Evil Detecting Dog / Western Animation

• Adventure Time: Peppermint Butler isn't an animal, but he gets on all fours and hisses like a cat when he sees Princess Bubblegum has been possessed by the Lich in "Mortal Recoil". Jake the dog is also the first person who becomes suspicious when he sees PB acting strangely.
• Amphibia: In "Anne Theft Auto", Bessie hides in her shell after Anne and Sprig crash in the middle of a bush patch formed by giant hedgehogs.
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force: In "Freedom Cobra", the Aqua Teen's dog, Bobby, starts barking at Shake after he acquires a new tattoo that's sentient and controls Shake to eat people.
• Avatar:
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Appa and Momo are very good at detecting malicious intent in humans. Appa growls and reacts defensively towards the sandbenders (who later capture him) and Momo hisses at the pirate captain and his weird bird thingy. In fact, it's Appa licking Zuko that makes Aang wonder if he's really changed.
    • On the other hand, the Earth King states of his pet bear: "if there was any danger at all, Bosco's animal instincts would sense it." Granted, Bosco had been apprehensive around Azula, but the King had misread that as exhaustion; when he uses this line, it is in extreme error.
  • The Legend of Korra:
    • In the episode "And the Winner Is...", the fire-ferret Pabu sits peacefully by the radio while music plays, but hisses at it and jumps away when Amon pulls a Do Not Adjust Your Set in the middle of the music program.
    • Naga the bear-dog also senses a dark spirit in "Rebel Spirit".
    • Another Pabu example from "The Terror Within". He notices the Red Lotus sneaking in to kidnap Korra twice; once when they're on their way to her room, and the other when they actually managed to kidnap her. While he shrieks both times, he only manages to wake Bolin up the second time.
    • An adorable puppy greets Korra in "Korra Alone" and is able to see her hallucination self easily. That's because a spirit can detect other spirits too, and the puppy is actually the little leaf spirit she meets in the Tree of Life.
• Ben 10:
  • In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Ship is amazingly skilled at detecting enemies:
    • In the episode "Eye of the Beholder", Ship detects that his father Baz-El is in trouble and flies away in his Anterian Obliterator form to rescue him.
    • In the episode "Perfect Girlfriend", Ship barks and growls at "Julie" who is later revealed to be a Not Quite Dead Elena disguised as Julie to manipulate Ben and steal him for herself.
    • In the Grand Finale, Ship senses the Esoterica wave and shields Julie from it by merging into a battle armor around her.
  • Zed from Ben 10: Omniverse plays this as well, as seen in "Mystery Incorpreal" where she sniffed and growled at Gwen's classmate, Dante, who turns out to be Darkstar wearing an ID Mask.
• The titular protagonist of Courage the Cowardly Dog is a talking dog who often senses the presence of evil and/or strange creatures around him. Courage will always try to warn his owners Muriel and Eustace, but they never pay any attention to his panicked ramblings.
• DC Animated Universe:
  • Batman: The Animated Series: Inverted example in one episode; while Harley Quinn, recently released from Arkham Asylum and out trying to start a new life, her hyenas immediately start barking at the sight of Bruce Wayne. Harley for her part is clueless that she happens to be standing right next to Batman himself.
  • Batman Beyond: Bruce Wayne's dog Ace can be quite aggressive towards the bad guys. In Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, he even attacks The Joker himself.
    • Ace can also detect supernatural phenomena. In one episode, Terry is asked for help by a young girl with psychic powers. When talking with Bruce about this, Terry manages to see the girl (although no one else can, since she is using her powers). However, Ace becomes alert and defensive, being able to detect the girl's psychic presence (even though she's not really there and only Terry can see her). She is not evil at all, though.
• Defenders of the Earth has the following examples:
  • In "Ming's Household Helpers", Zuffy freaks out when Rick brings one of the robots with which Ming plans to enslave humanity via hypno-beam into Monitor.
  • Zuffy also gets scared around the title character in "The Starboy", an alien child who has destroyed whole worlds. Played with; Starboy is not inherently evil and only lashed out because he was afraid of being left on his own.
  • In "The Frozen Heart", Kisa growls at LJ's girlfriend, Kate, who has been turned into one of Ming's Frost People.
  • In "Flash Times Four", the Defenders are tricked into rescuing one of Flash's clones (instead of the real Flash) from Ice Station Earth. No-one notices that anything is amiss — except Zuffy.
