of a human life (with his criminal record expunged, given a comfortable life, and even the ones who know him as King forgetting him), or a dog life with Bailey and an unsure future. He of course, chooses the latter.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Initially, this and being returned to humanity are King's greatest wishes. He gets the former, but not the latter.
• Internal Reveal: He ends up having to confess about his past as a human to both Bailey and Fox in succession as a result of Pete's scheming against him.
• Interspecies Adoption: Legally, he's owned by Keene Milton after Pete abandons him, hence his last name.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: King is nothing but rebellious against Pete, refusing to fight for him or really do anything for him. In punishment, Pete ruins his life a second time by taking away his wife.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Being introduced to the World of Weirdness that is the Housepets cosmos, he quickly grows jaded and derisive towards Celestials. He can't even bring himself to enjoy Heaven either of the times he visits, convinced it couldn't possibly be as good as it seems.
• Just Woke Up That Way:
  • Pete turns King back into Joel in his sleep, leaving him unable to leave his room undisguised.
  • And then again, returning from Heaven he wakes up in his bed as a dog again.
• Karma Houdini: Despite making amends with the victim and growing as a person, King never does see legal repurcussion for kidnapping a sapient being from his home.
• Karmic Nod: When the secret about his being Joel comes out, he willingly takes all his lumps from the people he deceived. This includes being thoroughly beaten by Fox before his forgiveness.
• Karmic Transformation: In a case of karmic justice, Joel, the guy from PETA, gets turned into King, a dog. With the way the initial plotline unfolds, it almost acts as a deconstruction of It's a Wonderful Plot. It's invoked by Pete for his own purposes.
• Kidnapped by the Call: Pete comes to him while he's waiting to go to prison and forces him into his transformation under the guise of It's a Wonderful Plot. Initially, Pete goes along with the excuse that this is to teach him a life lesson, but eventually stops bothering and lets his selfishness show.
• Knight in Sour Armor: King holds a very cynical view of the universe and its inhabitants, but will go to great lengths to protect his friends and family.
• Lazy Bum: Downplayed, but it's there. He refuses to get a job or even try looking for one, even after everyone else in Wolf House makes a concentrated effort to. Instead, he's content to mooch off Keene's money for as long as he possibly can.
• Legacy of the Chosen: Averted. Tarot is Dragon's 150th avatar, but since Pete spent millennia trapped in the desert and unable to gain followers, its implied King may actually be his first and last.
• Liminal Being: As a result of Pete screwing up the transformation on a metaphysical level, Sabrina reveals to King that his soul is neither fully human nor canine. Because of this confusion, his soul is destined for limbo until he decides on one, which ends up being the latter.
• Literal Transformative Experience: His turn from Joel into King taught him a simpler way of life, a more optimistic view of things, and gave him friends and a family at that.
• Love at First Sight: The second King sees Bailey, she's surrounded with pink hearts and tinted in a rosy shader in his eyes. He manages to avoid Gibberish of Love, but is still pretty stunned.
• Love Redeems: His love for Bailey is the last step in his Heel–Face Turn that leads to him heroically confronting Pete and defeating him.
• Married Animals: With Bailey. They both admit that pet marriages are a contentious issue, but with the backing of Keene Milton they manage to set a precedent and get broadcast on television as a landmark in animal rights.
• Marry for Love: His marriage to Bailey, whom he comes to love after initially meeting her as Fox's cousin.
• The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: King's marriage with Bailey is strained only a year after it happens thanks to Pete's meddling, and he needs to go to great lengths to protect her from him. Thankfully, things calm down after this, and he's able to raise children happily with her.
• Meaningful Rename: Although not by his choice. Pete renames him King, perhaps seeing him as his greatest asset in The Game as the king piece is in Chess. Of course, King turns this around by locking both sides of The Game in checkmate.
• Meaningful Name:
  • In a chess sense, he wears a collar with a King piece around his neck. In the Cosmic Game, he checkmates both Pete and Dragon by putting them in a state where neither can win, and both must forefeit.
  • In a rulership sense, he becomes a patriarch to his family after turning into a dog and leaving his human life behind.
  • Zechariah comes from a biblical priest, who served under King Herod and was visited by the Angel Gabriel to be told his wife would give birth to a servant of God. He doubted the Angel, and so was struck mute as punishment. If intentional, this could reflect on King's frequent doubt in the Celestial influences in his life, always assuming the worst of them after his experience with Pete.
  • And Robinson, of course, comes from Mrs. Robinson; Not so much the character in The Graduate, but the religious elements of the song by Simon & Garfunkel. Pete specifically quotes 'Heaven has a place for those who pray' to him.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: He considers this after falling hard for Bailey. He's convinced at first that his attraction to her is a result of his new body's failings, and that he needs to ignore it for the hope of returning to a human body. Of course, he eventually gives in and marries her.
• Motive Rant: When he's caught by police, Joel goes into a tirade about his Freudian Excuse that serves to exposit his backstory (or at least, part of it).
• Muggle in Mage Custody: Pete keeps him in glorified slavery as a pet, controlling everything he does either physically or supernaturally. As a result, King bears nothing but animosity towards the God and ends up conspiring against him.
• Muggle with a Degree in Magic: King's knowledge of transformation magic and Celestials is called upon in My Life As A Teenage Squirrel to aid Marion and the K9PD.
• Mysterious Past: The events between being kidnapped by his pets as a child and joining PETA as an adult are unclear. In his first appearance, he admits that he only joined said group because it was the one animal rights group that would let him join with passing a background check, implying he had some things to hide. How he got away from his pets after fleeing and becoming their captor is also unclear, but presumably he was able to return to his parents since he went to college.
• The Napoleon: Subverted. He’s short, but he isn't a mean character (though he gets irritated easily enough). Bino even lampshades this in one comic.
• Nay-Theist: King distrusts Gods in general, up to and including the completely benevolent Cerberus. Pete was abusive to him, Kitsune enjoys toying with him, and he sees Bahamut as a useless Loser Deity, so he tries to avoid even thinking about them in general after The Game.
• Noble Bigot: As a human, despite seeing animals as inherently inferior to him, he still makes efforts at activism. It's only his criminal history that forces him to make a rather poor choice in organizations to join.
• Non-Action Protagonist: King holds none of Tarot's combat prowess, but luckily manages to avoid actually being engaged in a fight by Pete. Instead, he defeats both sides of The Game by conspiring and refusing to bend to intimidation.
• Non-Action Snarker: In The Game, since he never actually does any fighting for Pete, unlike Tarot does for Dragon.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: Heaven's Not Enough features him finally standing up to Pete once and for all when the god crosses his last line, staring him in the eyes and refusing to fight Tarot.
• Noticing the Fourth Wall: King makes a cameo in the reviews for Housepets! Hope They Don't Get Eaten, realizing the implications of a book containing events from his life being sold to the public.

"What th—is this ME? This is . . . this is showing everything! What kind of sick joke is this?!"

