Monday, September 25, 2017

Animals as Main Characters, Sidekicks, or Extras by Jenn McKinlay

Recently, I sat down with Booklist and was asked about the animals in my life (Booklist Reader Interview). And I told them...

"We have Otto the schnauzer with the best self-esteem of anyone I’ve ever known. He is my familiar and follows me everywhere. Yes, even into the bathroom. Next we have our rescue, Annie, the uber-sensitive pit bull mutt who cowers if anyone raises their voice; she does not like conflict. Subsequently, there are no arguments in our house because no one wants to upset the dog. Then we have the escape artist Loretta, our black cat, who has disappeared numerous times only to return days later with a mysterious look on her face, making us all wonder what sort of adventure she had while away. Patsy, Loretta’s sister, is our big-boned feline, who loves her food and everyone else’s food and is the one who is actually in charge of the house. All the pets run away from Patsy when she is in a mood. Lastly, we have Kevin, the fish who won’t die. Ten years ago, we took him in for our neighbor while he painted his living room, but Kevin, who likes to spit rocks, never left. Meanwhile the neighbor has moved away, left the state actually. We are thinking we will have to put Kevin in our will."




I realized when I answered their question that having a life that has gone to the dogs, cats, and fish is probably why I write animals as supporting characters into all of my books. While none of the animals is the main character in their story, they are certainly ever present sidekicks.

For the mysteries, I have a dog named Heathcliff in the library lover’s books, and for the cupcake bakery series, there is a cat named Captain Jack. In my romantic comedy Bluff Point series, it’s all "about a dog", the first book co-starring a rescue named Tulip, and in BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE (coming out tomorrow!!!), the story features a geriatric golden retriever, Saul, a disabled basset hound, Hot Wheels, and a foul mouthed parrot, Ike. And in my upcoming new romantic comedy series, the cats rule the roost, so clearly my fiction is full of what my dad would have called “fur people”. 

Why do I include animals (aside from the fact that I love them, obvy)? Because I think having animals in the stories allows my characters to show vulnerabilities where they might not be able to otherwise. Also, there can be some darn funny scenes when you have a parrot whose catch phrase is, "Oh, for f**k's sake!" And, no, he didn't say fork.

How about you, Reds? Where do animals fit into your stories? And if they don’t, why or why not?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: All of my  my main series characters have pets-wait, do they? Yes, they do. Jane has her cat Coda, and Charlotte has Botox. Jake has a golden retriever, Diva. But! Having a dog became a burden, I have to say, because Jake was always having to go take care of her. So I dropped Diva off at Jake's mom's house, and that, serendipitously, became a story line. (All the animals are rescues, I just realized.)  Which is part of the point, kind of, isn't it? A main character having a pet proves they are kind and loving and responsible and--since the pet loves them back--it reinforces that you are supposed to like the character. (Remember Save TheCat, right? I'm laughing because in The Wrong Girl, Jane actually DOES save a cat, and I worried that was too on the nose.)   And in Say No More,  poor sad victimized  agoraphobia Tosca has a fish, a single goldfish, swimming alone in a glass bowl.  See what I did there? :-) 

I've auctioned off a pet's character's name a couple of times, and the results really dictate what the pet will be. Cooper turned out to be a killer (literally) Irish Setter.  And Rocco, well, I had to make Rocco a puffy little white lapdog. Long story. 

LUCY BURDETTE: all three of the main characters in my mystery series have had cats. Yoda (my elderly feline in residence) would tell you that this is obviously because cats are superior beings. In the Key West mysteries, Hayley arrived in town with her gray tiger Evinrude. I think I recall correctly that realizing he came with a litter box was a defining moment for her ex-boyfriend deciding to throw them out – obviously he was a CAD! You may remember that this cat caused an extensive discussion with my former editor about how to portray his expression on the cover. 


Cats on the cover for Lucy!


JENN: Cats on covers, Lucy. Don't even go there!

LUCY: I too, Hank, have auctioned off pet naming opportunities in this series. So there are now three elderly animals living on the houseboat next to Hayley and Miss Gloria's place--Schnootie the schnauzer, and two older cats, Dinkels and Jack. And I ended up having to give a little dog to Detective Nathan Bransford because of another auction. The winner was a Chihuahua/ Miniature Pinscher mix named Ziggy Stardust. He doesn't make a lot of appearances, but he would say they're always at key moments. 

