Ever read No More Dead Dogs? That might be a fun read if this trope really bugs you.
Most Writers Are Human, and humans love dogs. By killing one, it provides emotional impact for the reader, makes the villian look evil and heartless, and at time a motivational kick in the pants for the hero.
Dogs in literature are cheap. Unless they are magical somehow, they rarely have any real impact on the plot. But people empathize with them because they can project the feelings they have for their own pets onto them. All this makes them easy to knock off without having to sacrifice a contributing character.
edited 4th Oct '11 8:07:23 PM by TheEmeraldDragon
I am a nobody. Nobody is perfect. Therefore, I am perfect.Old Yeller and (to a lesser extent) Where The Red Fern Grows are probably the trope codifiers here.
edited 4th Oct '11 8:08:55 PM by CountSpatula
I draws things. And I seem to be some sort of marine entity.Nosy in The Farseer books lives, though his companion Fitz thought he was killed for a long time. Fitz's second canine companion does die, while Nighteyes (a wolf) survives the first trilogy, but dies in the first book of the second trilogy. He was quite old at the time, though - at least 15 years old.
"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - BocajOk, there are a lot of examples of dogs as main characters living and dying. I mean, we probably wouldn't even have the No More Dead Dogs if it weren't for all the books about hero dogs.
Personally, I do believe that it's an easy way to make the reader feel bad for a perceived "innocent" character, when killing children is crossing the line.
In Cuckoo's Nest, though, the dog occupies all of one paragraph. He sniffs some gopher holes, rolls on a lawn, and then immediately makes a break for the nearest highway. I swear I knew he was going to die the moment Kesey started describing that dog, just because I'm so used to it happening.
It's not a conflicting "He was the hero, but at the ultimate price" kind of thing, it was an "Oh god that dog is gonna die so fast, I should probably just skip this paragraph". That's what I don't get. It's like reading bad fan fiction where the author drops bridges on various characters in a vain attempt to garner an emotional response.
To quote Peter Chimaera: "Ew must escapes out of here fastly" but Jimm was already blowed to smitheroons."
edited 5th Oct '11 4:14:12 PM by Jergling
Not that I am a stranger to the trope myself. >.>
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Hey, doesn't that dog actually survive?
Or is it just ambiguous as to whether or not the dog was actually killed?
edited 5th Oct '11 9:14:30 PM by annebeeche
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.The dog in Shiloh survives. Heck, he even stars in sequels!
...Just felt like pointing that out.
"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~MadrugadaHm. D'you guys think that dogs always dying could be a trope of its own? Outside of Death by Newbery Medal, that is. Dogs don't always die in books with Newbery Medals, and books where dogs die aren't always Newbery Medal winners, not to mention all the stuff in other media where dogs die too.
edited 5th Oct '11 11:29:48 PM by zerky
At this point, Death by Newbery Medal examples encompass just about everything young adultish or critically acclaimed that features a dying dog/best friend/whatever, so it pretty much covers what you're describing, but that probably just means it's overdue for a trip to the repair shop.
Still, if you made a new trope, there would be a lot of overlap. Your call.
edited 5th Oct '11 11:36:11 PM by jewelleddragon
This doesn't deserve a trope, no. It's really just an observation, and it almost seems like it's just me.
"What's over the line about killing fictional children," you ask? I'm not quite sure. Why don't you take a look at some holocaust novels and get back to me on that. Seriously though, killing a child in literature is the ultimate Tear Jerker. Killing a dog is more like kicking the reader in the groin (or the eyes, for you ladies) for having hope.
Also, the dog in Cuckoo's Nest is left up to interpretation, which might explain why I believe it died. I got it in my head right away that it was going to die, which caused me to believe it died, but we'll never know if it died or not without observing the results. You might say it was...
SCHRODINGER'S DOG!!!
Mouse has outlived a lot of important characters. I don't see him dying anytime soon. Unless Butcher gets depression or something.
Likes many underrated webcomics![]()
Clearly you have never heard of a cunt punt.
But I actually put killing children on practically the same level as killing an animal since it tends to have the same effects.
I love writing heart-wrenching things, so I notice that children in my stories are prone to completely tragic and pointless deaths, but animals tend to be untouched. Probably because a child dying is even sadder than an animal dying.
I thought of this thread the other day when I read House of Leaves. There's a dog in it who dies a very sad and horrible death that could have easily been avoided had the lady not been a prick.
edited 7th Oct '11 9:38:31 AM by annebeeche
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.This thread reminds me of a one of my favorite book series. The first book has three dogs being killed, beheaded, and getting their severed heads stuck on trident. The eighth book has a pack of young orphan girls being fed to crocodiles for the entertainment of the masses. 13th book has the teenage older sister of one of the protagonists dying in childbirth.
Did I mention it the official target audience of this series is children 8-12? Then again, what else would you expect from a relatively realistic depiction of the Roman Empire?
edited 30th Oct '11 1:36:45 AM by MattII
I'm starting to get the feeling Pratchett likes dogs. (I know he likes cats, but I can't remember there being nearly that many in his books, apart from Greebo and You.)
One you missed: Laddie dies in Moving Pictures. And given that he was a Lassie expy and dies in a Heroic Sacrifice, I suspect that was meant to satirise inspirational canine deaths.
edited 30th Oct '11 2:41:51 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

I was looking at Canine Companion today, and started thinking about how overused dog deaths are in literature. It's gotten to the point where I cringe when a book mentions a dog, because I know the author is just planning to kill it. Honestly, what was the last book you read where a dog is mentioned and then not killed?
For example, Ken Kesey mentions 3 dogs One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. 2 are strays, and of those two, one is run over by a car "off-camera". This phenomenon is beyond Death by Newbery Medal, it's just ridiculous.
(To give Kesey some credit, he did kill 3 human characters, all by suicide or assisted suicide)
What's with authors senselessly killing dogs, even outside of the story's plot?
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Some particularly bad offenders in recent memory:
Azar blows up a puppy in The Things They Carried (Showing his cruelty)
Here Boy in Beloved get's strangled and thrown against a wall by a ghost, goes into a seizure, and gets beaten over the head by a hammer. He "mysteriously disappears" later.
In Fahrenheit451, Mildred talks about the joys of running over dogs in her car.
Bill Sykes tries to drown Bullseye in a river in Oliver Twist, for fear that the dog would "betray" him.
Candy's dog in Of Mice And Men. This is somewhat justified as it foreshadowed Lenny's death.
edited 4th Oct '11 5:17:56 PM by Jergling