• Not So Above It All: As with Tarot, he participates in one or two of Peanut's Imaginates seemingly just for fun.
• Oblivious Transformation: When initially turned into King, he's too busy talking to notice it, even as he correctly predicts what the process is going to be.
• Odd Friendship:
  • With Miles, the hulking patriarch of the Wolf Pack. After spending several years living in the same house together, King seems to be a confidante of sorts to Miles, as they tell him about the problems he's facing with his family and invites him and Bailey on a camping trip together.
  • King seems to be on good terms with Zach if All's Fair is any indication. He confides in the rabbit his worries about Bailey's pregnancy and his own insecurities. Presumably, the two bonded over both coming to Babylon Gardens at the same time and being a Fish out of Water in different ways.
• Official Couple: One of the most prominent in the story with Bailey, next to Tarot and Peanut.
• Oh, Crap!: Upon realizing Tarot knows his secret, he panics and sobers up from the effects the orange soda on him, immediately trying to figure out how she would know something like that.
• Old Shame: His work with PETA, and especially kidnapping Fox Lindberg.
• Only Sane Man: Like Tarot, he holds human-level intelligence, which frequently clashes with the simpler minds around him.
• Open Secret: By the time of several years after The Game ended, King having been a human is largely well known and uncommented on. Miles assures him he's already aware after King regales a story from his human years without thinking, although he seems to be under the impression it was some sort of surgery that changed him.
• Open the Iris: Upon seeing Bailey dive underwater for his watch, the color of his eyes completely disappears and leaves only a larger pupil.
• Opposites Attract: Cynical and easily angered, tied with Bailey's all-loving compassion and patience.
• The Paladin: Pete transforms Joel/King into a crusader-warrior style being in the Celestial game of Universes & Unrealities to further his ambitions, officially labeled as a 'Dark Paladin'. Deconstructed; King doesn't like the Celestial he serves, which is a required aspect of the class in fact, and ends up overthrowing him when given the chance.
• Panicky Expectant Father: Once he learns Bailey is pregnant, he enters full on panic mode and needs to be calmed down. This only gets worse once he finds out Bailey's water broke while he was asleep, and he rushes over in a fit of dread to make sure he gets to see his children.
• Parents as People: A protagonist upgraded to parent, King's interactions with his kids reflect on his growth over time and Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting.
• Perpetual Frowner: Initially. Once he marries Bailey and has children, he begins smiling much more frequently.
• Pet the Dog: Despite initially blowing her off, once he realizes Sasha is out in the cold with nowhere to go, he elects to stay with her. She remembers this one, and the two later become on-again-off-again friends.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Despite being Pete's avatar, he certainly never does anything to benefit him. King spends his time with the god doing absolutely nothing, up until Pete leaves him entirely and takes his house with him. Then, Pete comes back to him on the day of his wedding and concedes that he couldn't convince King to fight for him, despite having never actually asked that.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: As Pete explains it, a Dark Paladin must be kept in constant discontent. This is why King was abused and enslaved by Pete, and why the universe continues to make King miserable up until The Game itself is brought to an end. King is quite literally not allowed to be happy until he takes Heaven by the throat and forces his own happiness.
• Properly Paranoid: Even years after it happened, trauma from being a Cosmic Plaything and Human Pet for gods lingers. Bailey almost bringing up Kitsune's name is enough to send him into paranoid shivers, terrified Kitsune might still be watching and toying with him; which, considering Kitsune is omnipotent, is a very real fear.
• Rage Against the Heavens: When he's allowed to meet Bahamut face to face, he releases all of his anger, screaming at him for his Obstructive Code of Conduct and allowing The Game to rob King of his free will. In general, much of his arc revolves around him throwing off the influences of Celestials in his life and demanding he get to live for himself.
• Rags to Riches: Downplayed. King mentions that he and his past pets grew up poor in All The King's Men. As an adult, he's given frequent and generous checks by the millionaire Milton ferrets.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The passionate, stubborn, and headstrong avatar to Tarot's calm and crafty avatar.
• Reformed Criminal: From kidnapping Fox Lindberg to befriending him, courtesy of his Literal Transformative Experience.
• Refusal of the Call:
  • When Tarot tells him his life is in danger, his first response is to shut the door on her.
  • He outright laughs at Kitsune for thinking he might be willing to go on another supernatural adventure in Heckraiser.
• A Rotten Time to Revert: Is reverted to human by Pete while sleeping in Wolf House, surrounded by pets and animals who know him as King, while his face is currently connected to a wanted criminal.
• Saved to Enslave: Pete pulled him out of what would have been a hefty prison sentence, getting him off scot-free before forcing him to live with Pete and do his bidding.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: With both Sasha and Bailey in equal measure, since his personality is far from the happy-go-lucky dogs are usually associated with in this universe.
• Saying Too Much: Twice while keeping his past under wraps he accidentally lets some details slip. To Joey he mentions having played D&D in college (Which he corrects to playing with a collie) and to Duchess he mentioned knowing what a high school dance looks like (Which he explains he saw in a movie).
• Screw Destiny: King is told by Bahamut that certain things, like the Cosmic Game, must be permitted. Despite this he goes out of his way to conspire with Tarot against it, and eventually brings it down.
• Secret-Keeper: He keeps his human past and Sabrina and Fido's forbidden relationship under wraps for as long as he can. Both of these become open by the time the arcs involving Universes and Unrealities came to the conclusion.
• Secular Hero: Averted; Joel is implied to have been religious before becoming King, believing his punishment under Pete may have been Purgatory for him and joining Bailey and Fox in prayer at their dinner. Given his experience with Heaven and gods after, his faith status is unclear.
• Seduction-Proof Marriage: Averted. He admits to himself he still has a crush on Sasha after marrying Bailey, and her being the Shameless Fanservice Girl doesn't help. He still successfully manages to set boundaries with her and avoids unfaithfulness, even if Bailey understands his situation.
• Sheathe Your Sword: How he defeats Pete and Dragon. The Game's rules require both avatars to be willing to fight, which Bailey is after taking over for him because she thinks she has no choice. King, Bailey, and Tarot all agree to completely cease fighting, meaning neither side can progress. Kitsune gives each god a few minutes to convince their avatars to keep going, which both fail.
• Shed the Family Name: While he never comments on it, he's given the last name of Milton after being legally adopted by Keene, and keeps it for the rest of his life.
• Shorter Means Smarter: One of the most mature and intelligent dogs in Babylon Gardens next to Tarot.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Especially after marriage. At one point in Save The Date, he feels the need to repeat the same 'hot dog' Pun about Bailey twice to the vendor they get their snacks from.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: The above mentioned Good Costume Switch; The disguise he wears to go to Australia perfectly matches Bailey's fur and bandana colors, symbolically connecting him to her.
• Sink or Swim Fatherhood: King gets a few months to prepare, but Bailey forgets to tell him she's pregnant at first, and several strips with him immediately post-birth feature him struggling to keep up with three children.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: The only character in the comic that gets the word "censored" on some of the things he says. Sometimes gets creative with it. In one comic, Bailey washes his mouth out with soap for swearing in front of the puppies after stepping on a toy. Despite this, he's not a casual swearer — he apparently just can't find a better way to emphasize a situation other than being censored.
• The Snark Knight: A result of his checkered past and awful life that only really begins to turn around after meeting Bailey.
• Soul Jar: Briefly comes into a possession of a watch which represents his fate manifest, having been nearly stolen by Pete. Naturally, he goes to great lengths to make sure it gets back to Heaven unharmed, and at one point it becomes tied to his ability to change forms.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: His short temper hides the fact that his experience with Pete and Dark and Troubled Past genuinely scarred him.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: With Tarot when they team up to end The Game, since they both have a strained history as opposing avatars. The fact that their first ever encounter featured him drunkenly trying to hit on her certainly didn't help. This tense relationship persists for quite a few years; When King needs someone to babysit his kids much later, neither he nor Tarot try to volunteer her, despite her being a perfect candidate.
• There Are No Therapists: After meeting Marion, King immediately suggests getting him therapy for his Forced Transformation, citing that he himself could have really used one after his experiences with Pete.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: The tiny guy to Bailey's huge girl.
• Token Houseguest: This to the Wolf Pack, as he becomes the first person moved in with them by the ECP and goes on to be a close family friend of theirs.
• Tongue-Tied: For a while after he becomes King, he's magically barred from saying his human name; every attempt just corrects it to King. At some point this wears off, or Pete just stops bothering to maintain it.
• Took a Level in Kindness: While never completely amoral or malicious, Joel tended to be a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk who certainly deserved his prison sentence. Pete busting him and giving him a life as a dog gave him a new perspective, and he comes to be kinder and less hateful over the course of several years.
• Turning Back Human: As punishment for not succumbing to his will, Pete takes Bailey as his avatar instead and turns King back into a human while sleeping in his bed.
• Unfazed Everyman: In part due to his cynicism and in part due to just rolling with the punches, King learns a lot about the universe with no loss of sanity. He takes the existence of Celestials, Heaven, and magic(k) in stride, only angry about how he's being used by them, although his being religious may have something to do with it.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Joel had two dogs and a cat that he very much loved when he was a kid, but his parents were abusive towards them. Eventually they ran away and took him with them, but on the streets they quickly turned on him and ultimately abandoned him. Hence, his initial aversion to pets in general.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Temporary gains the ability to switch between his human form and his dog form at will within the “Heaven's Not Enough” arc simply by wearing his watch-like fate around his neck whether he wants to be a dog. (He only voluntary took it off once. To show Keene he was telling the truth).
• Walking Spoiler: It's very difficult to bring up King without revealing the early plot beat of him being turned from a human.
• We Help the Helpless: Joel's activism came in part from growing up with abused pets, and even despite their betrayal of him he still feels a drive to aid other abused animals.
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: Once he becomes a dog, Pete makes a halfhearted effort to hide the existence of the Cosmic Game from him. This fails pretty pathetically, and once he sees Dragon, Kitsune sees no reason to keep him out of the loop anymore. Shortly after he's let in on the existence of souls and Heaven too, and all bets are off.
• What You Are in the Dark: Having stormed out of the GODC party and declared his hatred of dogs, King encounters Sasha out on the street away from everyone else. He chooses to spend the night with her so she doesn't have to go back to her abusive owner. Even Pete acknowledges this shows his character improving.
• Wig, Dress, Accent: To disguise himself after being turned back into Joel by Pete, he throws on a hoodie, glasses, and a facemask.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: King believes at first that Pete is putting him through a Literal Transformative Experience, and that his abuse is trying to teach him a lesson to be kinder to animals. He rejects this at first, but after meeting Sasha comes to genuinely make an effort, and even Pete admits he's trying. Unfortunately, this is where the bombshell is dropped; Pete doesn't actually care if he learns a lesson or not.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Hand in hand with his Heroic Self-Deprecation. Bailey and Fox assure him on different occasions that he deserves the good things in his life, having fought hard and changed for the better to get them.

Bailey (Siberian Husky)

Let's Snuggle.

King's partner and Fox's cousin, a dog raised on the countryside who he meets at Fox's family reunion. King's love for her becomes vital to his arc, and she eventually moves to Babylon Gardens to live with him.