• In the Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "Run for your Ed", the Kankers lose their family 'Ship Inna Bottle' due to Ed's sleepwalking. They decide to search the Cul-de-sac in their usual chaotic mischief, which results in mass destruction. Prior to that, Rolf's animals catch on to their impending visit and all flip out (from his goat standing stiff, his chickens and pig screaming and flailing around, and even a piece of fried chicken seem to give some reaction to Rolf when put against his ear). When he realizes what's going on, Rolf quickly carries all his farm animals into the basement and closes it, waiting there for the rest of the episode.
  Rolf: "The stench of immortal doom still thickens the air, yes? Or perhaps it is Wilfred's cabbage evacuations. Hard to tell."
• Justified and mildly downplayed in Exo Squad, where the Neosapien hero Marsala explains that since Neos have different biochemistry than humans, dogs tend to get bothered around them. This trait clues him in on the existence of a Neosapien/human hybrid serving as a spy for the Order. The downplayed part comes in that he, the main Token Heroic Orc, isn't exempt from this.
• Parodied in Family Guy: Trying to score a date with his crush, Death steps into her pet store to talk to her. The animals inside raise such a commotion that they can't hear each other.
  • Also, Brian the dog is the only one who realizes Stewie is evil. Of course, that is more that he is the Only Sane Man on the show.
  • In "And Then There Were Fewer", Brian growls when James Woods shows up.
• In the Galaxy Rangers episode "Mindnet," the first clue to the characters that all is not right is when Icarus and Winter (a pair of cybernetically enhanced dolphins) protest that "Goose" is behaving strangely. (The first clue to the audience is that Killbane's voice actor is trying to imitate Doug Pris and isn't doing very well).
• Bronx from Gargoyles is a dog-like gargoyle beast who sometimes starts barking and growling when there's something dangerous and/or supernatural nearby, in order to alert his friends to the problem.
  • In "City of Stone: Part 3", Bronx starts clawing at one of the tapestries just as Goliath and the clan are about to implement Xanatos's plan to end Demona's curse. When the gargoyles are gone, Demona comes out from a secret passage behind said tapestry with a mace, ready to smash Elisa to bits and dispose of the others.
  • In "The Hound of Ulster", Bronx takes a liking to an Irish teenage boy, but growls and barks at his female friend. Turns out that his friend is actually the Banshee in disguise, and that she was only acting as his friend to keep him from discovering that he is the reincarnation of her warrior nemesis.
  • In an actual canine example, Jeffrey Robbins's dog growls when he first spots the recurring antagonist Macbeth in "A Lighthouse in the Sea of Time".
• In one episode of The Ghost and Molly McGee, dogs that Sharon and Molly try to walk are able to see Scratch despite being in invisible mode and start to chase him.
• Hey Arnold! The Jungle Movie: While on the boat, Abner the pig comes to sniff Eduardo (who is really Big Bad Lasombra in disguise). When the pig smells his scent, he squeals in terror and tries to warn Arnold before heading back to America to warn his grandparents.
• Jonny Quest TOS episodes.
  • "Skull and Double Crossbones". When Jose asks Bandit if he wants to be friends, Bandit growls at him. Later we learn that Jose is The Mole, a spy for the Chief of a crew of pirates.
  • "Shadow of the Condor". When Bandit first meets Baron von Freulich he growls at him. Later von Freulich tries to murder Race Bannon.
• Somewhat inverted in Kim Possible, where pretty much all the villains seem to hate Rufus, but they like him if turned good (both Shego and Draken can be called as witnesses)
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Mandu's usually the first to sense danger. She also expresses her disapproval when members of the group are behaving badly.
• In the somewhat forgotten kids' cartoon The Magician, an Identical Stranger (thanks to plastic surgery) kidnaps and switches places with the eponymous main character, taking care to plant a behavior modification chip on his pet dog to ensure it will bark distrustfully at the real guy, and stop doing so at him, which is useful to fool the sidekick.
• Deputy Oosha from Mira, Royal Detective. In any episode that features the recurring bandits Manish and Poonam, Oosha is able to see through their disguises and arrest them.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode Inspiration Manifestation, Owlowiscious picks up that there's something wrong with the book right off the bat, and of course tries to dissuade Spike from taking it.
  • Although you really don't have to be specially evil-detecting to think that a stone-grey book with spikes jutting out of the cover and hidden in a secret locked room of a castle ruin is probably something you should leave alone.
• The Owl House: In "Any Sport in a Storm", Viney's pet griffon Puddles tries to attack Hunter aka the Golden Guard twice. Then again, he did provoke the creature earlier by stepping on her tail.
