Dog Walks You

Taking the dog for a walk can be such a drag.

"Missis had a most winning expression. Pongo, though a dog born to command, had a twinkle in his eye. They walked side by side with great dignity, only putting the Dearlys on the leash to lead them over crossings."

— The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith

A person is out walking their dog. Unfortunately, the dog is stubborn and disagrees with the planned route. Maybe it's seen a cat or some food, or maybe it came from Soviet Russia^note 'Cause in Soviet Russia, dog walks YOU!!. In any case, the result is that the dog becomes the one taking its unfortunate owner for a walk.

Obviously, children are more susceptible to this than adults. For added humour, replace "dog" with some other animal - probably one that no sane person would fix a leash to in the first place, like a bear, or a Big Cat.

If the animal is strong enough, or having capabilities that surpass its basic shapes (i.e. Robot Dog or Hellhound), the owner may end up being quite literally dragged along... or even flying helplessly behind it.

May lead to a Crash-Into Hello when there's another person in the dog's way.

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Examples:

Advertising

• One commercial has a guy getting dragged around by his dog before going into PetSmart for leash training.
• A 2023 Liberty Mutual ad uses this as a throwaway joke. A young woman tells how she used the money she saved on car insurance to start a dog-walking business...and then a rabbit hops by, riling up all the dogs. They pull her different directions and ultimately knock her over by winding the leashes around her legs.

Anime & Manga

• Downplayed in Blend-S. Dino does manage to keep up with Owner, but he is very reluctant to take Owner on early morning walks to begin with. He later laments it not necessarily because of having to get up earlier, but that he can no longer watch late night anime due to needing to sleep earlier. He puts up with it because Owner makes Maika happy.
• This happens with Hana all the freaking time walking Yosev in GaoGaiGar. Generally because she has the good sense to try to walk him right when the Monster of the Week is attacking, and also her dog is like three times her size.
• The season 2 premier of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War has an anime-original joke where Fujiwara is shown being dragged along by her dog Pes (on school grounds during school hours for some reason) and is then redirected by Hayasaka throwing a dog treat down a different path. This is very much in contrast to the manga, where Pes' few appearances show him to be very well behaved.
• Happened in an episode of Naruto, pre-time skip. Then again, Naruto did want the biggest dog, so he brought it on himself.

Comic Books

• In Don Rosa's Guardians of the Lost Library, Scrooge McDuck is trying to find the books from the Library of Alexandra with the Junior Woodchuck's official bloodhound, General Snozzie. When Snozzie is tasked with finding parchment, he drags Scrooge along chasing after sheep because parchment isn't made of paper, but animal skins.
• The issue where Kamala Khan got The Inhumans' dog Lockjaw as a gift/protector had this◊ as main cover (Lockjaw is Chasing a Butterfly while poor Kamala is dragged behind him).
• The cover of one issue of Super Sons features Jon and Damian being tugged along by their excited dogs. This doesn't happen in the comic, as it's devoted to the heroes' pets solving an alien abduction mystery while their owners are away.

Comic Strips

• From The Family Circus, there is a line: "Wednesday's Child is full of woe" The picture is of Jeffy, being dragged along by one of the dogs saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa"
• Happens regularly in the U.S. Marmaduke comic strip. The title character is a Great Dane, who does this even to adults.
• A variation used to occur in the earlier Peanuts comics with Snoopy occasionally sneaking up on Linus as he sits with his Security Blanket, then grabbing the blanket and running off with it as Linus is dangling on the other end.

Fan Works

• Boldores And Boomsticks: Taiyang tasks Jaune with walking Zwei in what seems to be a case of Wax On, Wax Off, only for the corgi to drag him all over Beacon's campus. Tai only had Jaune do it because he didn't want to walk Zwei himself.
• In The Detective and the Diplomat, Sherlock Holmes (investigating a case while trapped on the Discworld) uses Gaspode as a tracking dog — but while Holmes is perfectly suited to running along in the wake of a hound on the trail, Gaspode is not one of nature's tracking dogs. The hilarity that ensues includes Gaspode suddenly darting off in random directions, zigzagging through crowds, and winding his leash around the legs of both Holmes and Ponder Stibbons when they stop to discuss something.