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• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: The comic's art style flip flops on what she wears. At first it's just a collar, then a collar and a bandana, and finally seems to settle on just a bandana.
• Ascended Extra: Bailey is first seen in the strip as Fox's cousin. She becomes far more prominent when she becomes King's girlfriend (and later, his wife).
• Badass Cape: The armour Pete gives her comes with this, seemingly an evolved form of the blue bandana she wears at all times.
• Badasses Wear Bandanas: Downplayed; Her bandana isn't an 'around the forehead' type, but the type more commonly associated with domestic dogs to identify them. She also rarely gets into fights, but is shown as being quick to anger, intimidates cougars, talks back to gods, and takes on both Tarot and Sabrina in a fight at once.
• Bear Hug: While in canon she tends to prefer The Glomp, her Valentines Day card explains that it's the one time of the year you can 'snuggle one person long after they beg you to stop'.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Like nearly all dogs in Housepets, Bailey is an affectionate and kind person with a heart of gold. However, she shares the same anger issues her husband does, and when she's pushed too far or her family is put in danger, she quickly becomes a force to be reckoned with.
• BFS: When she becomes Pete's "avatar" in the game. in this comic, Bailey is given a gigantic sword to wield. In fact, it appears to be far bigger than she is, and if she weren't housed inside a large mechanical droid, she'd never be able to use it.
• Bridal Carry: Reversed, given she's the larger one. Twice, during their wedding and in Save The Date, Bailey carries King in this way.
• Bullying a Dragon: Bailey angrily threatens to cut off Pete's wings, a character who for all practical purposes is a demigod to her.
• Collapsible Helmet: Her helmet on Pete's armour collapses into nothingness almost immediately after she's given it, and stays down for the rest of its existence.
• Costume Evolution: Her first appearance in the 2008 Christmas strip features her without her trademark bandana, instead wearing a collar of the same color like every other dog.
• Country Cousin: Fox's cousin who lives in Kansas initially, and is depicted as a hardworking country girl who lives on a farm.
• Cuddle Bug: Bailey is very physically affectionate, especially to King, as one of her first encounters with him involved dragging him off to cuddle at the slightest indication.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: One of her first comments when meeting Pete? "I will play badminton with your scissored off wings, Beakie!"
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Possibly because she's still not clear on how powerful he is, she has no issue with mouthing off to Pete when she first meets him. All she knows is that he's a threat to her husband, and that's all she needs to not like him.
• Dogs Love Being Praised: A surprisingly uncommon trope for a comic entirely about dogs, but Bailey does respond well to being called a good girl by King.
• The Dreaded: Despite Bino being willing to stand up to a bear, he cowers from Bailey as a result of her punching him early in the comic.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: She has an obvious distaste for Gale and an explicit hatred for Pete. In both cases, they put someone she loved in danger, although she's more lenient with Gale due to her Heel–Face Turn shortly after.
• Farmer's Daughter: Not literally, but she fits many of the tropes. She's an attractive character who works and lives on a farm, whom King immediately falls for and is a bit of a Tomboy in regards to her physical activity.
• Friendly Enemies: Despite having battled each other before, she seems to bear none of the same animosity towards Tarot that King does.
• Furry Reminder:
  • A Running Gag with her early is her desire to sniff King's butt, and his refusal to let her do so.
  • She encourages King to give Ace a tongue bath, which she sees as perfectly natural.
• Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: With King, her husband. Her chipperness leads to his eventual defrosting over time, and lends greatly to his character development.
• Happily Ever After: After The Game ends, King and Bailey's love life is essentially relegated to Romantic Comedy plotlines, and they're gently brushed aside to allow for new protagonists like Marion.
• Happily Married: She gets married to King at the end of the "The King and I" story arc, and is now a mother of three.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Pete's armour for her comes without a helmet. Subtly deconstructed when she gets into combat in it, as Sabrina bypasses all of her defense by simply kicking her in the head.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Tying into the Blue-and-Orange Morality of all dogs in the comic; Bailey considers herself less important to her family than their actual biological kids, which is why she's not too torn up when they decide to dump her off on a different family.
• Heroic Spirit: While serving under Pete, she's able to fight both Sabrina and Tarot off at once to a standstill. The fight is aborted before a clear winner can be decided, but the fact that a mortal dog with no combat training was able to give two skilled combatants and magic(k) users a run for their money should show just how much drive she has to ensure her husband doesn't have to do the same.
• Hidden Depths: While attending a fair, Bailey is shown to have excellent marksman skills here. She sinks Bino three times while he's sitting in a carnival dunking booth by throwing baseballs at a target.
• Love at First Sight: Her pre-marriage relationship with King is remarkably short, at least in Webcomic Time, as they hit it off immediately at Fox's Thanksgiving party.
• Magical Girl Warrior: Bailey is transformed into a bulky metal warrior while serving as Pete's game avatar in this comic. She is seen inside a huge metal droid, brandishing a huge sword.
• Mama Bear: When she, King, and their children accompany the wolves on a camping trip, Gale attempts to ambush them in their sleep, only for Bailey to instantly awaken and grab the puma by the throat.
  Bailey: "Touch my pups and you'll be wearing your digestive tract like a Mardi Gras necklace."
  Gale: "Noted."
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Her optimism and good nature brings a much-needed light into King's life, and the two of them fit each other perfectly as romantic interests.
• Married Animals: With King. They both admit that pet marriages are a contentious issue, but with the backing of Keene Milton they manage to set a precedent and get broadcast on television as a landmark in animal rights.
• Marry for Love: She accepts King's proposal after knowing him for a long while, despite the difficulties it will lend to their lives, because she genuinely loves him.
• Meaningful Appearance: While its hard to see, the sword her Armour comes with has Pete's head on the hilt, signifying her current enslavement under him.
• Nausea Dissonance:
  • As a result of both being a dog and working on a farm for much of her life, Bailey is unbothered by a lot of things that put off her husband. She eats disgusting food, sees no problem visiting a Fourth-Run Theatre with distressingly moist seats, and has far less squeamishness handling her infant children than King sometimes does.
  • When Kitsune climbs into a hot spring with them, fully nude, she smiles and welcomes him in stark contrast to King's disgust.
• Official Couple: One of the most prominent in the story with King, next to Tarot and Peanut.
• Only Sane Woman: For a while she serves as King's voice of reason prior to their marriage, when he still called her in Kansas for advice.
• Opposites Attract: Warm and laidback in contrast to King's cynicism. However, they both share the trait of being quick to anger, with Bailey only marginally better.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Battle Aura included! Bailey and King are having an argument when Bino angrily interrupts with a trivial matter. She nearly caves in his face with a punch, her eyes glowing crimson, which makes the actual "warning" part minimal.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: With King, providing much needed levity to his otherwise paranoid and cynical life.
• Sexy Surfacing Shot: Her coming up from the lake with King's watch in her mouth is framed by the camera as one of these. He responds to with an Open the Iris shot, visibly stunned.
• Sheathe Your Sword: Alongside King and Tarot, as detailed above. All of them agree to completely cease fighting to end The Game, meaning neither side can progress. Kitsune gives each god a few minutes to convince their avatars to keep going, which both fail.
• Shoulders of Doom: The armour Pete gives her contains these, especially since the armour is twice as thick as her actual body mass.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Especially after marriage, which can put off their other friends at times.
• Take Me Instead: She volunteers herself to be Pete's avatar in Heaven's Not Enough, in order to spare her husband from falling under his clutches or becoming human again.
• Taking It Well: All things considered, Bailey takes the fact that her husband is an ex-human remarkably well. She's never quite given a moment of peace to adjust to it, given everything that happens in that arc, but she stays with him in a loving relationship nonetheless.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: As usual, there was confusion about her gender once Bailey was re-introduced in the strip. But in her first appearances she has the eyelashes usually seen in female characters in the strip. The fluorescent pink hearts helped clue her gender in, too.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Alaskan husky Bailey is nearly twice the size of her husband King, who is a corgi.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Pickle and Cherry milkshakes. She seems to have remarkably good luck in visiting places that serve them.
• Ultraman Copy: The armour Pete gives to her resembles Ultraman closely, at least when the helmet is on. Her armour is silver with red highlights, yellow eyes, and a permanent scowl.
• Unstoppable Rage: Whenever Bailey get mad, someone's gonna seriously get hurt. Not even Gail the mountain lion wants to risk making Bailey angry.
• Wacky Cravings: A running gag is made of her appreciation for Pickle and Cherry milkshakes being mistaken for these, up until it actually is one of these.

Bino (Mutt)

Woe is me!

The original protagonist of the comic, back when it was still called Bino, heavily downgraded in status to one of the least liked dogs in Babylon Gardens.

