Pet peeves

by Rick Blechta

I’ve used this title before for one of my weekly posts on Type M, but this post is different. It’s actually about pets, not things that annoy me.

The germ for my post today came from two sources: firstly from Charlotte’s post this past Friday, and secondly because our elderly cat is obviously reaching the end of her days.

I do understand people’s attachment to their pets. Our family dog when I was growing up slowly became my dog because I was the one who usually walked him and we went all over our small town together. Yes, I was upset when Spunky finally shucked his mortal coil while I was attending university in Montreal — but I got over it pretty quickly, which is odd because I’m normally a pretty emotional person.

Why is this? Because when I was in high school I had a weekend job for two years working at a local animal hospital. You pretty quickly begin to understand that pets’ lives are far shorter than their owners. I also realized that when you got a pet, you had to understand that this would eventually happen or it could drive someone to serious despair. This realization hardens you pretty effectively to the eventual death of pets.

My wife and I have always had cats. When you’re busy with life and not home much, and often at irregular hours, cats are a much better pet solution than dogs. Over the years we’ve had six. Our current feline, Abby (short for Abby Normal), was originally our son Jan’s pet. When he had to let her go for various reasons, we said we’d take over.

While a real character as a young cat, Abby is now 13 and her health is catching up with her. Based on her medical conditions, she only has a few months left. Our goal is to keep her comfortable. Once we can’t do that, it will be time to let her go. And it will be a sad day, especially for my tender-hearted wife.

Charlotte’s post got me thinking of why pets can often appear as important characters in crime fiction. We even have novels where animals are main characters and actually solve crimes.

My feeling has always been that unless the pet has a good “plot reason” to be included as a cast member, then it’s best to leave them out. I can’t remember the book title now, but the best inclusion of a dog in a crime novel was because the police detective main character found it useful to think about cases while walking his dog. The dog also seemed to understand this and would beg for a walk when her master had a particularly sticky problem in a case. It fit well and was handled in a pretty funny way.

Other times, though, you realize the pet is there for no real plot reason. They’re more window dressing than anything else and to me that distracts from the plot.

I’ve never even considered having a pet in one of my stories. Perhaps it’s because I’ve become a hard-ass about our beloved animal companions — which is no doubt a mechanism to spare me from woe — or maybe it’s a way to keep the storylines less cluttered by extraneous things. Heaven knows I struggle with that!

So here’s to pets, whether they be our boon companions or simply plot devices. I’m happy to know that many readers enjoy the inclusion of animals in stories. Maybe they’re a way to make crime fiction less dark, giving them a bit more humanity by their presence.

In today’s world, that’s a good thing.