Cooper Holmes
Portrayed By: Blair Slater (TV)
"I get scared a lot. Some people just scare easier than others. I'm an easy scarer."
The protagonist of The Barking Ghost. Cooper's definitive trait is his fear of almost everything, as he even gets scared of small things such as a garden hose and leaf. It certainly isn't helped by the fact that the ghost dogs continuously stalk him during the night. Despite his fears, however, Cooper has moments of bravery, as he does go out into the woods to investigate the dogs who had been stalking him during the night.
- Butt-Monkey: His fears of almost everything makes him an easy target for scaring.
- Cain and Abel: He has this relationship with Mickey, being the Abel, of course.
- Cassandra Truth: Because he often lets his fears get the better of him, no one in his family believes him about the ghost dogs.
- Character Tic: Cooper mentions that whenever he gets scared, his freckles stand out.
- Cowardly Lion: Cooper doesn't let his fear stop him from investigating the ghost dogs.
- The Dog Bites Back: Despite the pun, Cooper never actually bites Mickey when he and Fergie enter his room unexpected. They do, however, scare him out of his bedroom at their successful attempt at finally getting back at Mickey.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Mickey often calls him "Drooper" due to his large, droopy ears, something Cooper gets easily irritated of.
- Faux Horrific: Even something as minor as a leaf brushing on from behind him makes him jump in fear.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: He and Fergie experience this when turned into dogs and later chipmunks.
- Nervous Wreck: Oh ho, you have no idea!
- Properly Paranoid: He's a scaredy cat in general, but from the ghost dogs barking at his window almost every night, Cooper has an excellent reason to be worried. Luckily, Fergie is the only one who believes him.
- Sarcasm-Blind: A frequent problem of his is, throughout his narration, he cannot understand sarcasm at all.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: He's the scared, sensitive guy to his brother's aggressive, manly man.
- Tears of Fear: Cooper mentions in one point of the first chapter that he was once so scared when he thought he was lost in the woods that he was practically in tears, which, of course, was a waste of his fear after learning he was only about ten feet from the mess hall.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Pun aside, Cooper does get his chance to scare Mickey when he and Fergie break into his room as ghost dogs.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Liver. Cooper attempts to invoke this to prove his identity, but it fails.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Basically anything scares him.
- Youthful Freckles: They stand out whenever he's scared.
Mickey Holmes
Portrayed By: Peter Costigan (TV)
Cooper's older brother. He spends most of his free time exploiting Cooper's fears by playing cruel pranks on him that would normally terrify him.
- Adaptational Karma: In the TV episode, it's Mickey who turns into a chipmunk at the end instead of Cooper and Fergie.
- Asshole Victim: As mentioned in Adaptational Karma above, Mickey is the one who gets transformed into a chipmunk as Cooper and Fergie walk away in their own bodies.
- Big Brother Bully: Mickey enjoys scaring his younger brother with whatever's handy.
- Cain and Abel: The Cain to Cooper's Abel. His and Cooper's rivalry can get rather intense to say the least.
- Catchphrase Insult: He often refers to Cooper as "Drooper" due to his ears.
- Complexity Addiction: Seriously, Mickey has to have been really bored to go through so much effort to tear his clothes apart and cover himself in fake scratches and blood just to scare Cooper, a person who's already easy to scare, into thinking the dogs mauled him.
- Disappointing Older Sibling: Cooper views him as nothing more than a jerk who gets a kick out of scaring him to death with many fear-inducing pranks. He also never hesitates to insult Mickey to his face.
- Establishing Character Moment: His introduction involves hiding under Cooper's bed and scaring him to death by grabbing Cooper by the throat, which sets up how much of a general Jerkass he is towards Cooper and what he does to him in his free time.
- For the Evulz: The only reason we could infer that Mickey scares Cooper so much is that he's just bored and has nothing better to do.
- Gaslighting: One of Mickey's pranks on Cooper got him scared to a point where he claims to his parents that the house the family lives in is haunted, and Fergie was even in on the plan as well.