HALLIE EPHRON: I have no pets in my life but that hasn't kept me from putting them in my books. Phoebe, a key character in NEVER TELL A LIE, is "a dog of indeterminate breed with a fat sausage body, skinny legs, and the black jowls of a bull mastiff.  The dog’s snout was studded with white whiskers and her fur was brown and threadbare in places, like a well-loved plush toy." It wheezes and stutter-steps along, and takes a star turn in saving the life of the main character. 

In THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN, my old woman has a cat named Ivory ("The cat draped itself, languid and boneless in her arms, and purred like a wheezy truck engine.") who helps the the main character figure out what's going on.

Maybe that's what my new manuscript needs, a few pets... or maybe some vermin.   

INGRID THOFT: I never noticed before you asked, Jenn, but I have no pets in my books!  None!  That’s crazy, and I’ll have to rectify that in my WIP.  It’s not a mystery why pets aren’t on my brain:  We don’t have any.  Although both my husband and I had dogs, cats, fish, hamsters, and the occasional lizard as pets growing up, we’ve been without animals throughout our adult lives.  I’m allergic to cats and dogs, and we travel enough to make caring for any fur people a dicey proposition.  My husband does have a beautiful, large saltwater fish tank, which demands his time and attention, although most of the functions can be automated if we travel.  

So, there’s going to be a pet in SUBMERGED, but which pet?  I’m off to look at dog images on the Net!

JENN: Ingrid, this is exciting. It's like you're getting an actual pet. Do keep us posted. I think virtual/fictional pets might be the best sort to have. Did I mention I cleaned up twelve spots of dog vomit this morning. Ugh.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Jenn, one of Duncan and Gemma's new kittens is named Captain Jack and the other is Rose, which is one of my little inside jokes that no one except Doctor Who fans will get. But Duncan's parents also have a border collie named Jack, and a main character in an earlier book was called Jack, AND the book-in-progress has a character named Jack.... So there's another post in there on name repetition, I think...


Deb's Cat
JENN: Debs, I love the name Jack (clearly). I wanted to name one of our hooligans Jack but with the last name Orf...yeah, no.

DEBS: I think my only book without animals was the very first one, A SHARE IN DEATH. In the second book, Duncan adopts his dead neighbor's cat, Sid. In the fifth book, Kit (Duncan's son) finds a little terrier abandoned and shivering behind a Tesco supermarket--hence Tess.  In the eighth book, Gemma adopts a cocker spaniel named Geordie. And in the sixteenth book, Kit and Toby rescue a mother cat and kittens and are allowed to keep two of the kittens, which puts animals in the immediate family now at two dogs and three cats.  There are many more sprinkled throughout the series. I like writing about animals, and it certainly reflects my life, with two dogs and three cats. Hmmm. Are you seeing a pattern here? I hadn't even realized I'd mirrored my own household.... There are certainly dogs in the b-in-p, too, several border collies, an Irish deerhound, and a Jack Russell terrier. Cats may insinuaate themselves, but England is, after all, a very doggy country.


Deb's dogs
My favorite charity naming character was an English Mastiff named Mo who appears in WHERE MEMORIES LIE.  I had a really hard time trying to figure out how to work this big dog into the book, but in the end he almost stole the story.


RHYS BOWEN: I've steered away from pets in most of my books. I heard horror stories from friends who gave their sleuths a pet and every time they didn't feed the cat or walk the dog for twenty pages they got letters telling them how terrible they were. Actually it's never really been a factor because Molly Murphy in the early 1900s could barely afford to feed herself and Lady Georgie doesn't really have a place to call her own. But in the book In Farleigh Field there are a couple of lovely golden retrievers who play a part in the story and in the next Royal Spyness book I'm writing there are some very annoying birds! (whom Hank might recognize).


How about you, Readers? Are you partial to fiction with pets, why or why not? Or do you even notice?

73 comments:

  1. I still chuckling over the fish video, Jenn!

    Over the years, we’ve had dogs and kitties and [unfortunately] the girls each had a hamster [little beady-eyed things are not my idea of pets] so I suspect it will come as no surprise that I enjoy pets in fiction. Yes, the characters have to remember to feed them and walk them and board them when they go away, but isn’t that just like real life?
    I hope you keep writing all those lovely animals in your stories . . . .