Films — Animation

• 101 Dalmatians: Pongo resorts to this so he can arrange a Meet Cute.
• Pulling his person on a scooter by the leash is one of Bolt's very special tricks. Zoom zoom!
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Several dogs can be seen walking their owners in "Topsy Turvy". In this case, however, instead of dragging their owners while being walked, the dogs are standing on their hindlegs, while their owners are leashed and walking on all fours.
• Oliver & Company: During the Why Should I Worry? song, several dogs join in Dodger's fun, including a large group who turn off the sidewalk onto the street and drag their protesting dog walker behind them.
• The Secret Life of Pets 2: The Illumination Entertainment Logo Joke has a minion getting dragged across the vanity plate by a group of leashed dogs chasing a ball.
• In The Rugrats Movie, while Angelica is singing a cover of Blondie's "One Way or Another," her foot gets caught in the handle of Spike's leash. Spike takes off chasing a squirrel and drags Angelica with him.

Films — Live-Action

• 101 Dalmatians (1996): Roger is walking Pongo alongside his bike, and is pulled along by the dog when he catches a whiff of Perdita. Later, Perdita does the same to Anita.
• In Ghost Town (2008), Tea Leoni's character has a Great Dane, which is subject to many jokes about its size. While walking the dog, Leoni goes flying when the dog suddenly lunges in one direction.
• My Wrongs 8245-8249 & 117 has its main character getting walked with the leash looped around his own neck. That's only the start of the dog's horrible behaviour towards him.
• Silent Movie: A mixup causes a blind man to grab the leash of a non-seeing-eye dog, who immediately runs after something, dragging the fellow behind.

Literature

• Angela Nicely: In “Puppy Love!”, Angela tries to walk Max (who appears to be an Irish Setter) and Scruff, but Max pulls her along and Scruff runs in the wrong way.
• Bad News, the third and final book in The Bad Books, a Sequel Series to Pseudonymous Bosch's Secret Series, has an intro in which a Dragon Tamer talks about the many irritating questions asked of him, the first of which is almost always "What is it like to ride a dragon—is it like riding a horse?" His response is that "You really want to know what riding a dragon is like? First of all, you don't ride a dragon; the dragon rides you. As soon as you climb onto a dragon's back, you let go of the idea that you are in control. The dragon is the pilot; you are a passenger—no, a barely tolerated stowaway."
• The Dresden Files: In Dead Beat, Mouse pulls Harry to see Murphy. If Harry "had leaned back and kept [his] legs straight [he] could have gone skiing over the gravel".
• A very positive example in Follow My Leader, where the dog in question "walks" his master by virtue of being a guide dog for the blind, often pulling him out of the way of unseen obstacles or dangers.
• The Blast-Ended Skrewts do this in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Hagrid gets the class to take them out for exercise.
• The Sesame Street picture book 1 2 3 Count with Me depicts a number and animals on each page. The one for the number 10 shows "10 friendly dogs" and depicts Ernie being dragged along by those dogs and shouting "Whoa! Slow down, you guys! What's the rush?"