• Inverted in Phantom 2040: DV-L is initially uneasy around Kit, so Sagan has to firmly tell him that Kit is a friend. Later on, when they meet Kit as the Phantom, Sagan expects DV-L to attack... but, of course, DV-L remembers that he's a friend and lets him go.
• In the Van Beuren Studios Rainbow Parade short "Scottie Finds A Home", the eponymous terrier knows right away that the vagrant who arrives at the grandmothers house is up yo no good. After barking at him, the hobo hangs him by his sweater on a nearby tree as he goes off to pester the grandma cat for food.
• A variation in Reboot: Enzo's dog Frisket is a pretty good judge of character, but he hates Bob, the main hero.
• A Robot Chicken skit has this happen with a child instead of an animal; O.J Simpson tells his grandson about how he didn't kill his wife (it involves Roger Rabbit) and the grandson starts bawling his eyes out. When he asks whats wrong, their maid tells him he can sense evil.
• In Samurai Jack, animals tend to be wary of Aku, who is a giant demonic entity. It's justified because Aku is the most dangerous villain in the universe, and is justly well-feared by everyone who knows of him.
  • In "Jack and the Warrior Woman", a small rodent accepts food from Jack, but it hisses and runs away from his traveling companion Ikra (who later turns out to be Aku in disguise).
  • In "The Aku Infection", a dog freaks out and starts barking at Jack, even though he's usually a friend to animals, because Jack has been (unwittingly) infected with a piece of Aku.
  • However, it's oddly averted in "The Tale of X-49", when Aku kidnaps a dog named Lulu from her owner, a robot named X-49. Lulu is still shown to be smiling, and is totally unafraid of the evil demon lord who's taken her hostage.
• The Simpsons:
  • In a Deleted Scene from "Treehouse of Horror IV" ("Bart Simpson's Dracula"), the Simpson family's pets, Santa's Little Helper (the dog) and Snowball (the cat), along with Maggie, all start growling when Bart (who had recently been turned into a vampire) floats into the kitchen.
  • In "Bart Sells His Soul", after Bart sells his soul to Milhouse, Santa's Little Helper and Snowball both growl at him.
• The Mask: Milo still gets scared of the Mask of Loki so he goes under the bed when his owner puts it on and the Painful Transformation starts. The same with Esmeralda as she sees that her owner has become a different woman literally after accidentally putting on the mask. Though Milo does eventually see that his owner's alter-ego The Mask is a good-hearted, nice and kind man so he gets less scared of his owner putting it on since he can finally see just how much The Mask cares about Milo and loves him very much along with he also wears it when he has to rescue his owner from danger as well.
• In an episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Aunt May's puppy became a living lie detector, since thanks to her sense of smell she could point out who had his or her place stolen by shapeshifting villain The Chameleon.
• Gary the Snail from SpongeBob SquarePants has grown a hostility toward Plankton, especially in newer seasons. He also tends to be hostile to Squidward but that's more a side effect of his nature as a Cosmic Plaything than his actual morality.
• Radarr, Team Pet of the Storm Hawks, detects evil in two episodes that were broadcast consecutively.
  • In "Best Friends Forever", Big Bad Cyclonia disguises herself as an ally of the team. At first, only Radarr is able to sense that something's wrong.
  • In "The Black Gorge", Radarr is suspicious of a seemingly harmless animal who eventually transforms into a monstrous Gorge Sloth.
• In Super 4, Alien growls at fairies who actually Sykronians in disguise. When he doesn't growl at Alex, Gene realizes that he must be the real Alex.
• Victor and Valentino: Valentino takes his new girlfriend Matty to the local cat cafe. All the cats freak out and start hissing at her. She tries to play it off as cats being allergic to her, however she's actually a monster in disguise. She just wants to fatten up Valentino and eat him.
• Grougal from Wakfu (a baby dragon) really does not like Qilby. But there's a whole lot of history around this.
• In the second season of W.I.T.C.H., Big Bad Nerissa is capable of using illusions to disguise herself as any other person. However, Matt's pet dormouse Mr. Huggles always goes berserk in her presence, no matter what she looks like.
• X-Men: The Animated Series: During "The Dark Phoenix Saga", the Phoenix-possessed Jean Grey returns to her childhood home. When she approaches the family cat Prometheus he hisses at her and runs away because he can sense the Phoenix within her.
• Inverted in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Christmas Episode, when the puppy that the lost Earth children have found takes an instant liking to the villain Skeletor. However, as he's falling under the Christmas spirit and actually doing several nice things, perhaps it's being played straight after all.

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