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    1. Ugh, the hooligans did hamsters! Buddy and Amigo - we put them in those plastic hamster balls so they could run around the house. Buddy chased the cats - great hilarity ensued. Amigo just sat there and never moved. Every time I read Janet Ivanovich, I wonder how Rex the hamster is still alive. He's like a 25 yr old hamster now.

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  2. We never really had pets growing up since my mom, my brother, and I are all very allergic to dogs and cats. We did have fish for a few years, but that was it.

    However, I do love pets in mysteries. They don't bother my allergies.

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    1. I get attached to fictional pets, too! No vet bills!

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  3. I don't notice when a book doesn't have an animal in it. I would certainly notice if one was maltreated, though. Each of my series features one of our real cats. My Birdy died this summer, but I'm so happy I get to keep feeding, stroking, and playing with him in my Country Store mysteries. In my new series the protag is allergic to mammal pets, so she has an African gray parrot!

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    1. Aw, I love that Birdy lives on fictionally. What a fabulous tribute.

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  4. It doesn't bother me if there is a pet in a mystery novel, but it doesn't make or break a story for me.

    And of course you notice the pet when it is referred to throughout a book.

    I had various pets growing up but don't have or want any now.

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    1. I feel the same - it won't make or break the story for me. In fact, i think I left pets out of my London Hat Shop series, specifically so the characters could be unencumbered.

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    2. Jenn, I definitely understand about being unencumbered. That and the fact that it is just freaking expensive as hell to have a pet these days.

      By the way, if I had to pick a favorite pet from a book it would be the various Pearls that have been in the Spenser novels.

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    3. I think I've left out pets so I'll be unencumbered! I don't want to think about one in real life, nor apparently do I want a pretend one, although I'm warming to the idea.

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    4. I'm trying to imagine Fina with a pet and all I can come up with is: "Oh that poor animal."

      She should definitely stick to disappointing her family and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

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  5. We all know what pets are for in mystery novels: so that when the protagonist is alone she has someone to bounce ideas off. In one of Lawrence Block's Keller the hired killer novels, Keller (who despises all manner of humanity and would always rather be alone) buys a stuffed dog and puts it in the passenger seat of his car and talks to it. LOL! He is such an inspired writer.

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    1. Have you read Fred Vargas? She is a French writer who keeps tongue firmly in her cheek. Inspector Adamsberg has a pet, a toad, which he carries in his pocket.

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  6. Holding the leashes of a combined ninety pounds of squirrel-chasing standard poodles. Yes, I write about dogs--walking, feeding, sleeping, but also barking at intruders and growling at bad guys.

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    1. I had a standard named Lucy - my goodness, she was smart - too smart! I can't imagine having two smarty pants dogs!

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  7. Like anything else in fiction, I think it takes a skillful writer to weave a pet into a story--and it definitely shows if the writer doesn't understand pets. Because we all know that each pet has a definite personality and can add so much to a story with a minimum of detail. Two favorites--Martha Grimes' Jury mysteries--always animals involved---and Louise Penny's Gamache--where Henri can be counted on to add a bit of comic relief and Rosa definitely adds to the character of Ruth!

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    1. I think you're right, Flora. The pet has to be more than a prop. Love the Gamache books!

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  8. My state police officer has a Golden Retriever - and fortunately he has a very helpful and understanding neighbor who takes care of the dog when things on the job get hectic. I've used Rizzo to showcase the character's traits and support the development of the romatic story line (Rizzo definitely approves of his owner's lady friend).

    I wasn't going to give a pet to my 1942 historical protagonist because she's a working girl trying to help feed an large family. How can she afford a pet? But then a stray cat appeared that looks an awful lot like my neighbor's cat (who seems to have adopted us). She calls it "Cat" and is very hesitant to take it in, but gives up. I like to think (I hope) it helps with development of the character. We'll see.

    So I guess I'm not averse to pets - but I prefer when they fulfill a function and don't just exist for the sake of being there, you know?

    Mary/Liz

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    1. I agree - pets shouldn't be filler. I know my characters are like Hallie's where the pets are someone for my amateur sleuths to share theories with, sort of like when I ask my own pets, "We don't need to clean today, right?" and they obligingly roll over belly up - which means no, I'm pretty sure.

