We at the Pink Palace love pets in fiction (they are so very convenient, and require no cleanup, yet are always available for snuggles) and in real life (they are messy and expensive and yet we adore them, although I personally adore mine less when they barf on the carpet).
Pets are memorable in romances, too. They tell you everything you need to know about a character. Does the scary highwayman who tells the heroine that he has no heart show great (platonic) affection to his horse? Does the woman who doesn’t believe in love find herself adopting a traumatized stray dog and sleeping with it (again, platonically) at night? Pets can bring the couple together, create conflict between them, and bring them together again. They are also sometimes just freaking cool. Here are a few examples of our favorite pets in romance:
Coco The Dog: In Brown-Eyed Girl, by Lisa Kleypas, the heroine asks the hero to give her one practical reason to keep a dog that she unexpectedly falls in love with. He replies:
“I’ll give you three. One, a dog will give you unconditional love. Two, having a dog reduces stress. Three…” His arm slid away, and he turned my face toward his, his thumb stroking the edge of my jaw. He looked into my eyes and smiled. “Hell, do it because you want to,” he said.
Dennis The Pig: The pirate crew in The Windflower by Laura London seems terrifying, until they reveal that they have a pet pig named Dennis. It’s impossible to be afraid of anyone who has a pet pig named Dennis. This is a scientific fact.
George, The Clockwork Dog: The first clockwork pet I encountered was in Kilts and Kraken by Cindy Spencer Pape and boy, was I excited about it. In reality a clockwork animal seems rather odd – prone to breakage, one would think, and not snuggly. Yet there’s something about clockwork pets in fiction that I find irresistible, especially when it’s an enormous clockwork mastiff named George.
Elvis the Cat: Jennifer Crusie is well-known for including dogs in many of her books but in Bet Me the heroine ends up with a nearly feral, one-eyed cat (this is a romance novel, so no fleas) who loves Elvis Presley and who learns to turn the CD player on with his paw.
“I love that cat,” Min said, “He’s always there for me, he pats me with his paw when I’m depressed, he keeps me warm at night, and he has a beautiful voice. I’ve decided he’s the reincarnation of Elvis.”
But this discussion wouldn’t be complete without some of our real-list pets – and we can’t resist the opportunity to share fuzzy friend pictures. Here are some of our pets, posing with books for scale.
CarrieS: Lucy looks sad because I kept trying to take her picture with a book instead of rubbing her tummy. Rest assured she got tummy rubs later. Despite her mournful expression, this is not an abused dog! We love her! Really!
Elyse: I was always a dog person because we always had dogs growing up. I steered away from reading about animals because my grammar school traumatized me with Where the Red Fern Grows and Stone Fox both of which broke my goddamned heart. Then I grew up and couldn’t get a dog (condo association rules) so I got a cat instead and discovered I’m also a cat person.
My cat, Dewey, functions as a completely untrained, uncertified emotional support animal when my fibro has me down. He provides the snuggles. Also he randomly bites me which I choose to interpret as reminding me to “live in the now, mom. Stop worrying so much.”
My favorite pet related trope in romance novels is when the hero is all crusty and grumpy and HE WILL NOT LOVE THIS ANIMAL and then of course, the pet wins him over.
Case in point: when we got Dewey, my husband was emphatic that he was “not a cat person.” Dewey would be my cat.
This is a picture of them together on day 2:
Now he carries Dewey around all day and calls him “the littlest Kzin” but still insists he’s not a cat person. He’s just a Dewey-person.
In Only a Kiss by Mary Balogh, the heroine rescues sad and abused cats and dogs. The hero is very “the only suitable dog is a hunting dog and I shall not allow for all of these shenanigans… but this little fellow looks quite sad so I shall carry him about.” I love that.
Elizabeth Hoyt also has lots of animals in her books, my favorite of which is Daffodil the whippet. I grew up with greyhounds (rescued retired racing dogs) and they are just sweet, beautiful animals.
I also love the Hope series by Jaci Burton which features animals as well. In the first book, the heroine is a veterinarian and saves a sad little bulldog puppy. I do wish there were more cats in romance as well as dogs, though. Dewey thinks so too. And he should know because he sleeps on my bookshelf.
RHG:
See, I have always been partial to Ghost, from Courtney Milan’s Unraveled. There’s a point where Smite, the hero, is grumbling about how AWFUL the poor part of town smells, awful awful awful- until he realizes that what he smells is his own dog, who has rolled about in something unmentionable.
Good doggie.