Live-Action TV

• The Amazing Race had a Detour from Season 5 that featured the teams walking a group of dogs through three checkpoints: it quickly turned into this.
• Happened in Full House: In the eighth-season episode "Comet's Excellent Adventure", when Michelle volunteers to take Comet out for a walk upon seeing Jesse's unwillingness to do so, Danny responds with: "You're too little to walk Comet. Comet will be walking you." Later in the episode, when Michelle asks Jesse to walk Comet, Jesse, who's busying himself with negotiations on the phone, tells Michelle to do it in his stead. This trope then gets downplayed: First, Michelle has a hard time keeping up ("Comet, slow down!... What have we been feeding you?"); and then Comet runs off when a car shaped like a hot dog drives by, though Michelle isn't dragged along because her grip on the leash was loose when Comet starts running. It's still Played for Drama, though, as eventually the entire Tanner household gets involved in the search.
• In The Goodies episode "Kitten Kong" Tim gets dragged along by a kitten (and over some dog poo that happened to be there when they were filming the scene, what makes it worse is that that shot was filmed with stop motion, so Tim was dragged through the dog poo slowly).
• It's Me or the Dog often deals with large, rowdy breeds. According to Victoria, the dog does this because the owner's skittishness can be felt through the leash, leading to a vicious cycle of the dog going faster and the owner becoming more anxious. Especially pully dogs are dealt with by a full head harness.
• Happens briefly to Robbie Rotten with his Robot Dog in the "Woof! Woof! Woof!" song from the episode "LazyTown's New Superhero" on LazyTown.
• Married... with Children: Buck Bundy has taken Al and Bud for a drag more than once.
• In one of the whammies on Press Your Luck, this happened to Whammy, whose dog Fang was chasing a cat.
  Whammy: Hold it, Fang, hold it! Don't forget the moneyyyyyyyyyy!!!
• Rizzoli & Isles: In "Sister Sister", Jane is attempting to learn how to parade a Rottweiler for a dog show. The overenthusiastic dog takes off, dragging Jane along with him.
• A recurring gag on Still Open All Hours is a local man who will enter the shop only to be yanked out by his massive dog before Granville has a chance to find out what he wants.
• One segment on 1000 Ways to Die focused on a woman who took a job as a dog walker even though she doesn't like them. Several leashes tied around her wrist left her unable to escape as they dragged her through the park, eventually killing her when she collided with a tree, injuring both her temple and her trachea.
• The animated opening credits of Turner & Hooch (2021) depict Hooch doing this to Turner, which then transitions into the Turner & Hooch logo, with the leash forming the ampersand.

Puppet Shows

• The subject of a song by Wayne on The Muppet Show:
  When I take my dog for a walk, he takes me for a run
  Dragging me along the street is his idea of fun.
  From lamp post to lamp post, we jog along the street
  From tree to tree to fire hydrant. Look out, lady, watch your feet!
  • During Lou Rawls' episode, Floyd Pepper hands him Animal's chain. Just as Floyd is warning them to stay away from cars Animal goes running after one dragging Rawls behind him.
• Sesame Street: Whenever Barkley runs while somebody is walking him, that somebody often gets pulled along.
  • An animated segment explaining the difference between lower case "d" and lower case "b" used a boy trying to walk his dog, but the dog wanted to go in the other direction.

Radio

• Our Miss Brooks: The titular Big Eater dog in "Peanuts, The Great Dane" drags Miss Brooks wherever he wants to go.

Software

• Happens in one of the stories in Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, where the large dog drags the dog-sitter for a while in order to chase a squirrel. Then the tranquilizer kicked in, causing the dog to fall asleep in the park. Oh, and the sitter lost the keys to the house because of being dragged through the park.

