FB: Name your favorite literary pet/critter

From our Facebook page discussion. Tell us about your favorite literary pet or critter. What do you like about them?

I met quite a few amusing ones from Corfu in the 1930s while reading My Family and Other Animals this summer.

The Cat in Tanya Huff's Keeper series. He is so funny. :)

I'm a big fan of spiders in general, and I blame Charlotte's Web for this almost entirely.

Also, I'm not saying that Discworld's Librarian (whom I first met in Guards! Guards!) has had anything to do with my career choices... but I'm also not not saying that.

Tailchaser
Yfandes

Viggy, the K9 officer in Katie Ruggle's new suspense, Run to Ground. Who says dogs don't get PTSD?

Oberon, in the Iron Druid Chronicles.

Old Yeller
2nd The Black Stallion
The snail in The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

Gregor Samsa.

The eponymous Firmin.

Anthropomorphic: Mr. Toad, from Wind in the Willows.
Not anthropomorphic: Helen MacDonald's goshawk, Mabel

>11 southernbooklady: I have yet to read H is for Hawk, but I love that it's named Mabel.

Rose In a Storm by Jon Katz, about a working dog on a farm.

Kojak, from The Stand, an awesome dog by any measure.

The deeply religious Aeslin Mice from Seanan McGuire's Incryptid series. I actually bought myself a small hosta because it was called "Holy Mouse Ears" and that made me think of those mice.

And also Mouse, Harry Dresden's massive Tibetan mastiff.

>15 tardis: I second Mouse and vote Mister...also from Dresden Files.

>15 tardis: Seconding the Aeslin Mice...and proposing Snowy from the Tintin series. And the most famous literary pet of all time--Snoopy!

>16 lesmel: Yes, I'd forgotten Mister. Silly me!

>17 Marissa_Doyle: Oh, yes, definitely Snowy.

Also a different kind of snowy, Hedwig from the Harry Potter series. Snowy owls are so beautiful and she was a loyal friend to Harry.

Beauty the milk cow from The Colour by Rose Tremain

I don't think I have a favorite per se, but I LOVE the fact that the nameless, cantankerous cat that hangs around Elvis Cole's house is pushing 30. That is one old cat. He was never presented as a kitten so even if it was 1 year old in The Monkey's Raincoat which was published in 1987, the cat was 29 in the last book The Promise which was published in 2015.

The Empress of Blandings from the Blandings Castle series because she won the silver medal in the fat pigs competition of the Shropshire Agricultural Show on three consecutive occasions despite being more or less continually kidnapped by Lord Emsworth'sfamily members whenever they want to get money out of him.

I'm still always partial to the fire-lizards in pern

I love critters that get their personality across without words. For example, Oy in the Dark Tower series and that little animal that rides in Ged's hood in the Earthsea series.

>24 reconditereader: yes to both!!

>24 reconditereader: loved that Otak. So sad...

>26 MrAndrew: agree.

The Cheshire Cat. Happy smiling fluffy tabby kitty! :) My cat looks a little bit like him. :) Tabbies are so pretty! :) I like the white rabbit, too- he's really cute and sweet. :) Almost all of Beatrix Potter's animals are charming, too- oh, and Toby from the Sherlock Holmes books. Can't forget him! :)

At twelve I was captivated by the kinkajou in Andre Norton's Catseye. The main character could communicate with it telepathically. Old hat these days but to me forty-eight years ago, in a world of Pippy Longstocking and Harriet the Spy, it was pretty astonishing stuff. (Plus I thought the animal exotic and very appealing.)

As reconditereader I kove Oy, the Bumbler in The dark Tower
I loved Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper, too

I find the raven Grip of Barnaby Rudge interesting, for being modelled on a real bird and inspiring The Raven.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/charles-dickens-bicentennial-and-...

In 1841, Edgar Allan Poe reviewed Dickens’ serialized new novel, “Barnaby Rudge” for Graham’s Magazine, explained Pettit. The novel, long out of favor, centers on anti-Catholic riots in London and a strange hero named Rudge, who has a goofball talking raven named Grip. At the end of the fifth chapter, Grip makes a noise and someone asks, “What was that — him tapping at the door?”

Another character responds, “’Tis someone knocking softly at the shutter.”

In his review, Poe both accurately predicts the outcome of the serialized novel, and suggested that a spooky raven like Grip could have a more weighty role in literature.

“Two years after Dickens visited Philadelphia, when both met and groused about copyright infringement,” Pettit continued, “Poe writes ‘The Raven,’ with its haunting refrain of ‘Nevermore.’ ” The poem, for which he was paid $15 (about $350 in inflation-adjusted dollars today) “sweeps Poe to instant fame, if not fortune, and generations of American kids get their first exposure to poetry, usually in high school or junior high, through ‘The Raven.’ ”

Grimalkin from Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series!

The Cat Who Went To Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth. .

Barnabus in At Home in Mitford, a huge dog which can only be calmed by shouting scripture or poetry is charming, although, it wouldn't do for me, because everything I've memorized goes out of my brain in the panic moment.

Love Mouse and Mister from Dresden files.

Arnie, the Darling Starling was delightful.

Coco from The Cat Who series by Lillian Jackson Braun

NOT the Harry Potter owl - sadly people are excessive as always
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-41015775/has-harry-potter-cursed-these-o...

>33 Annette_Keith: Yes. I remember my mother reading that one to me.
Also Albert Payson Terhune's collies. I even named my dog after one of them.

Chet "The Jet" from Spencer Quinn's mystery series ... # 1 is Dog On It

>37 BookConcierge: I would have listed that one also, but couldn't remember his name at the time. Charming books.

Oh! How could I forget, Lying Cat from the Saga series. She's very catlike (except huge, and blue, and wearing armor, and she says "Lying"). I have a stuffed one.

>39 reconditereader: Lying Cat is one of my favorites, too!