Sarah: I have lost my two oldest pets in the past year: Oliver, who was the elder statesman and king of the orange tabbies, and Gracie, who was a very frequent podcast guest. She’d hear me recording the intro and walk in, yeowling.
Currently, I have a somewhat normal number of pets. Two dogs, and one cat. Spawn, the remaining cat, is 15, and is very much my copilot. He sits next to me or yells at me to pick him up to put him on my desk when I’m working. He’s aged enough that floor-to-counter or floor-to-desk jumps are not happening, and woe and warnings be to anyone who moves his transitional chair that enables him to get up on the counter to drink from the faucet.
Spawn, I also learned recently, is terrific at house staging. A decorator and the realty team came to stage our house, and Spawn hasn’t moved from the staging love seat:
Spawn also likes to read with me, though he doesn’t like the sexxytimes:
All my pets are male, but Spawn and Zeb, one of my dogs, have a lovely bromance going on.
Spawn looooves Zeb.
Zeb, who is part Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and part Cocker Spaniel (our breed name for him: King Cock), isn’t sure what to make of Spawn’s affections:
We call this photo, “Why is cat. Why.”
What about you? What are your favorite pets in romance, or in your household? Or both?
NB: if you’d like to share pictures or links to pics in the comments, please do! The width for images, however is about 600px so if you embed something that’s miles wide, it might not show up.
Buttercup, in Kristan Higgins’
Dammit, Just One of the Guys.
I adore Spike the Rose Goblin in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series. He may look like a rosebush, but he acts like a cat.
Fitz, Barbara Metzger’s eponymous Loyal Companion. (Any day I get to use eponymous is a good day.)
One of the goofiest books I ever read was Arnette Lamb’s “Chieftain,” in which the hero had a pet elephant. As one did in fourteenth-century Scotland. What made it even goofier is that no one made a big deal about it.
Charybdis the cat from my favorite Pennyroyal Green book How the Marquess was Won. He even gets the last line in the story!
Susan the dog from Loretta Chase’s The Last Hellion. Oyster the dog from A Duke of Her Own. Dumfries the dog from Saving Grace (well just about every Julie Garwood has her heroine wielding her Disney princess magic over some beastie). You’re right, it is easier to think of dogs!
While its neither a pet nor in a romance, I loved the Death of Rats in HOGFATHER by Terry Pratchett. He’s along for the adventure, he seems helpful, and like Death he always speaks in capital letters — but the only thing he ever says is SQUEAK. And he’s on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnQh6QoRuBM
Seconding Oyster the pug from A Duke of Her Own, @Teev! Such a mess of a little dog. But, like real dogs, an excellent indicator of the character of the humans around him.
I’m much more of cat person than dog person, but the mutt from The Highness and the Highlander is sweet. A more interesting pet that I’ve never forgotten is the bear from Blackthorn’s Bride by Shana Galen that Maddie, the. Protagonist rescues from being a bait bear.
As for my own pets, I have 2 cats: a marbled tabby named Seven and an older calico the husband and I recently adopted named Frejya. Both make excellent reading buddies or muses when I’m writing.
Georgette Heyer wrote great, hilarious dogs. Ulysses from “Arabella” was one of those “win over the cold-hearted, ‘I will not have this mutt in my home'” types, providing the hero with development and heart. Bouncer the irrepressible crossbred in “The Reluctant Widow” also instantly springs to mind.
Not strictly a romance (although it does contain a rather swoon-worthy romantic plotline), but I love Seshat the cat in He Shall Thunder in the Sky, by Elizabeth Peters. All of the cats in that series are pretty good, and in a previous book, Seshat is an adorable kitten. But in He Shall Thunder, Seshat is awesome and really acts like a sidekick to Ramses and saves him.
While the Death of Rats is undoubtedly cool (as are all Pratchett creations)), I have a soft spot for smelly Gaspode, the talking dog who was possibly supercharged by some random magical effluvium from Unseen University
And how could I forget–Paul Gallico’s Thomasina! Not labeled romance, but totally a romance in a multi-faceted love story. I owned the book, wore it out, and searched for it for ages.
I love this! I also have a Cavalier/Cocker Spaniel mix, so I think the “King Cock” thing is a riot. That’s a much more interesting name for that mix than “Cockalier”
There are too many romance dogs & cats for me to keep straight, but an odd but memorable pet was Medusa, Beatrix’s hedgehog in Lisa Kleypas’s Hathaway series. There’s nothing cuter than a prickly little critter.