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• 0% Approval Rating: Ironically, despite running an entire club of neighborhood dogs, most of the people in it seem to hate him. Nobody pays attention during meetings, he's regularly beat up by members, and everyone else in town (including his own girlfriend) consider him a pathetic loser. Early on, a few dogs seem to back up his Fantastic Racism, but over time as Interspecies Romance becomes more accepted he even loses that support.
• Affectionate Nickname: From Sasha: Biney, with a mix of Biney-Bun... and longer extensions of Biney-Bun.
• Amusing Injuries: Very, very frequently ends up injured. However, it becomes this because he usually deserves it.
• Asshole Victim: To nearly everyone, but especially Duchess. When she gets with him, she proves herself quickly to be the more wicked and hateful one between them, and Bino gets the brunt of her awfulness.
• Attention Whore: Very frequently shows himself to be one, which extends to the meetings he holds of the Good Ol Dogs Club.
• Color Motifs: Bino's collar and eyes are the same lime green, which sometimes extends to the accessories he wears. This naturally makes him a literal Green-Eyed Monster.
• Crush the Keepsake: While in possession of Joel's fate in the form of a watch, he very nearly crushes it with a hammer as King watches.
• Demoted to Extra: In a meta sense. Bino was initially planned as the protagonist of the comic, and the first ever character conceived. When the comic began proper, he was quickly illustrated as a side character, and noticeably Took a Level in Jerkass at that.
• Emasculated Cuckold: In contrast to Fido, Bino is a lot less comfortable with Sasha's tendency to flirt and get with other people on the side, and complained frequently about it when they were together. This, alongside his own selfishness, is what leads to her eventually leaving him.
• Fantastic Racism: One of the largest cat haters in the comic; Only Grape is allowed into the Good Ol Dogs Club, and then it's implied only because of her attacking him as a child.
• Fearless Fool: His taking on Bruno, especially since he lacks the capability to actually hurt her in the slightest. He gets off lucky, as she considers him Not Worth Killing.
• Forced to Watch: In a particularly cruel move, upon realizing King wants his watch he decides to have his lackeys hold him down and force him to watch as he breaks it with a hammer.
• The Gadfly: He enjoys getting under people's skin, which he sees as cutting them down to size. He makes fun of Tiger for his name, Peanut for his interest in cats, and King just for being named 'King'.
• Gift-Giving Gaffe: Frequently.
  • On Christmas 2008, Bino tried to get Peanut a bag of cat treats to insult him. Upon realizing Peanut got him something genuinely thoughtful, he aborts the plan and passes the treats to Max instead (Who saw him buying them for Peanut).
  • On Valentines Day (Or more specifically, several months after) he gives Sasha a unicorn she gave him on his first birthday, a used bone, and a joke book.
  • In 12 Days of Housepets, he's expected from Duchess to buy her a pony, which he fumbles multiple times before finally bringing her a bear instead.
• Green-Eyed Monster: He gets jealous over Sasha quite often, and possesses a particularly evil-looking jealous stare. He is highly sensitive to any attempts to take over what he thinks is his regardless of logic or sanity stating otherwise. He's highly antagonistic towards his successful older brother Fido, and even attacks King on Christmas for "Acting like he owned the place" simply because his name was "King".
• Horrible Judge of Character: He genuinely believes Duchess loves him, despite all the abuse she puts him through.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Despite technically being a 'villain' of the comic in early arcs, he obviously pales over time in comparison to legitimate threats like Pete and Eudoant. On top of that, it's difficult to not feel sympathy for his repeated failures, especially his Hope Spot in Wolf's Clothing where he seems genuinely happy at the thought of winning praise from his fellow dogs, most of whom hate him.
• Iron Butt-Monkey: Bino has been the recipient of several serious injuries (getting hit in the head with a frying pan by Grape, nearly having his face caved in by a punch from Bailey, being mauled by a bear), but he always manages to get better again by the following two arcs.
• Jerkass: He's most disagreeable, even with those who consider him friends, and can become downright hostile to those he's not friendly with. Fox openly wonders why he and Bino are friends on several occasions.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Early on, Bino appeared almost identical to Joey (Best seen here), save only the eye spot and a height difference. Later on Joey would Art Shift to try and separate the two better.
• Love at First Punch: His meeting with Duchess turns into love after they trade barbs.
• Love at First Sight: Upon first meeting Duchess, he berates her despite the welt on her head and she tells him to shove his head in a furnace. He immediately falls in love, and they begin a relationship offscreen shortly after.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Stuck between Hero Fido and Lovable Goofball Joey.
• The Nicknamer: King chews him out in Wolf's Clothing for only referring to people by derogatory nicknames.
• No Accounting for Taste: While being an Asshole Victim himself, he's still relentlessly berated by Duchess when the two get together, and more often than not his attempts to woo her only result in her dismissing or insulting him more. Despite this, the two have remained together for several years of the comic's run.
• The Nose Knows: Averted. Bino's nose is awful compared to most dogs, and he proves completely incompetent at finding scents when challenged by Rodney.
• Not Worth Killing: Bruno (a literal Mama Bear) doesn't seem to consider him worth doing any actual harm to, despite his waking her up and taunting her to her face. She falls asleep on him twice, and when she does drag him off to her cave, she lets him go with only a few scratches. Justified, since the arc takes place during winter- She really does just want to go back to hibernating and be left alone.
• On the Rebound: For all his flaws, he doesn't seem to mind Sasha for breaking up with him, and begins a relationship with Duchess soon after.
• Perpetual Frowner: He spends most days scowling, only truly smiling when he's around Duchess. Even when he was with Sasha he never seemed truly happy with her.
• Pet the Dog: He's genuinely impressed by Sasha's piano skills when she shows them off, only shortly before she chews him out for skimping on her presents.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He derisively refers to King as a 'Midget' in Real Tales Of The K9PD and is vehemently against Interspecies Romance.
• Psychological Projection:
  • When his brother Fido returns, Bido snidely accuses him of being a 'glory-sponge'.
  • When he and King first meet, Bino immediately assumes King to be a self-absorbed prick who wants to be the most popular person in town, despite the fact that King shows none of those traits and said traits describe Bino perfectly.
  • He also accuses King of having a Napoleon complex, while Wolf's Clothing shows that also applies to himself.
• Public Hater, Private Fan:
  • To Pridelands, along with most of the Good Ol Dogs Club. While bashing it, he mentions a few of The One Thing I Don't Hate About You he could only have known from reading deep into the series.
  • Duchess points out the oddity of his watching a publically broadcast cat wedding on television, to which he can't respond.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: Wolf's Clothing features multiple characters mispronouncing his name as 'Bean Oh', and his subsequent annoyance and over-pronunciation.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Wolf's Clothing features him completing every trial the wolves give him after spending an entire day trying. Unfortunately, nobody believes him, he gets no popularity or fame for it, a bear mauls him, and Jack ropes him into a scam as the fall guy.
• Shock Collar: Briefly given one by his owner. Discarded quickly after other pets in the neighborhood accidentally figured out how to activate it remotely.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Bino believes buy and large that he deserves popularity and devotion, which few people are willing to give him. Wolf's Clothing is all about his desire to obtain popularity, although it's only to earn his seat as head of the GODC.
• Sycophantic Servant: Towards Duchess after hooking up; He's seen blindly agreeing to her on New Years 2014, which seems to put her off to him.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: Bino has a relentless need to target anyone he thinks is too full of themselves, seen with King and his brother.
• Teeny Weenie: Parodied. Due to collars being the only article of clothing dogs have a taboo against wearing, Bino seems to have insecurity around how thin his neck is, even if it really can't be seen in the art style. Peanut's contrast in this department embarrasses him greatly.
• Unabashed B-Movie Fan: Considers Screaming Blood Cult VI a perfectly fine movie to watch while on a date with Sasha.
• The Unfettered: One of his few good traits is Villainous Valour. Wolf's Clothing features him challenging a bear, wrestling a bird in mid-air, and tracking down a scent in the woods to become an honorary wolf, and while he fails at the first two, his pure dedication throughout is admirable to see.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Whenever he gets A Day in the Limelight, he often acts likes a full-on Jerkass and often gets on the wrong end of a physical beatdown. It's invariably played for laughs, though.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By taking a watch from the trash, he accidentally risks damning King's soul in Not All Dogs. His refusal to give it back and King's inability to explain only compounds the issue.
• Very Punchable Man: Conveniently serves as someone for Bailey to show how frustrated she is when the time comes. In general he takes this role as he's the frequent Butt-Monkey and Asshole Victim to both characters and circumstances around him, yet always remains The Unfettered who refuses to believe he could ever be in the wrong.

Sasha Hartford (Mutt)

I'm going to go make out with your brother, okay?

Babylon Gardens' beloved Cloudcuckoolander, a highly affectionate female mutt with a pretty awful home life. Her love life bounces around frequently, but she considers herself to be on good terms with pretty much everyone.

