# Why do they always have to kill the dog? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 14, 2012, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761 "2012-04-14T14:43:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/41 "2012-04-16T19:41:34Z")
I’ve noticed this more and more over the last few years too. It’s just a cheap and easy way to show that the bad guy is really bad. Marley and Me doesn’t count, because it was a story about the entire life of a dog. You tell the entire life of any animal, humans included, and it has to end in the animal’s death, at least off-screen, because that’s the end of its life. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2012, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/42 "2012-04-16T20:05:16Z")
While Boomer lived through the initial explosion in Independence Day, I keep wondering… _what happened to him_? You never see him at Area 51 or anywhere else after that. Where did Boomer go? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/43 "2012-04-17T14:52:04Z")
> [@audiobottle](#): > > Ah! I just read that book (currently on the third in the trilogy), and I know exactly what you mean. When I got to that point I could almost feel my heart breaking, and I thought back to my own dog from when I was growing up, and… well, my allergies might have acted up suddenly and caused a little eye watering to occur. > I’m glad you spoiler tagged the book, because it really is a great book. Unlike some other trilogies (Hunger Games?) it has stayed very even in quality throughout the whole thing. See, I don’t know if I can read the second and third book, because every time I think about the first one I think about the dog dying. And I can’t seem to keep from thinking about the book, because it was so good - but god, it was just crushing. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/44 "2012-04-17T15:33:39Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > _No More Dead Dogs_ is a book by Gordon Korman in which the protagonist is supposed to be in a school play based on a book in which…you know what. The protagonist rebels, and he and his friends write a new play. Seconding this. It’s pretty funny, too. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/45 "2012-04-17T16:18:30Z")
Random thoughts - Love Gordon Korman - he comes up with some clever ideas, “kid’s book writer” or no. someone mentioned “A Boy and hid Dog” upthread - After all, a boy loves his dog - I had planned to mention that one, darn it! At the beginning of The Wild Bunch aren’t a bunch of kids torturing a scorpion with ants? (upthread question). Kids are mean. In Alien or Aliens, can’t remember which, everyone was worried about whether Ripley’s cat was going to survive. and in “Fatal Attraction” we knew that Glen Close deserved to die when she killed the poor bunny. and if the horse survived in “War Horse” that was pretty unrealistic. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/46 "2012-04-18T00:22:34Z")
Just watched the replay of “Little Dorritt” on Masterpiece Classics. The villain is uber-creepy and is actually shown stabbing one man to death. But what really got me is when he killed the family dog (off stage). They just showed the husband’s shadow bending down and then calling out the dog’s name in horror. The villain, who was walking away, turned toward the house and mimicked the dog’s bark. I was truly disappointed that he died by having a house fall on him a la the Wicked Witch of the East. He deserved far worse. Dickens disappoints. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/47 "2012-04-18T00:40:59Z")
I saw some list in which the dog dies in “Lassie Come Home.” I said, “Wha? Lassie survives.” Then today my daughter was telling of some alternate names she has for The Little Girls, Toto and Toots. “Toots? Who is Toots?” “She was in ‘Lassie Come Home’ and…” I cut her off, remembering who Toots was and her fate. “You bastard!” I cried, “I had that memory successfully blocked and you unblocked it.” ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/48 "2012-04-18T01:49:49Z")
Never been a King fan but when _Cell_ was published you could read the first chapter online for free. IIRC, in the first few pages King has the affected people killing or maiming at least two dogs. It struck me as so blatantly manipulative that I never botherd with the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/49 "2013-04-02T00:50:15Z")
OK, I know this thread is a zombie, but that’s ironic, because I’ve just been reading again _World War Z_. There’s a chapter in which a guy describes how he became involved with the training of dogs to work against the reanimated dead. How dogs and people bond so closely, and if a dog partner is killed, the odds are 50-50 the human will suicide. But before that, during the panic, he describes his escape to safe ground. He’d been in an apartment across the street from an abandoned pet shop, and although the dead were not able to get in, he could hear the puppies crying and screaming for help, then going silent as their water ran out. Damn, I’m tearing up just thinking about it. And it was fictional! Not real!. Just a story! But it still hurts. People are dying all over the world, and I’m depressed at the dying puppies. The author knows what buttons to push. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/50 "2013-04-02T03:33:43Z")
My childhood antithesis to “the dog dies at the end” was Jack London. In his stories, the dog lives…but the people die tragically! ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/51 "2013-04-02T04:16:02Z")
Every damn book we read in 5th grade had the dog die at the end. Except _Bridge to Terabithia._ ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/52 "2013-04-02T16:55:09Z")
I’ve got two more: in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, they are helping a family escape from the terminator. The kid asks "What about Charles Barkley (the dog)? The answer is a resounding “NO.” And never read Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver. They vivisect two dogs, cutting them open without anesthesia and trying to see how long the dog will live. They do this twice and neither time did it have any bearing on the plot. The dogs were described as “screaming.” I put the book down after that. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/53 "2013-04-02T17:24:07Z")
My grandson loves 80’s SciFi/Fantasy movies (Krull, Flash Gordon, etc.), so I showed him Beastmaster. No good: a ferret dies. He’ll never watch it again. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/54 "2013-04-02T17:51:26Z")
Immediately I thought of \*Endymion \*by Dan Simmons, in which (this is not a spoiler) the beloved hunting dog is killed by an idiot hunter, which is the first plot point in the book that sets the whole rest of the book in motion. At least it’s right at the beginning, before you have a chance to get \*too \*attached to the unfortunate pooch. I hated, hated, hated reading that part nonetheless. Thanks for the warning about _Quicksilver_—I’m seriously going to avoid that one now. ::shudder:: ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/55 "2013-04-02T20:22:50Z")
It’s not a dog, but The death of Hedwig the owl in the last _Harry Potter_ book… felt pretty cheap and unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/56 "2013-04-03T12:32:08Z")
Two decade old spoiler alert… Stephen King’s PET SEMATARY… the cat dies… the toddler dies… TWICE! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/57 "2013-04-03T15:38:42Z")
I just caught up on the latest _Wool_ books, and even though Solo’s cat lived to a ripe old age I was still sad in my bones. It put me in a real funk for days. Still, nothing like _The Knife of Never Letting Go_. Fuck that book. ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/58 "2013-04-03T17:22:34Z")
Old Yeller should be removed from public circulation - film and book. Fucking movie scarred me to this day. Oh, and Bambi just finished me off. GD Disney. If they’re going to continue to vault movies, that POS cartoon deserves a millenium or two in cold storage. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761/59 "2013-04-03T19:42:22Z")
This thread, unpleasant as it is to read, lends context to Whittier’s “Barbara Frietchie”— _Who touches a hair of yon gray head Dies like a dog! March on!" he said._ Which leads back to the OP question of “Why do they always have to kill the dog?” Why does that even have to be a poetic metaphor? ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-they-always-have-to-kill-the-dog/618761.md?page=2)