Today happens to be my dog Norman’s fourth birthday, so I want to give a shout out to him and commend his skill at licking all the dead skin cells from my face. Thank you, Bub.
Having met a few Cockaliers, King Cock is a much more fun name for that mix! We have an adopted cocker spaniel and I love the spaniel attitude. I am also devoted chauffeur and caretaker to two rescued Standard Poodles. The Poodles would steal the car if we didn’t take them somewhere almost daily!
I have a folder on my Kindle labeled “Dog Stories.” A stray dog named Maybe stole my heart in Rescue Me, Maybe by Jackie Bouchard, who has written several dog stories, this one dealing with loss and grief. Some of my favorite dogs are found in Rachel Lacey’s Love to the Rescue series. I also follow A.A. Ayres’ K-9 Rescue series, with working dogs who are a big part of the stories. Of course, I’ve read Jill Shalvis’ Animal Attraction series and Kristan Higgin’s books with their dogs.
Jill mentioned Georgette Heyer, but not my favorite Heyer dog, Lufra, the Baluchistan hound in Frederica.
@Dayle: I love Spike. And how about the Aeslin mice in the InCryptid series?
Also, Kate Daniels’ Grendel, the attack poodle. And Stone, the gargoyle in Devon Monk’s Allie Beckstrom series, though not an animal per se, has mad organizing and protecting skills.
Oyster, for sure! Tobias loved him so much.
Oh, yes OtterB – LUFRA. So much love. Or Luff.
I try to avoid dog stories because they inevitably lead to mass quantities of used Kleenex. You read “Rose In A Storm” by Jon Katz and maintain your composure. I dare you. Nora Robertson has written a lot of good doggies in her books. Mostly cause they’re just dogs that interact with their people in normal dog ways.
The book dog I have loved most recently would be Brodie from Shelly Laurenston’s “The UnLeashing”. Brodie is a rescue dog, so I immediately picture Ma Fan, my brothers’ dog, who loves me madly. Really. She does this insane leaping, running happy dance when I walk in, which makes my brothers insane. I thought was her general behavior. “No,” they assure me, “it’s just you.” I digress. Kera won’t accept the offer to become a Valkyrie unless she can bring her dog with her. How can you not love a character who is willing to turn down immortality for her dog? And, when the gods agree, it leads to this:
“Before Kera could even finish, Brodie unfurled her wings and took to the air.
Stieg watched the dog and asked, “So your dog flies now?”
“Apparently.”
Steig mulled that over for a few seconds before he shrugged and said, “Yeah, okay.”
Not a romance, but when I read this at age 12 or so, my heart broke for the terrier named Bulls Eye in Oliver Twist. When he followed Bill after Nancy’s murder, and wouldn’t give up, even now I tear up thinking about it.
We spoke in Surrey about the death of my Cavalier Buddy a few weeks back. Still miss the little guy. Your photo of your King Cock (hahahaha) reminds me of him.
(If you go to my blog and put “Buddy” in the search box, you’ll know more than you’ll ever need or want to know about the odd little duck.)
I really like Napoleon, the penguin, in Seize the Fire by Laura Kinsale.
As Karenmc mentioned, Beatrix’s pets in the Hathaways books are all lovely. I particularly like the dog she takes in in her own novel–he belonged to the hero, I believe. Her stoat was fantastic as well, helping catch bad guys and all.
On the topic of stoats, The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla isn’t my favorite Lauren Willig novel, but the heroine’s stoat stole the show in that book! A wonderful little pet that also happened to be adept at catching baddies.
For me, Fred the basset hound from Jennifer Crusie’s Anyone But You is tied with Heisenberg from her book Getting Rid of Bradley. Dead Dog!
Also, Dinner the lamb from Tessa Dare’s A Night to Surrender, and in larger literature, The Cat Bastet from Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series, and Mr. Bones from Paul Auster’s novel Timbuktu. That dog just broke my heart!
Hail the Aeslin mice! And seconds to Ulysses in “Arabella” and Fred in “Anyone but you,” and Grendel, but let us not forget the other talented canine whose superpower is barfing–Bob the dog from the Stephanie Plum series. And ok, technically he’s not a dog but a demon, but who wouldn’t want a talking Newfie like Efrijim in Katie MacAlister Aisling Grey series? My favorite Nora Roberts pooch is Taz from “Local hero,” but he’s not the hero that Eve Dallas’ cat Galahad is–how many housecats save the heroine’s life–twice? But I also have a soft spot for the dust bunnies in Jayne Ann Krentz’s Harmony series.