Video Games

• Non-dog example: In Mortal Kombat 11, in Fujin's Friendship, he flies a kite with his wind powers. Eventually, it gets so windy that it's the kite that flies him.
• Koromaru of Persona 3 is implied to do this sometimes when taken for a walk by the main character and another member of SEES. The other character will occasionally make comments such as complaining that he's too fast or that trying to keep him up with him is great exercise, usually while panting for breath.
• Pokémon X and Y have an NPC at a gate in Couriway Town, Kalos' easternmost city. She tells the player her Furfrou dragged her there from Coumarine City... which is on the northwestern shore of Kalos. Unsurprisingly, her feet are terribly terribly sore.
• Filia and Samson from Skullgirls fight like this, having a symbiotic relationship and Filia not being able to control Samson.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Baby Mario and Baby Luigi's special item in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! is a Chain Chomp that pulls the kart along for a while and sends racers it hits flying; every so often it goes careening forward without any semblance of control.
  • In a rare non-accidental case of this, Iggy Koopa in New Super Mario Bros. Wii rides around in a basket dragged by a large Chain Chomp (Mario guard dog equivalent) firing magic blasts at Mario. When he's hit, the Chain Chomp literally Turns Red, changes direction and charges, dragging the knocked out Iggy Koopa with it. Repeat scenario twice for one hell of an interesting boss battle.
  • There's an enemy in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team called a Walker Guy that falls into this trope, with it being a Shy Guy walking a Chain Chomp. The Chomp's attack has it lunge across the screen multiple times with the hapless Shy Guy hanging on for dear life and said Shy Guy getting repeatedly battered across the floor in the process (complete with a fake out pause when the Shy Guy manages to pull the dog back a bit for about a second). The Mario bros can either take out the dog to cause the Shy Guy to run back to the other side of the arena, take out the Shy Guy to send the Chomp flying across the screen at random or take out both in the course of the same attack.
• One of the first missions in Tony Hawk's Underground is this. The dog drags you around the level while you try to maintain your balance on a skateboard.

Web Comics

• In Erma, the dog Siris, despite his small size, drags the babysitter Felicia when she takes him for a walk.
• Freefall: Bowman's Wolf, Florence throws this trope in a blender when she needs to use the spaceport's facilities and gets Helix's help in strip 538.
• A giant gerbil briefly does it to Helen Narbon upon the woman's first appearance◊.

Web Original

• Happens in the REDEARTH88 episode "Crazy Bitch", and is seen again from another viewpoint in the following episode, "Creepy Stalking 101". Bucket runs up to Linc, pulling Rachel along behind her. This is the first time they meet; they later go on a date.

Western Animation

• 101 Dalmatians: The Series: At the start of the pilot, when Nanny takes the 99 dalmatians for a walk in the city, she is seen being dragged behind them.
• In Action League NOW! 2-part episode "The Wrath of Spotzilla", The Flesh tries to wrangle Spotzilla with a leash. Of course, while Spotzilla is a normal-sized dog (To us), the Flesh is an action figure, and gets taken for a ride.
• Happens to Sparky in the Atomic Betty episode "Wedding Crashers" when he becomes a dogwalker.
• Batman: The Animated Series had this happen with Harley Quinn while she's walking the Hyenas... while she's on roller skates. (It was revealed that the animation team wanted it to eventually end up with a Hyena sticking its head in a baby carriage.)
• Dennis the Menace:
  • In "Little Dogs Lost", this first happens to Gina when she walks a dog named Garabaldi. This later happens to Dennis when he takes up a job walking dogs, and the dogs chase Margaret's cat.
  • In "Animalympics", there's an event centered around this in the dog show that Dennis and his friends enter their dogs in. Each dog must run around a tree while their owner holding the leash follows behind them on roller skates, with the first dog to make it to the finish line winning the trophy. Ruff and the other dogs chase Gilbert, a cat chasing a mouse named Rover off course and through Mr. Wilson's backyard, pulling their owners along with them.
• In "The Lady in the Lake" on Doc McStuffins, Stuffy and Squibbles do what Stuffy calls a "skiing show" in the sand, but what is really basically just this.
• On Dragon Tales, Zak and Wheezie go through this with their pet "boinger," Slurpy, in "Wheezie's Hairball." The thing is basically a big puppy bundle of energy that they haven't quite learned how to control yet.
• This happens to the title characters in the Animated Adaptation of Gaspard and Lisa when they petsit a puppy named Maurice.
• In the credits sequences for The Jetsons. One of the few times this sort of thing happens on a treadmill.
• Cerbee does this to Jimmy in the Season 2 opening sequence in Jimmy Two-Shoes. In the season 1 opening, Cerbee's leash gets caught on a bus instead.
• The Kids from Room 402: Nancy tried to get a job as a dog walker. There's a reason a troper mentioned it in this page.
• In the Muppet Babies (2018) episode, "Puppy For a Day", Rizzo does this to Summer Penguin when he pretends to be a puppy for the babies to teach them the responsibility of taking care of a puppy.
• Scooby once did this to Shaggy in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, and an image of it was often used in the title card for each episode.
• The Rabbit with the Checkered Ears features two examples.
  • In "Menyus and Foxi", Menyus agrees to look after his friend Kriszta's dog, Foxi, while she joins some friends for ice cream. He is quickly dragged all over the park as Foxi chases after cats, birds, and various other animals - although this ultimately proves even more exhausting for Foxi than for Menyus.
  • In "Dog Walking", young Kistöfi tries taking his parrot for a "walk" by putting the cage on a wagon to join in with the many children he sees walking their dogs past his window. The dogs immediately drag their owners behind them as they run barking towards the alarmed bird, and Kistöfi has to beat a hasty retreat while the other children scold their dogs' bad behaviour.
• The Simpsons: In "How Munched is that Birdie in the Window", it's mentioned that Santa's Little Helper once dragged Bart around and a newspaper published it with the question "Who's walking who?". Homer is upset because he sent the answer and the newspaper refused to publish it.