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• Abusive Parents: Sasha's owner (who she calls "Daddy") locks her out of the house pretty frequently, even in winter. The implications of her house being littered with beer bottles are also grim when you think about it.
• Angst? What Angst?: Averted. Sasha initially seems this way, as she describes her abuse very casually and flippantly, and is saddened when she's separated from her owner. Certain moments let her feelings shine through. On the rare case we actually see her interact with her owner, she's clearly miserable, implying she's downplaying it to those who ask. In Be Mine, she ends up sobbing into King's lap about missing him, seeming to be deeply psychologically scarred under it all.
• Animal Chick Magnet: Literally, but also in the context of the trope. She mentions to King that her owner will take her to parties and try to use her to pick up girls, and then beat her if the trick doesn't work.
• Bad "Bad Acting": To trick Bino, she's given a cue card by King with her lines on it. She still reads it in an incredibly stilted and awkward manner.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: She's shown to hold a close and surprisingly (mostly) platonic friendship with King after their first meeting, where he sat out in the cold with her so she wouldn't have to go home to her owner.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Thanks to PETA, She's been trained at obedience school to take the fall for an attempted murder of Keene. The crazy side of the brainwashing kicks in when Fox knows she's innocent, but she begins willingly confessing and attempting to push Fox's buttons by flirting with him while he's on police duty. Thankfully, the brainwashing appears to be gone for good since the trainer was arrested.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: While no way near as bad as most examples, it is said on her character sheet that she dumps Bino on things like his position in with the other dogs. This has since gone away now that both her and Bino have moved on to see other people.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Sasha has this personality at times, going off on frequent tangents and non-sequiturs at the drop of a hat. Though, certain strips, like her sobering up to berate Bino for his lazy regifting, suggests some may be an act.
• Delusions of Parental Love: She doesn't take kindly to King insulting her owner, and when she's eventually liberated from him, she finds herself heartbroken despite his abuse of her.
• Emancipated Child: Played this way, despite technically not being a biological child of her owner. Sasha's liberation from him by the Milton Ferrets leads to her living in Wolf House from then on, alongside King, Bailey, and eventually other transformed humans.
• Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: At the start of “Heckraiser” she wears jeans and an open-front shirt, possibly to fit in with the former humans at the boarding house, though she drops the pants later.
• Genius Ditz: Either this, or she's practicing Obfuscating Stupidity, as she was able to compose a sonata in her head without ever sitting down at a piano, and knew all along that her boyfriend Bino was regifting her, after spending a good while acting like his presents were the best things ever.
  • She also writes dog food scripts.
• Heart Symbol: One on her collar, and one on her rear end.
• Hidden Depths: She's able to have a surprisingly frank discussion with Duchess over their opinions on dog shows and how demeaning they are. The diction she uses is a far more natural one than her usual pollyanna tone, and she speaks with conviction that implies it's something she holds strong opinions on.
• Honor Thy Abuser: Awfully, she still holds her owner with high respect despite getting none back. The 2008 Christmas strip features her apologizing for not doing a good enough job at helping him pick up girls, and even telling him she loves him afterwards.
• Idiot Savant: If Sasha is as stupid as others say, she's this.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Arguments for this or Shameless Fanservice Girl carry equal water. Be Mine features her engaging in a string of seemingly Innocent Innuendo and even sleeping in the same bed with King, but she admits at the end she is attracted to him, meaning those were likely intentional.
• Interrupted Intimacy: A running gag features her barging in on Lois and Marion on multiple ocassions, mistaking their intimacy for her eating him.
• Motor Mouth: On both her official bookmark and during her Bad Date with Yeltsin, she talks in a massive Wall of Text about a long list of inane things that occur to her in the moment. The latter calls this out as an annoying trait of hers, leading to his rejection.
• My Girl Is a Slut: Has no problem seeking casual liaisons while maintaining an otherwise committed relationship with one dog. Bino didn't like that, but Kevin doesn't seem to care. For what it's worth, Sasha won't permit a casual fling to interfere with her actual relationship.
• The Nicknamer: Sasha is usually the one you expect to give all the nicknames to the other pets, but she has at one time been called (really badly) by Bino: Sashy.
• No Sense of Personal Space: As per the above trope, she genuinely doesn't see anything wrong at all with acting lovey-dovey with King after he's already married Bailey.
• Obfuscating Insanity/Obfuscating Stupidity: Evidence supporting both has been provided in various places. As listed under Genius Ditz and Hidden Depths, she has quite a few moments where she proves to be quite intelligent, and she holds a close friendship with Daisy (another character who much more blatantly pretends to be stupid).
• Odd Friendship: Implied to have Daisy as a confidante. Daisy admits to knowing of her secret hideaway, and says Sasha confided her worries about obedience training to her. This despite Daisy usually only saying one sentence ever.
• Plucky Comic Relief: After moving into Wolf House in Be Mine, she becomes this for the duration of Heckraiser. She doesn't contribute to the plot of the arc, only standing by and delivering punchlines with her usual ditziness. Naturally, when the arc begins to get serious, she goes mysteriously missing.
• The Pollyanna: Other than a few moments where she shows grief, Sasha is completely upbeat, and unbothered even when breaking up with Bino.
• Really Gets Around: She's been in relationships with Bino and Kevin, has gone on at least one date with Fido, and crushes on King after his marriage. Her dialogue implies a lot more offscreen flings.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Arguments for this or Innocent Fanservice Girl carry equal water. Her very first appearance features her intent to ask Fido for his puppies, showing she's at least aware of sex and innuendo, although she tries to imply the opposite later. She tells King to his face she wants to make out with him, but the question of whether she knows she's desireable is still in the air.
• Shed the Family Name: Averted, strangely. Despite being emancipated from her owner and King taking Keene's last name after his own 'adoption', there's no indication of Sasha changing her last name of Hartford.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: She fully admits to trying to KILL Keene Milton for reasons unknown in Real Tales Of The K9PD. As Fox desperately tries to make her say she didn't do it, she just keeps reinforcing the fact with a smile on her face. However, this was just a consequence of her being Brainwashed and Crazy.
• Stepford Smiler: Shades of type A with a heavy helping of denial. She comes off as an airhead most of the time, but is cheerful and friendly with all the other pets and mainly serves as comic relief. Then on Christmas Eve, we get this:
  King: "Aren't you going to go home?"
  Sasha: "No, Daddy locked me out again 'cause I didn't get him any babes at the party. I think he just forgets when he's mad."
  • According to Daisy, she tries to keep up a smile, but there are days where she has trouble even doing that much, which is when she runs away.
• Stockholm Syndrome: She's since been removed from her abusive owner's influence and ownership, and she'll freely admit to how cruel and mean he was to her... but despite all this, she still misses him. Whether this is due to the brainwashing or just fond memories of the good times she had with him is unclear.

Joey (Mutt)

Babylon Gardens' resident Otaku, a nerd with a group of friends he regularly plays DND with. He's well liked in the community despite his quirks, and is in a committed relationship with the mouse Squeak.

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• Ass in a Lion Skin: Joey frequently dresses as a cat in the early years, as part of both a hobby and fetish. Later strips downplay this, to the point that the cat costume has never been seen in the updated art style.
  • He similarly used his skills to try and infiltrate the Milton ferrets under guise of being their lost cousin, although it went over poorly.
• Casual Kink: Joey is not subtle nor uncomfortable with his fetishes at all. Early strips frequently feature him mentioning them at the drop of a hat, and even after he stopped doing this as much most of the neighborhood is aware of and generally accepting of his kinky habits.
• Conveniently Common Kink: Met Squeak while roleplaying a cat and pouncing on her, only to realize she was into it. Blossomed from there.
• Endearingly Dorky: Despite his public nerdiness and odd habits, he's clearly popular, and even secured himself a girlfriend with a Conveniently Common Kink.
• Fetishes Are Weird: While he came to be accepted as a member of the cast, kinks and all, his first appearance pushed his Cat interests to a deliberately creepy level.
  • His foot kink is initially treated at this too, although mostly due to his casual discussion of it publically.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: He leaves Temple Crashers 2 still convinced that nothing that happened in it was actually supernatural, but just a very technologically advanced Holodeck, including his Playing with Fire powers.
• Geeky Analogy: When asked to infiltrate the Milton Ferrets, he sarcastically responds that he's not Hannibal, before clarifying that he meant the one from The A-Team.
• Goggles Do Nothing: As of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Dog", he has a blue pair of glasses that appears to serve no purpose other than looking cool.
• Henpecked Husband: To Squeak. Despite their clearly loving relationship, he's frequently bossed (or even dragged) around by her, frets about attending conventions without asking her first, and sits when she commands him to.
• Hidden Depths: Joey is pretty good at art, something Peanut frequently exploits by hiring him for panel work on his own comic.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Joey's actually one of the shorter dogs, but his girlfriend Squeak is a mouse.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Early on, Bino appeared almost identical to Joey (Best seen here), save only the eye spot and a height difference. Later on Joey would Art Shift to try and separate the two better.
• Interspecies Romance: With Squeak (a mouse).
• Male Gaze: Peanut's one attempt to join his nerd group left him disappointed in his tendency to create alluring female NPCs for his friends to drool over.
• Meaningful Name: Not usually, but while trying to infiltrate the Milton Ferrets he takes the name of Aran, continuing the Captain N: The Game Master theme naming.
• Missed the Call: A Meaningful Background Event as Pete is explaining The Game to Bahamut shows Joey alongside Peanut and Grape as a figurine on Pete's table, implying he was seriously considered by the God as a worthy avatar before King came along. Ironically, despite missing said call, he would get a chance to brave Pete's temple later in life.
• Nerds Are Sexy: He manages to be the only member of his Nerd Group (Discounting Peanut's very brief joining) who gets a girlfriend. Squeak can be exasperated by him at times, but genuinely loves him and has no problem with his roleplaying between friends, as she's implied to have a few geeky interests herself.
• Official Couple: Despite the inherent oddity, he and Squeak are shown to have a perfectly happy relationship that's largely accepted by the rest of the community, even when most Interspecies Romance isn't.
• One of the Girls: Adapted to the in-universe Dogs/Cats parallel. Joey visits cat outings, often in costume, and frequently hangs out with them over dogs. Despite the initial Unsettling Gender-Reveal, the majority of the pet population eventually learned of and grew used to his habits.
• Otaku: A big fan of DND, Miyazaki, and anime. Also holds strong opinions on Star Wars.
• Pals with Jesus: After an initial disastrous attempt, he appears to be perfectly fine with Kitsune joining his nerd friends for DND sessions.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Played straight at first with Peanut and Grape only finding out Joey is a cat cosplayer after being told. Later averted when it appears the cats all know he gets off dressing up in a cat suit — and they're cool with it.
  • Attempted and averted again when Bino makes him dress up like a ferret. The Miltons don't buy it at all.
• Playing with Fire: His Temple Crashing outfit gives him the ability to create flames as attacks.
• Robe and Wizard Hat: His Temple Crashing outfit, which gives him the appropriate magic(k) powers while in Pete's temple.
• Pun: Joey is an anthro who likes to dress up like another species of anthro, making him a furry furry.
• Secret-Keeper: His cat Cosplay, although its not as much of a secret as he thinks it is.
• Shared Family Quirks: With Fido, a close relationship with a mouse and the tendency to carry said mouse around on his head.
• Took a Level in Badass: He shows himself to be extremely adept at Temple Crashing, in part due to it largely following Videogame logic with classes and levels he can understand. Nonetheless, it's a fairly incredible upgrade for him to go from being thrown into the snow by Bino to taking down monsters three times his size with the help of his nerd friends..
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: A variation, given the parallel of Cats/Dogs with the gender binary. Peanut is visibly disturbed upon first realizing he knows Joey's cat persona, and had assumed it to be someone different.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: His catsuit, despite being a Paper-Thin Disguise, is rarely judged by any of the pets around him once they get used to it.