- Jerkass: His defining trait is that he's an asshole older brother who takes great pleasure into finding new ways to scare Cooper.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Even though he isn't one to talk, Mickey is right at one point that Cooper needs to grow up and stop being scared of such small things.
- "Just Joking" Justification: He uses this whenever the boys' parents call him out on his pranking of Cooper.
- Kick the Dog: Pardoning the pun, Mickey goes through great lengths to scare Cooper in ways that would legitimately terrify him. Hell he'll even go as far to physically hurting Cooper to scare him.
- The Prankster: Most of them he plays on Cooper are fear-based.
- Sadist: He makes sure he enjoys every moment of Cooper suffering from acute fear of certain things.
- Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: He's the aggressive, prank-loving manly man to Cooper's scared, sensitive guy.
- The Sociopath: Many of his pranks to scare Cooper can come across as this, such as the time he had Cooper scared by taking so long to pick him up from baseball practice just to see how long it would take him to go on a panic attack. And we don't even have to refer to the above-mentioned Gaslighting trope.
- Teens Are Monsters: Or at least, in Mickey's case, a total dirtbag.
Margaret "Fergie" Ferguson
Portrayed By: Jennifer Martini (TV)
Cooper's new friend who first interacts with Cooper during the latter's investigation for signs of the dogs' appearance from last night.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: In the TV episode, instead of being a green-eyed redhead, she is a blue-eyed brunette.
- Apologises a Lot: She constantly apologizes towards Cooper for anything she may or not have done to upset him. He even lampshades this when she first meets him for initially scaring him.
- Easily Forgiven: Aside from pranking her back, Cooper doesn't hold a grudge against her after learning she set up the Gaslighting prank with Mickey.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: She shares this with Cooper when she changes into a dog and later, chipmunk.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Her reaction when she reveals to Cooper that telling him the house was haunted was all a prank set up by her and Mickey.
- Nice Girl: She's very caring for Cooper's concern and is pretty much the only one who believes him about the ghost dogs. She even apologizes to Cooper for the prank set up by her and Mickey.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: She goes by "Fergie" and is rarely addressed by her given name.
- Satellite Character: Aside from being the token friend, she really doesn't have much of a role in the story.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: She's described as having frizzy red hair and green eyes, and is the protagonist's friend.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Cooper's reaction to Fergie after the latter admits telling him that the house is haunted was all a prank set up by Mickey, which she was even in on.
Ghost Dogs.
The antagonists. Two ghostly dogs who can change bodies with other beings using the Changing Room. They used to be humans until they were somehow cursed to roam the woods as undead dogs. They seek to use the Changing Room to switch bodies with the protagonists to be freed of this fate.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the book, they aren't indicated to have been bad people before they were cursed. They just seem to be innocent victims. The episode shows they were pirates. This was presumably done to make them less sympathetic and avoid Protagonist-Centered Morality.
- Adaptation Expansion: The episode provides more backstory on them. They were pirates who were attacked by two dogs and knocked into the Changing Tree with them. This not only caused them to switch bodies with the dogs, but somehow become undead and gain the supernatural powers they now had while also cursing them to roam the woods unable to age.
- Anti-Villain: They simply want to be freed from their fate of being doomed to roam the woods as undead dogs forever. Though the means they resort to are morally wrong, it's not hard to sympathize with them a little. The episode averts this by making them pirates.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The book ends with them still in possession of the kids' bodies. The kids do still have a chance of getting their lives back with the Changing Room though. This is averted in the episode.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: They share the roles as the antagonists of the book.
- Gender Bender: Both dogs are males, but one of them switches bodies with a human female.
- Inexplicably Awesome: Neither the book nor the episode explain how they are undead dogs with supernatural powers when the kids are just normal dogs after swapping bodies with them.
- Mysterious Past: The book does not detail who they originally were or how they became ghost dogs, though it's hinted the Changing Room was involved. The episode shows how they switched and gives them a backstory and names, but it still does not clarify why they became undead dogs instead of normal dogs after they switched bodies with the dogs who attacked them.
- Named by the Adaptation: They are unnamed in the book. The episode names them Grimm and Scratch (though these are probably just aliases they used as pirates when they were alive).
