by Thomas Kies
My wife has one rule for when I write. I can kill as many people as I want in any gruesome way my imagination can conjure up.
“Yes,” she said, “but you can never, ever hurt a dog.”
“But, sweetheart, it’s a wonderful way to show how despicable a villain can be. Remember the first episode of House of Cards, when Kevin Spacey’s character, Frank Underwood, cradled a dog that he found in the middle of street after it was hit by a car? We thought he’d comfort the poor pooch until help arrived. But then, just when you least expected it, he snapped the dog’s neck with cold resolve, without an ounce of regret. We knew right then and there, he was truly a bad guy.”
“That was disturbing,” she responded, closing her eyes as if trying to erase the memory.
Then I said, “And how about the John Wick series of movies?”
“What about it?”
“They all started when John Wick, content to retire from his life as an assassin, goes on a murderous rampage of vengeance when the son of a mobster kills his dog. Without that, the entire franchise would never have gotten its start.”
She put her hands on her hips and sneered, “You know I’ve never seen one of those movies. Much too violent. And now that you told me about the dog, those movies are dead to me.”
Why is it such an emotional no-no in fiction? I think it’s because dogs represent unconditional loyalty and love. Canines are dependent on humans and offer simple, pure, and predictable relationships. We think of them as both protectors and furballs that we need to protect.
I’ve read that on a human scale; dogs have an intelligence level to toddlers. They love to play, and they cuddle, and they have those sad eyes when they’re begging for a treat. Only the worst kind of villain can hurt a dog.
This subject came up in discussion a few years ago at a mystery conference in Scottsdale, Arizona where Ian Rankin was the keynote speaker. He had never hurt a dog in any of his wonderful books, but there was one instance where a cat was murdered.
He chuckled and said in his soft Scottish burr, “I never heard the end of it. People were genuinely pissed. You know I’ll never do that again.”
If anyone is in doubt as to the emotions that can be dredged up, I recall crying my eyes out when I read Old Yeller and then, like a true masochist, saw the movie. They both end the same way. Absolutely heartbreaking.
So, in my mysteries, I’ve hacked up people with a samurai sword, buried them in a shallow grave in the woods, drowned victims by chaining them to the prongs of a giant forklift and dropping them into icy water, shot them, blew them up in fiery explosions, and suffocated them.
My wife laughs that my imagination is such that she sleeps with one eye open. But because I will always abide by that one rule, we will continue to stay married. Never hurt a dog.
By the way, the pup in the picture above is our girl, Annie. She’s a sucker for tummy rubs.