Tiger Arbelt (Mutt)

Kiss Off, Slappy!

An Expy of Garfield, usually relegated to one-off gag strips as part of a Those Two Guys with Marvin. Eternally hungry, slightly sadistic, and not good with other people.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: He receives plenty of ridicule because of his name, which is feline-based.
• Always Someone Better: Despite being characterized as a Big Eater for the entire run of the comic, he still loses an eating contest to the Daryls. Their being wolves and much larger than him, as well as both of them being ravenous whereas Marvin doesn't hold the same appetite as Tiger may have had something to do with it.
• Apathetic Pet: Tiger seems not to care very much about his owner save for how they can deliver food unto him, a trait he took from his inspiration.
• Ax-Crazy: Given his bizarrely psychotic reactions in the "Tiger's Very Own Super Special Television Show!" arc, causing an explosion within a confined building to try and force the Miltons into letting him keep his show, he certainly qualifies as this.
• Berserk Button: As a dog, he's more than tired of the cat jokes directed at him.
  Tiger: Ha! I will never get tired of how you and the other dogs point out that my name is in fact that of a large cat, and that I hang out with a cat!
  Both: Hahahahahahaha!
  Tiger: I WILL KILL YOU I WILL KILL YOUR WHOLE FAMILY
• Big Eater: He's known for his pretty large appetite, as with the character he satires. When his owner attempts to put him on a diet, Marvin points out his inexplicable ability to never gain weight despite all of the eating he does.
• Brought to You by the Letter "S": His collar's insignia is just a purple 'T', like his brother's.
• Christmas Carolers: Caroled with Zach and Marvin on two separate occasions, once listed below and once in a Sketchy.
• Comedic Sociopath: If the above quote wasn't indicative enough, he chooses to sing his own, more twisted version of The Grinch's song during caroling, seemingly just to annoy his siblings and disturb humans.
• Dine and Dash: He's implied to steal food paid for by the Miltons by answering their door, to the point that Rockstar Hawk (Working as a delivery wolf) was given a note telling him not to serve Tiger anymore at some point.
• Dislikes the New Guy: He shows an intense distaste towards Zach when the rabbit is first adopted by his family, considering him a Third Wheel between his friendship with Marvin.
• Divine Misfile: Was very nearly collected by Cerberus prematurely at one point.
• A Dog Named "Cat": A dog named Tiger. This name is a sticking point for him, as he hates anyone making jokes about it.
• Excited Kids' Show Host: Briefly became the host of The Funtime Learning Hour or So, and did surprisingly well at it. More specifically, he's an 'Under Sixes' type who tries to teach the children at home about the alphabet and Edgar Allen Poe. It's his guest stars who are the problem, and his eventual obsession with finishing the episode.
• Expy: Meant to be one of Garfield, an orange dog sharing similar tastes and distastes. Comics that feature him and Marvin almost always assume the form of Garfield's four-panel, standing behind a table POV format. This version of the character is significantly more sociopathic and narcissistic, nearly to the point of being a Corrupted Character Copy as well.
• Expy Coexistence: Despite being an obvious satire of Garfield, Marion references Garfield comics existing in-universe in Heckraiser.
• Extreme Omnivore: On top of his intense eating sprees, he's apparently comfortable with eating the wrappers candy come with, unpeeled.
• Flat Character: As an expy of Garfield, his only real traits are his appetite and anger issues.
• Forced Meme: He briefly tries to make 'Kiss Off, Slappy' his Character Catchphrase, even rigging a bluetooth speaker to play a Laugh Track whenever he says it.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Tiger gets angry at the drop of a hat.
• Informed Attribute: He's said in his early site bio to hate cockroaches and love his teddy bear, but said bear only appears in one strip, and the cockroach thing never comes up once.
• Laugh Track: Tiger uses Bluetooth speakers to set up his own, programmed to respond to certain situations, like saying his catchphrase. The unfortunate drawback is that it's glitchy, and sometimes ignores him but laughs at other people saying it.
• Narcissist: Tiger things pretty highly of himself, especially in contrast to the people around him. One strip features him setting up bluetooth speakers to play cheering and applause whenever he enters a room, or utters his Forced Meme catchphrase.
• Never Gets Fat: When he's asked to go on a diet by his owner, he immediately has Marvin point out by way of chart that despite his insane eating habits, he's managed to never pack on any weight.
  Marvin: Frankly, he's a scientific anomaly and should be studied as-is.
• Nonindicative Name: He's a dog, not a tiger.
• Pyrrhic Victory: All's Fair features his winning second place in an eating contest and 1,000 dollars. 95% is seized by the Miltons to pay for his damages to their studio in Tiger's Very Own Super Special Television Show!, and the remaining 50 dollars are taken by Zach and Jessica.
• The Slacker: Tiger's always looking to do as little as possible. At one point, he actually started saying "shrug" instead of shrugging.
• Take That!: The basis for Tiger's whole character is a critical deconstruction of the characterization of Garfield. He hates Thursdays, loves pizza, hates cockroaches and likes his teddy bear Poom.
• Those Two Guys: Tiger and Marvin are relegated to one-off breather strips where they play off each other in a more standard daily comic strip setting. This is Deconstructed to a degree when Zach shows up; because he doesn't fit within their preestablished dynamic, they try to ignore him and he begins to feel ostracized as a result.

Duchess (Saluki)

Your wit will keep the loser's circle entertained.

A shameless Rich Bitch in a relationship with Bino. Mindless devotion and control are all she seeks from those around her.

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• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: To the camera at her beauty pageant, she acts uncharacteristically sweet and kind. As soon as it's off, she shoves King off her lap. Averted the rest of the time, as while she's not often cruel, she makes little effort to hide her contempt for those around her.
• Color Motif: Her collar, parasol, and swimsuit are all the same shade of yellow.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: She herself admits that if she spent less time undermining her competition, she may have won the dog show with King.
• Dominatrix: To win King's affection for a better chance at securing the next Beauty Pageant, she shows up in his bed with handcuffs and a Whip of Dominance. When he runs, she only insists she'll 'Make sure he likes it'.
• Ears as Hair: Duchess's floppy ears are permed to strongly suggest kinship to human female hair.
• Female Misogynist: She states in her first appearance that 'feminism is for humans', and tends to prefer revelling in stereotypical beauty standards of her gender.
• Glory Hound: It's implied she only got with Bino to mooch off his fans in the GODC, and she explicitly tells Pit she wants 'Total dominion over the hearts and minds of the dogs of this city'.
• Love Is a Weakness: Duchess considers dogs being romantically involved to be stupid.
• Miss Fanservice: She's far more curvaceous than most dog characters, acts as a Dominatrix for King at one point, was drawn with breasts from the start where other female characters only picked them up after a few art upgrades, and wears a swimsuit in one strip that hugs her chest tightly.
• Mistress and Servant Boy: Duchess as the mistress, Boris as the servant. While their relationship is never made clear, he shows clear undying loyalty to her, and always stands by to protect her when she needs it. That being said, they clearly don't stand as equals, as he refers to her continuously as 'mistress' and she mostly uses him to do her labor.
• No Accounting for Taste: Bino is a loser and an Asshole Victim, but Duchess is an openly contemptuous Rich Bitch who makes him look kinder by comparison. Despite this, he's still obsessed with winning her favor, and she stays with him for his GODC 'popularity'.
• Parasol of Prettiness: Despite it snowing, she takes one along with sunglasses to stand aloofly while Boris does the talking.
• Perpetual Frowner: As a result of being snide, goal-oriented, and derisive of others, she's only ever seen with a permanent scowl.
• The Prima Donna: A dog pageant parody. She's rich, vain, and goes to great lengths to win best in show without caring for the other dogs around her.
• Really Gets Around: Implied. She scoffs at King's idea of a girlfriend, insisting that dogs get with whoever is convenient at the time. However, she takes offense to King's implication of unwanted puppies, implying she has some tact as to who she's with.
• Relationship Sabotage: She conducts a few offscreen during her Valentines Day show, which end up costing her the competition as she hardly focuses on actually working otherwise.
• Rich Bitch: Literally as well as figuratively. Duchess has no real sympathetic traits to go along with the apparently large bank account she has access to.
• The Scrooge: When Bino uses his one phone call for bail, he calls Duchess. She refuses to even lift a finger to help him.
• Sinister Shades: She owns a pair of sunglasses that would normally be Cool Shades; However, her wearing them only serves to make her appear more detached and careless towards the current situation, rather than cooler.
• Smarter Than You Look: Despite her vanity, she's shown to be rather opinionated and intelligent. She debates Sasha over whether or not dog shows are demeaning to female dogs, and picks up on a clue early on that King used to be human (Namingly, his knowing what a high school dance looks like).
• Surrounded by Idiots: Just the one. Boris is a loyal enforcer who obediently follows every command she gives him. Bino, on the other hand, has put her life in danger repeatedly from trying to be a Sycophantic Servant, and is too stupid to actually aid her in any meaningful way.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Far earlier than the rest of the cast, from her first appearances, she was drawn with lines on her chest resembling flat breasts.
• The Unfettered: Duchess's life Goal? To win contests and popularity by any means necessary, including sabotaging other contestants. She is seen to be entirely without scruples in any aspect of life.
• Volleying Insults: In her Rich Bitch fashion she does so subtly with Colleen, a rival in the beauty pageant. This includes insulting her own partner, King, right in front of him.