Real Life

• Don't try walking a kitten, whatever you do. A house cat has no hope of ever being able to drag a human along involuntarily, but the cat will instinctively try to go the opposite way of the owner. The end result is that the cat is dragged along against its will. Note that this isn't particularly nice to the cat, and this should never be done with actual kittens (baby cats) as they have been known to literally stress themselves to death in situations like these. Cats and kittens can be trained to walk on leashes; however, it is NOT like training a dog to do the same thing. It's not as easy as simply slapping a harness (as a collar will put too much pressure on the cat's neck and injure it, if not kill it) and leash on and expecting the cat to take your lead. Even when the cat becomes comfortable with the leash, it will never take your lead and instead do whatever the hell it wants, because it's a cat. Improper training can result in the cat being very stressed out and quite possibly badly injured.
• Walking a dog that's not familiar with you — especially if you're a child — can quickly lead to it taking initiative. Not only is this embarrassing, extreme cases are INCREDIBLY dangerous and show lack of training. It's especially hazardous with large dogs, who are quite capable of pulling full-sized adults off their feet.
  • The problem can vary between breeds. It's a common problem with Bloodhounds because they love to track. Some sighthounds such as Greyhounds are usually easy to walk, however they tend to be a "flight hazard" if they catch wind of small animals due to their strong hunting instincts. While Samoyeds and Siberian Huskies are very friendly and easy to train, because they are sled dogs bred they don't mind pulling and can easily drag around an off-guard owner^*And because they originate in Russia, Samoyed/Husky walks you!.
  • Many of the more independent dog breeds tend to be the ones to walk in front of their humans and go their own route. It's common for some people to allow their dogs to go off-leash on walks if they're well-behaved enough and let them lead the way while they're just merely tagging along behind their pets.
  • A good trick to get some dogs to quit pulling is to hold the leash taut (but not so tightly that it's pulling on them), and tap or flick the leash with your free hand. the vibrations annoy the dog without injuring them or causing them to panic, and they'll let the tension off the leash to follow the way you lead, at least for a little bit.
• Riding a horse subjects the rider to an extreme version of this if they don't know how to control it properly, or if the horse knows how to slip its bridle.
• C. S. Lewis said his boyhood dog was like this, with the remark "He never exactly obeyed you. He sometimes agreed with you."
• An intentional example is the seeing eye dog, a guide for blind people. Naturally, the "dragging the owner" part is entirely averted by principle.
• When it comes to walking with most non-dog pets such as cats, ferrets, and birds, the general rule is that you're following the animal more than the other way around. They prefer to do their own thing even while leashed. Walking a cat, for example, generally looks like you following the cat around while it investigates, and keeping hold of the leash simply so you can prevent the cat from going somewhere dangerous while you convince it to get interested in going somewhere else.
• Former US President Barack Obama was photographed being dragged along in walks with the First Dog, Bo. His many critics pointed to it as a sign of his weak leadership skills.

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