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    2. I'd definitely interpret that as a "no."

      Mary/Liz

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  9. Annoying birds! SO funny. My best pet adventure ever, with an incredibly persistently amorous cockatoo. Who insisted on sitting on my head. Yeesh. I have photos.

    And yes, it iS like Ingrid's getting a pet! Keep us posted!

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    1. Link please? BTW, I'm loving THE WRONG GIRL, which is well populated with cats. However last night I had some sort of reaction to a powerful cough syrup that was full of opium or something, and I dreamed about that book all night -- with a title change, Delving for Elves. Don't even ask.

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    2. Hank -

      I need to see these pics. An amorous cockatoo is absolutely a pet I would write into a book. LOL!

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    3. I vote to see the pictures, too. I think that's a good book title, "The Persistently Amorous Cockatoo."

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    4. Oh, I am inspired! Jenn, you can definitely have bird rights. (And use Ingrid's great title!) Let me find the photo.

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  10. I like it when pets are more than set dressing in any book. We make our pets part of the family, and characters who bother to buy/adopt a pet should treat them with care and compassion. To do otherwise says something about the character that the author may not have intended. The only book I've ever panned in an Amazon review got that distinction because the author horribly abused a dog for no good reason, then didn't punish the abuser.

    That said, I think it's perfectly obvious why the Ludlows don't have pets. Dogs don't bring in new clients or rack up billable hours. If Rand showed up with a dog, he'd be using it as bait, and it would go back to the pound as soon as it had served its purpose. Still, it would be kind of interesting, in a train wreck sort of way, to stick Fina with a bossy dog like a border collie for a week. Borders love their schedules, have definite opinions on how the world should be run, and pretty much assume all other creatures are sheep to be herded and managed.

    Hooray for you new book, Jenn! I loved the first in the series. Can't wait to read this one.

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    1. Thanks so much Gigi. I call tomorrow's release - the book that almost killed me - you can read why tomorrow. I agree I would love to see Fina hampered temporarily by a dog. A friend of mine is a PI in Colorado and she has two Rotweillers - they make for interesting sidekicks when she has to pick through trash and do stakeouts.

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  11. Pets in books can be entertaining. I am thinking particularly of Hamish MacBeth's dogs and cat. Great names: Lugs, Towser, Sonsie. And the whole village helps take care of his pets.

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    1. Ha! It takes a village. My library lover's dog, Heathcliff is forever being petsit by any available person in the town. Have to free up my librarian so she can be a full on busybody, right?

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  12. My new stepgrandson is named Jackson, Jack for short. I am also partial to characters called Jack. It's a good, strong and manly name, isn't it?

    As I was growing up, my mother, a super finicky housekeeper, did not allow animals in the house. Not to mention they could barely afford to keep four kids fed and clothed, let alone buy dog food. But after I left home they took in my grandfather's miniature poodle, and later, my little brother got a kitten. That's how I found out I was allergic to cats, when gigantic hives and welts rose on my skin and I started wheezing after fifteen minutes in the house.

    We've had some pets: fish, turtle, and a cat that had to live outside. And now two of my daughters have much-loved and hilarious dogs that I love to see periodically. They don't trigger allergies, and I'm hoping my oldest daughter doesn't give in to my grandson's urge for a kitten. It would kill me to not be able to visit.

    However, since my husband is a wildlife photographer, and since his father wrote a column about local flora and fauna for over fifty years, local people used to bring us "abandoned" (usually not) animals, which the whole family had to help raise. Over the years, we had everything you could think of that inhabits this area, some of which ended up living in our dining room, or on the screened porch while they were in the 24-hour care stage. And yes, my allergies were an issue.

    So I'm not opposed to animals in stories, but I get irritated, sometimes, with some aspects of cat characters, in particular, in fiction. It seems partially like a trick, a way to entice a reader to the story. Case in point, one cozy author who writes under a half dozen names says the covers on one of her series feature an ever-enlarging cat. When she first wrote the book, there was no cat in the story, so she had to write one in, and now the cat is so big on the last cover it looks as if the cat is the sleuth. Her books can stand on their own, too, which kind of makes that gigantic cat on the cover an insult to her, in my opinion.