Rufus Sandwich (Australian Shepherd)

See Housepets! — Denizens of Heaven.

Other Neighborhood Dogs

Daisy (Newfoundland)

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• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: On the cover of the third book, she appears to be more interested in the tag on King's collar than in him table dancing while drunk.
• The Confidant: To Sasha, strangely. When Daisy is questioned in Real Tales Of The K9PD, she's shown to hold knowledge into her insecurities as a result of Sasha feeling comfortable enough to share them with her.
• Character Catchphrase: "Hi, I'm Daisy!" For a long time, it was the only thing she'd ever said in the comic.
• Living Prop: During the Wolfs' Christmas Party, she's seen actually hanging from the ceiling with a bunch of party decorations.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When the chips are on the table, Daisy drops her catchphrase to help with the K-9s. In fact, she's shown to be surprisingly eloquent verbally. She never regresses back to being a verbal one-note character after this.
• Stepford Smiler: It turned out her "normal" behavior is a façade when she breaks character to help Sasha in the investigation into the attempted murder of Keene.
  Daisy: Sometimes it's easier to put on a happy face, you know?

Dallas (Dalmatian)

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• Ascended Extra: Originally just one of "Joey's Creepy Friends", he got a name in the 2014 Halloween arc.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Has shades of this. He outwardly appears to be another one of Joey's harmless nerd friends, but he's previously mocked Peanut, Grape and Maxwell's Imaginate costumes, threatened to beat Lester to snap him out of a trance, and graffitied on the wall of Pete's temple.
• Flirting Under Fire: After Grape (Maybe, it's ambiguous) grabs his rear by accident while Temple Crashing, he calls back asking for her to call him while running from the fight.
• Flashy Teleportation: His Teleportation while Temple Crashing, taken from Star Trek, involves shimmering flashes of light.
• Genre Refugee: While everyone else cosplays as fantasy archetypes for Temple Crashing, Dallas throws on a Starfleet uniform.
• Keet: He generally seems more cheery and energetic than Joey or Lester.
• Shout-Out: Initially averted. When he first appeared under the "Joey's Creepy Friends" title some readers thought his tag, somewhat shaped like a Star Trek uniform emblem, would lead to his being eventually named after the franchise. Confirmed in "Temple Crashers" where he's dressed as Commander Data, despite that not fitting the theme.
• Small Role, Big Impact: During Temple Crashers 2, he gets barely any dialogue or role throughout the entire arc. However, by the end, his ability to teleport thanks to his Starfleet uniform becomes vital, as without it everyone would have been trapped within the collapsing temple.

Rex (Bulldog)

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• Bully Bulldog: Deliberately inverted. Rex's recurring joke is that he's a massive softie who looks like an intimidating bulldog, and towers over near every other member of the cast.
• Dumb Muscle: Not nearly in the same vein as Kevin, mind you, but judging by Peanut's and Grape's comments, he definitely has this kind of reputation. It may just be a reputation, though, as he's more simpleminded and reserved than downright stupid.
• Idiot Savant: According to the author, he has an uncanny ability to taste minute differences in coffee blends.
• Interspecies Romance: It was alluded to in "The Hot Springs Episode" that he may, or may not, be in a relationship with one of the Bigglesworth cats
• Real Men Don't Cry: Inverted. Rex is perfectly willing to openly sob in front of the K9PD with no concerns.
• Real Men Wear Pink:
  • Despite being one of the biggest and strongest dogs, he's seen baking cookies in a holiday arc.
  • He also openly liked the new Pridelands novel mentioned here.

Lester (Mutt)

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• Ascended Extra: Was Ret Named with his own tag after beginning life under the tag "Joey's Creepy Friends".
• Cool Helmet: His Temple Crashing uniform features a skull hat and face mask, nearly making a Rage Helm with how it obstructs his ability to emote.
• Fan Dumb: In-Universe, he's basically the poster boy for the trope, with Opinion Myopia being the least of his problems. He bitches and moans repeatedly to Joey and Squeak after seeing a movie adaptation he thought subpar, and derides casual fans of the franchise for enjoying it.
• Jerkass: Lester is best described as a "nerd version of Bino".
• Killer Game Master: When Kitsune decides to join him in a game of D&D, he expresses a hope that he has a stack of replacement characters to use. He apparently considers any other DM behavior to be boring. Kitsune makes the game real and completely turns the tables on Lester.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: Lester is a very proud anime fan, and is vocally disappointed by the western adaptation film of one of his favorites. To this end he grows angry at Squeak's enjoyment, and berates Joey for days afterwards about how awful he thought it was.

Devo

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• Ascended Extra: Appears at the very end of the "My Life as a Teenage Squirrel" arc, where it turns out that he's owned by Lois' family.
• Living Prop: Along with Griswald and Sten, his purpose is to portray dogs in the Good Ol' Dogs club who aren't in the main cast.

Griswald

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• Living Prop: He, Devo, and Sten were created just so the Good Ol' Dogs club would have some members who weren't in the main or recurring cast.

Sten (Chihuahua)

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• Living Prop: Like Devo and Griswald, he really only exists to illustrate that there are dogs in the Good Ol' Dogs club other than some of the main characters. And to weird out Sasha.
• Potty Failure: Implied to have happened while being interrogated.
• Too Much Information: As part of a Terrible Interviewees Montage he drops "I have a urinary cyst" to Sasha during dinner.

Boris (Russian Wolfhound)

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• Battle Butler: Duchess' muscle, who also occasionally performs jobs she's too lazy to do herself such as cleaning King to prepare him for the pageant.
• The Brute: The muscle for Duchess who throws his weight around where she can't. When she's investigated for a crime in Real Tales of the K9PD, Boris is the one she sics on them to handle her dirty work.
• Cadre of Foreign Bodyguards: Downplayed in the 'Cadre' part. Boris is very blatantly Russian, and serves Duchess faithfully for reasons unknown.
• The Dragon: To Duchess, serving her unpleasantness for reasons unknown.
• Dumb Muscle: Acts as hired muscle originally for the GODC, later for Duchess.
• Husky Russkie: Duchess' bodyguard with a stereotypically Russian name and a nuclear symbol on his collar. Despite this, he speaks with no accent, and little reference is made to his nationality aside from one of King's comments.
• The Stoic: Rarely shows emotion save his grimace, and usually stands tall and silently. He breaks into a smile only once, when he gets a chance to fight Fox.

Yeltsin (Bull Terrier/originally Russian Wolfhound)

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• Funetik Aksent: A Brooklyn one.
• Retcon: Yeltsin was originally paired with Boris. After the v3 re-design, his breed and personality were changed.

Olive, Ace, and Rook (Mutts)

Cute, but Cacophonic. L-R Rook, Ace, Olive.

The offspring of King and Bailey. Olive and Ace are girls, while Rook is a boy.

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• Adults Are More Anthropomorphic: The kids behave more like rowdy puppies than babies early on, getting everywhere and into everything and teething on ropes to keep their canines healthy.
• Cheerful Child: Olive especially.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: As expected from puppy children. In one strip, when Sasha starts crying, they all wail loudly for no reason other than she was already doing it.
• Furry Reminder: Because of their tendency for these, King struggles between raising them like a dog and raising them like a human. In one instance, they play with him by wrestling over a rope toy, and they eagerly make noise to emulate Sasha when she's over.
• Eyes Always Shut: Ace's eyes are always covered by her ears or forelock, except for after an eye appointment which left them dilated.
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Averted. They go from babies to toddlers to speaking children, implying a few years (debatably, given we don't know how animals age in this universe, but it seems to be human-like) between their appearances.
• Precious Puppies: All three of them start and end the comic as these, going from silent animals to Adorably Precocious Child.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: During the Jurassic Park roleplay Olive gives an even gorier version of Alan's "six foot turkey" speech, the Alt Text suggesting she gets it from her mother.

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The K9 Unit

L-R Fox, Kevin, Ralph, Fido, Terrance. Uniforms not included.

The local team of police dogs, working cases in the Babylon Gardens area. Their showing up usually indicates a Genre Shift to Police Procedural.

In General

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• Detective Animal: Several arcs feature the K9PD solving mysteries.
• Fantastic Legal Weirdness: Some time before the comic starts, a court ruling (Terryson V Florida) declares that police dogs are allowed to mirandize and arrest humans, given they have the intelligence to do so aptly. The fact that it took this long to give them this right may result from in-universe Fantastic Racism against animals that is occasionally alluded to.
• Hunk: The team is entirely male, and almost all of them possess strong and muscular builds, particularly Mungo and Kevin.
• The Nose Knows: All police dogs possess a keen nose. In one strip, Fido asks a human witness to recount what a crime scene smelled like.
• Occult Detective: Not in their job description, but because Babylon Gardens is a Quirky Town, several of their high profile cases are supernatural. Ghost cats, transformed squirrels, and mind-controlled dogs are all investigated by the team in separate arcs.
• Policeman Dog: The staff is manned entirely by dogs trained for crime fighting.