Ahem!! How about K-9 from the Tom Baker Doctor Who? And all those dust bunnies on Harmony?
I personally am a devotee of cats.
I love Ponch, in the Young Wizards series by Diand Duane. He starts off a fairly normal, goofy pooch, but as for where he ends up, now that would be telling!
I was pretty fond of Snowdrop the Weasel from Romancing the Duke, just because she was such a troublemaker. I’d want no part of a Snowdrop in real life, but she was cute to read about. HAIL! the Aeslin mice and Spike the rose goblin (McGuire does great imaginary pets). Also, not a romance, but definitely in the wheelhouse by the third book, the fire lizards in Anne McCaffrey’s Harper Hall series? I am still disgruntled at not having one.
As for my household, we are a house of two kitties. Jack is about 10, fat as a pillow, and a total mama’s boy. He’s my ride-or-die baby. Gabby we got as a rescue at about 5 months, so she’s about a year and half old. She’s so black she absorbs light, and is quite imperious about how beautiful she is.
Awww! This was great. I don’t have any pictures to add, but if you check out #fallbackintime, there are some really adorbs pictures of pets with books.
I love Sir Mouse, the heroine Melisande’s little dog in “To Seduce a Sinner” by Elizabeth Hoyt. Although if I recall correctly, he didn’t take to the hero at first and bit him!
I just remembered! Joe from Linda Howard’s Diamond Bay. He had the personality of an angsty wounded alpha hero. All stand offish with lots of growling and snapping, but willing to take a bullet to protect his woman.
One of the things I love about the Smart Bitches is the pet love. I sincerely miss Gracie’s additions to the podcast, and I too understand the weirdness of being down to a “normal” number of pets (only because the neighbors don’t know I also have three cats to add to the three dogs). Unfortunately, I tend to fear that pets in fiction will end up being heartbreaking plot points, so I have no favourites…
@Jodi:
Aw, thank you for that. I miss her a lot. It’s weird having a “normal” number of animals, isn’t it?!
@Lynn – Heisenberg is probably my favorite Crusie dog!
I loved the animals in To Say Nothing of the Dog (SFF with low key romance) – Cyril the dog, and the spoiled goldfish loving cat that started off the crazy plot. The MCs are from a future when cats are extinct, so watching them fall in love with cats is fun.
Linnea Sinclair’s feerbies (telepathic cats) in Games of Command.
And I really wanted to impress a fire lizard when I read the Pern books as a girl.
I have two cats. One was a stray and one was a shelter cat. They both are good reading companions, except when they feel that there is too much reading and not enough petting or feeding or SOMETHING.
Hi Sarah! (We chatted briefly at Surrey, too – so glad you were there!) What a great post! I love hearing that other book lovers are also pet lovers. I just downloaded the Mary Balogh book, as I can NOT resist animal rescuers. We are currently “down” to three dogs, one cat and a 24-year old cockatiel. (not a Cockalier or a King Cock, but yes, a bird), though we once had six cats, three dogs (one of which was a rescued greyhound), hamsters, more birds and several fish tanks. Last week one of our poodles was nearly killed by a coyote – a traumatizing event for all – but I’m happy to say that with much surgery and several days of intensive care, she’s bouncing back. I usually have pets in my books and have a feeling that *this* event will make it into a book, at some point!
OH GOSH!! How could I have forgotten one of my favorites? Ok, it has telepathic dogs and I prefer cats, but who has read the sublime Dogs and Goddesses by Jennifer Crusie, Anne, Stuart, and Lani Diane Rich?
Speaking of telepathic animal companions, there is the science fiction series of telepathic cats by Gayle Greeno.
Late chiming in here… but I loved “Toot”, the ferret, in Laura Kinsale’s My Sweet Folly.
I also love Lucy Dillon’s books, which are perhaps more so-called “women’s fiction” than romance. But they all have dog characters.
I’m a dog person myself, with a 10 month old Portuguese Water Dog puppy.
I also love the Fams in Robin Owens’s Celta series. Some of the cats have quite the haughty attitude. I also really enjoyed the fox.
FRED from Fred’s Book a.k.a. Anyone But You by Jennifer Crusie – I love that book and that dog!!
Jock from The Raven Prince and Puddles from that Legends of the Four Soldiers book… forgot the name but they are both by Elizabeth Hoyt.
I just love the “fams” from Robin D. Owen’s Celta. Just read the last book of the Series – Heart Legacy – and the cat, particularly, was great.