    That said, like a character's garments, hobbies, or any other quirk, a pet and how he or she relates to it can inform the reader of a great deal. Doc Martin's constant battle with the neighborhood mutt is a great example. And even funnier when you know that the actor Martin Clunes is a HUGE animal lover, especially of dogs.

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    1. Karen, have you seen the newest episode of Doc Martin? That little dog has a big part with more on the horizon. Acorn

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    2. Yes! I started to mention it, but then decided not to spill the beans.

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    3. I love Doc Martin! Don't get me started with cats on covers. This is one of the many things my writer friends and I commiserate over at the bar at any given conference. How can art not know what a Maine Coon cat looks like? Why does my kitten look like a deranged lemur? And the constant why is there a cat on the cover of my book when I don't even have a cat in the book? This is why writers drink, I'm pretty sure.

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    4. I do have to say that I've enjoyed the finicky bitchiness of Moriarty, the cat in Vicky Delany's new Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series.

      As for the mention of Doc Martin, I really should sit down and watch that series. My mother loved it and had the first 6 or 7 series on DVD. I'm holding back on that because if I like it, I don't know that I'll be able to stop myself from getting the DVDS for the series I don't have.

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    5. Jay, the eighth season has just started. British tv is a lot different from ours, sometimes taking two years between seasons.

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  13. To me, a pet in a story is just another character or thing that the author uses to tell us things about its owner, or, in the case of cats, servant. As others have noted, it's great to be able to say things to a pet that one doesn't want to say to another person (or the chair, in that great unwritten Neil Diamond mystery). I tend to enjoy offbeat pets, such as Rosa the duck (Louise Penny) and Pickwick the dodo (Jasper Fforde).

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    1. I like offbeat pets, too. It mixes things up a bit but heaven forbid they try to put the pet on the cover - it won't go well!

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  14. I love for the characters to have pets, but please don't let any of them die, can handle a gory murder but never the demise of a little furry thing.

    Have a question for the hive:

    I read a couple of quite good books, police procedurals I think, a few years ago. There were animals -- a cat with a litter of kittens and a dog. The dog kept creeping into the library and hiding a kitten or two when mama cat was out. It was so entertaining, and of course both animals thought in English. Somehow String Theory was also involved, no kidding. I'd love it if any of you could tell me who wrote these books. Martha Grimes comes to mind yet I can't find them in my collection.

    Thanks in advance my dear ones.

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    1. I agree, Ann. I can't handle harm to animals or children. No, just no.

      Sadly, I don't know who wrote the books you mentioned, but I'll happily put on my librarian hat and give it a go if no one else knows.

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    2. So it is okay for a serial killer to wipe out 20 or 30 people, but Fido makes them open a can of dog food for? :D

      Just kidding.

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    3. Ann, yes it is a Martha Grimes' Richard Jury mystery with the dog, Mungo, moving kittens about the house to drive the cat crazy. I can't remember the title either, but I vaguely remember that Mungo and the mother cat wind up as key players in rescuing children from that devious and sleazy Harry person. Hoping these bits and pieces will help you to find the book.
      While pets in mystery and other novels are fine, I stopped reading Martha Grimes as these animals became characters in the story, moving the plot along -- "speaking" to Jury and other people, with very active inner dialog. Personification of animals is not my thing.

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    4. Extra note: Mungo and this mother cat appeared in more than one of the books.

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    5. I admit it, my mind leaps from one spot to another. (I should refrain from "publish" until the leaping stops?) But: try The Old Wine Shades

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    6. Yes! Thank you, Elisabeth. I've been trying to recall that book all day. I'm pretty sure I listened to it.

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    7. Don't forget the large sleek black cat Cyril who taunts Jury's unlikable supervisor by leaping on his desk. Cyril appears in many of Martha Grimes' Jury novels.

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  15. I always like pets in stories but I do get annoyed with a certain author, supposedly an animal lover, for how she treats the pets in her books. The main character has several pets and they often ride along with her in her car or truck as she goes about her day. Sometimes the animals get out and go with her to see about things but other times they must stay in the vehicle. But these books are set in a southern state and leaving the window "cracked" is just NOT good!