Fido Byron (Mutt)

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• Affectionate Nickname: From Sasha and Sabrina: Fidey
• Always Save the Girl: Was willing to fight Jata by himself to keep Sabrina away out of his Shotgun Wedding, only receiving help after he had already confronted the much larger cat.
• Animal Lover: Downplayed as Characterization Marches On, but its implied early on that Fido has nursed several animals back to health before meeting Spo.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Is skeptical that Marion turned into a squirrel, despite the fact that he is dating a witch.
• Broken Ace: He was The Ace for much of the beginning of the series, but went through this once his relationship with Sabrina was exposed. Bino Kangaroo Court'ed his tail out of the Good Ol' Dogs Club, and it led to a suspension from the K-9 unit—not because he was with Sabrina, which Ralph (at least professionally) didn't have issue with, but because of his antics in breaking up her arranged marriage with Jata.
• Broken Pedestal: For Fox, after Fido reveals his relationship with Sabrina on live television. Though Fox is really more upset that he kept it a secret and has a hard time blaming him for it, especially given all the consequences it had already brought about at that point.
• By-the-Book Cop: The most prelevant example in the K9PD, he frequently enforces rules and is intimately familiar with the laws of the area, whatever that area may be.
• Chick Magnet: Especially after he graduates from the K-9 police academy.
• Cool Shades: While all of the police dogs have visors, his are instead normal glasses that resemble Round Hippie Shades, and he wears them off duty as well.
• Deadpan Snarker: Spo really brings out this side to him, frequently spouting off inane or stupid comments for him to snark back against.
• Forbidden Love: With Sabrina initially, as cat/dog relationships are hardly seen in a positive light, until the Internal Reveal.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: When on duty with his K-9 unit, he wears a police vest and no pants.
• Head Pet: Spo rides around on his head during most of his missions.
• Humble Hero: Is noticeably bothered by the praise heaped on him during his return, and insists the job is just his nature.
• Interspecies Romance: With Sabrina, secretly until the "Jungle Fever" arc.
• Loved by All: Upon returning home from police dog training, the entire dog population of Babylon Gardens shows up to greet him and cheer for him.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Since a pup, Fido was always neutral towards cats, unlike the other cats and dogs. Then again, his girlfriend is a cat, so that might have contributed to it some.
• Secret-Keeper: His relation with Sabrina. As of this, it's no longer a secret.
• Shared Family Quirks: With Joey, a close relationship with a mouse and the tendency to carry said mouse around on his head.
• Thicker Than Water: Despite how much of a jerk Bino is, he still hangs out with him and genuinely seems to enjoy it. This comes back to bite him, however, when King was shouting for Fido and Fox to stop Bino from breaking his watch. Fido stood outside the club within ears-length of the whole thing and was willing to let everything unfold, dismissing the event as petty. It took a threat from his girlfriend to stand up to Bino.
• Weaponized Teleportation: Not to help him fight, but to end the fight entirely. In The Case of the Aztec Gold, once he realizes how Teoxihuitl's teleportation spell works (he can teleport between any two instances where his symbol is drawn), he doodles the symbol in his notebook to teleport the entire boat holding him and his captors back to the police station.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He appears to suffer a mild fear of big cats after his experience with Jata. Sabrina brings up the idea of a lioness coming after him to tease him, and threatens to sic Teoxihuitl (A leopard) on him if he reads her private letter to King.

Sergeant Ralph (German Shepherd)

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• By-the-Book Cop: May even have shades of Da Chief, although he's actually a Sergeant.
• Inspector Javert: Becomes this in the Hot-Springs arc, obsessed with taking down Keene for building his hot springs in the middle of town.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Always shown in the tags of the comic as "Sergeant Ralph", and for one time when he was younger as "Officer Ralph".

Fox Lindberg (Siberian Husky)

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• Affectionate Nickname: From Sasha: Foxie, with a mix of Foxie-Bon.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's a pretty nice guy on any given day, despite hanging out with Bino. However, he gets surprisingly violent when the PETA members kidnap him, even threatening to rip them apart if he gets free. Ironically enough, he eventually gets that opportunity in Heaven's Not Enough and almost takes it.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: As a pup, he believed he was destined to be the hero of a "summer action blockbuster", as has been lampshaded multiple times. But when he joined the K-9 unit, he resorted to this as a coping mechanism to deal with lingering bitter feelings over Fido's relationship with Sabrina.
• Clear Their Name: Intends to do this to Sasha when she's accused of attempting to murder Keene Milton. And, boy, does he commit to that. So much so, that when she flat out admits she did it, he's utterly flabbergasted and desperately trying make it look like she's just being an idiot.
• Did Not Get the Girl: While thinking over Sasha's Bad Date, he realizes the futility of putting his friendship with Bino in the way of his crush on Sasha, and runs out to tell her. Before he can, she tells him instead that she's in love with Kevin.
• Dramatic Drop: He dropped the T.V. Remote when he finds out about Fido being a cat lover.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: One early strip shows him teaming up with Bino to make fun of Peanut, a nasty trait he would shed quickly and entirely.
• Eyepatch of Power: Subverted, starts wearing one after Steward claws him across the eye, only for the vet to tell him he barely scratched the cornea and he won't even need glasses.
• Eye Scream: Downplayed. He gets his eye scratched by Steward but the damage is minimal and it heals up fine.
• Hammerspace: Fox seems to at least be able to hold an entire wallet in his bandana.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Sometimes wears a Bombardier's jacket.
• In Love with the Mark: A non-fatal example. He seeks to deliberately sabotage Sasha's love life so she'll get with Bino, but in doing so questions why he ever went along with Bino in the first place. By the end of the night he's the only dog who's taken pity on Sasha, and she leaves him with a kiss. She ends up with Kevin.
• Innocent Bystander: Back when Fox and Maxwell were both kidnapped.
• Nonindicative Name: He's a Siberian husky.
• Scars Are Forever: His eye might have healed from being clawd by Steward, but the clawmarks on his brow and cheek remain. His Future Badass self Winter has even more scars.
• Took a Level in Badass: Kind of after joining the K9. He has certainly become a lot physically stronger at least, even if the same can't really be said for his mental state.
• With Friends Like These...: Even he questions why he bothers being friends with someone like Bino rather than Peanut, who is much nicer and shares more interests with him.
• Would Not Hurt A Child: Technically was a child at the time, but an older child than his target. He jumped at the chance to fight off a cat sneaking into the Good Ol Dogs Club, but balked when he realized it was the two year old Grape harmlessly sucking on a lollipop.

Mungo (Great Dane)

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• Afraid of Needles: Big, strong, by-the-book... bolts right through the door when the vet prepares to give him his booster shot.
• Big Guy: A former member of the SWAT team, he's both big, and very strong.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: He's big and heavily muscled, but he just about squees, complete with starry eyes when he meets his new partner and gives him a big, bone-crushing hug in excitement.
• Busman's Holiday: Mungo spends Heavendropper being a psychologist for Fox, to the husky's annoyance.
• By-the-Book Cop: He will not stand for hiding or disposing of evidence.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: This guy can lift up a limo with one hand, without showing any strain whatsoever. And unlike his possible ancestor Satau he pulls it off with no discernible powers to speak of.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Well, he actually does, but he tends to forget when he gets excited. Which is what leads to broken doors and Fox's spine nearly getting crushed.
• Friend to All Children: He's eager to babysit King's children in Save The Date, and King remarks that he seems overqualified for the job. Unfortunately, he's considered ineligible when he breaks the pencil he's writing with and the table he's writing on, despite swearing up and down he can be gentle.
• Genius Bruiser: Mungo's a certified therapy dog on top of being a K-9 officer (and living battering ram)
• Made of Iron: Takes a punch to the gut from Boris and doesn't even flinch while Boris ends ups with a sprained, if not broken wrist from the effort.
• "Open!" Says Me: An accident example of the trope. He's pretty well-known for breaking down doors when he's excited or in a hurry. The police station had to get automatic, sliding doors to accommodate him; something the SWAT team was unwilling to pay for, and hence why he was handed (back) over to the police station. Furthermore, he accidentally forces open a locked car door, and he was even trying to be gentle there.
• Strong Family Resemblance: With Satau. It's strongly hinted this is not a coincidence. Mungo's family is all over North Africa, which is where Satau's home was located around in 5500 B.C
• Super-Strength: Inexplicably so, he's shown to be much more powerful than the dogs around him, with a habit of accidentally tearing doors off their hinges.

Kevin (Doberman Pinscher)

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• Custom Uniform: Early strips give him red goggles that stand out from the rest of the team and match his collar, which are eventually phased out.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: Averted, the only time we see Kevin with a donut, it's on Doctor's orders to gain weight. Though he later went on a date with Sasha to the donut shop.
• Dumb Jock: Exceptionally so. While not the brightest, Kevin performs extremely well in the physical department and treats even the simplest mandatory physical exam as if it were the Olympics (even the urinalysis portion). His body fat is actually low enough to where the vet forces him to go on a brief diet of foods that specifically contain excess calories. He also offers to give Sasha access to the police gym when they hook up.
• Dumb Muscle: Anything that doesn't involve tackling, or that he can't make involve tackling, is not likely to warrant his attention, although one time he did pick up a Smart Ball and save the police dogs from a bunch of archaeological artifact thieves.
• Narcissist: Photographed, manufactured, and offered to buy a Charity Workplace Calendar of only himself, showing his muscles off.
• No Sense of Personal Space: As it turns out, he's just as bad as his girlfriend about this.

Terrance (English Springer Spaniel)

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• The Comically Serious: He takes his job far more seriously than most members of the cast. This tendency is showcased best in Case of the Aztec Gold, where it's put up against a supernatural ghost mystery.
• Demoted to Extra: Terrance is popular among fans, but has appeared in only two official strips since his first arc, "The Case of the Aztec Gold" in 2011. This is occasionally lampshaded in guest comics.
• Detective Animal: He is hired to act as liaison between the K-9 unit and forensics. He's decent, if a bit eccentric.