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    1. I agree. You can't leave pets in cars. The hooligans and I stalked a man in the grocery store a few weeks ago, who left his black dog, in his black car, facing the sun, on a day that was 105 degrees outside. I told him to go get his dog or I would call the police. The hooligans stayed by his car, ready to break in if they sensed the dog was in distress. The man (20 something) was from Michigan (no excuse) and hustled right back out to his car and got his dog. Common sense is not as common as you'd think. Ugh.

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    2. If it is the one I think it is, the main character drives a convertible. Surely the critters are okay in an open top out in the country.

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    3. Nope, I've never known that particular character to drive a convertible - it's usually a truck, I think an older Ford 150. But I might be mistaken about that!

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    4. We are talking different characters!

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  16. Speaking of animals in stories, over the weekend I met a woman who writes "furries." Novels in which the characters ARE animals. I was amazed; apparently it's a lucrative thing with a whole culture around it. I'd heard of furry conferences where people dress up, but had no idea it was literary genre. She writes sci fi, so it's like "otters in space" kind of thing ... for adults ...

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    1. Yes, it is a definite subgenre of pop culture for sure. Not that I should judge but it is also one I don't get at all.

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    2. My only "furrie" knowledge is from a hilarious episode of Entourage so I'm just going to leave it at that.

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    3. I wasn't going to say anything, Jenn, but Furries and Plushies are part of a whole other world!

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  17. Pets in my life, pets in my books. Not complete without them. I do like stories that have pets as well. Provided they fit the book. Be warned though - any animal abuse - NOT TOLERATED - Book hits wall - author blacklisted. Done.

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  18. I do enjoy animals in books and the interaction between them and characters. Animals give the main character a perfect, attentive audience with whom to discuss a murder case. I just finished the second in a new series, the F.B.I. K-9 series by Sara Driscoll, aka Jen J. Danna and Ann Vanderlaan, in which Special Agent Meg Jennings works with her search-and-rescue Labrador, Hawk. Before It's Too Late comes out tomorrow, and I am thoroughly enjoying the part this dog and the rest of the team and their dogs work a case. I quickly fit in the latest Hamish Macbeth mystery by M.C. Beaton, and Hamish has at this point two dogs, which he is always taking care of appropriately, feeding and walking. He had a wildcat named Sonsie, that he finally gave up to a sanctuary for wildcats.

    Ann mentioned above not to let any animals die in the story. My friend and author Elly Griffiths (Domenica De Rosa) learned her lesson in this area. She let the main character Ruth Galloway's pet cat get killed, and she has never heard the end of it. She has sworn to never let another animal die in her books.

    Jen, I'm happy to learn that your Library Lovers' series has a dog in it, as that series is coming up very soon for me to read.

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    1. Good grief. I read the Ruth Galloway books and I don't remember anything about a cat.

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    2. Yikes. I remember this. I haven't read another Ruth Galloway since. I'm a confessed softie and even consult movieswhere.com before watching anything where an animal might get hurt or die. Here's the link if anyone is interested. https://www.movieswhere.com/topics/25

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    3. I think I learned the lesson not to let the animal die from Turner and Hooch - I embarrassed myself with full on wail/sobbing on that one.

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    4. Pat, it was early on, and the cat was murdered. Unknown, what a shame you didn't keep reading the Ruth Galloway series. It's one of my favorites, and Elly/Dom really did learn her lesson and felt terrible about it later. Oh Jenn, Turner and Hooch!

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  19. Jenn, that's some stone-spitting catfish. They can live 60 years.

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    1. Oh, sweet Jesus on a bicycle, I really am going to have to put him in my will.

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    2. That thing is an awesome catfish. They fry up pretty well too. ::: ducking:;:

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  20. I wouldn't want to see a pet die of neglect but I wouldn't blacklist the author if the pet died in an accident or of natural causes. That is life, after all. That said, don't kill any fictional pets on my account.

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    1. I think natural causes are okay, too, but I don't have the heart to do it.

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    2. I wouldn't blacklist but I prefer the pet stay alive forever

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  21. Oh thank you , Elisabeth. Yes, it is Mungo. Off to check my Martha Grimes collection

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  22. Does anyone have a turtle as a character? My 35-year-old Cohutta Fish Hatchery turtle, Violet, has a place in my Will and deserves a place in my fiction, too.

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