One of the great victories of the 21st century: storytellers have developed a language and moral code around animals, particularly dogs, and that code strengthens trust with the audience.
This occured to me when I saw The Banshees of Inisherin. (Spoilers ahead, but I think they’re worthwhile spoilers.) In that movie, a character goes off to commit violence, and twice dialogue assures us that the dog in proximity to that violent scene will be OK.
Since Can You Pet the Dog? got big, most games I’ve played that feature dogs let you pet them, from Midnight Suns to Pentiment. It’s less big (less search results, anyway), but Does the Dog Die should become an equally indispensible resource for movie goers.
I don’t have data in front of me. Subjectively, when an animal is killed in a movie it feels like that scene from Parks and Recreation where Leslie says she’s gonna cut Ben’s head off.
Or maybe more kino of me, There Will Be Blood when Daniel Plainview says he’s gonna cut that guy’s throat. A pet’s death has an extreme, outsized emotional impact on the plot.
Some writers do use this for some story effect — fair warning, an animal does actually die in The Banshees of Inisherin, and more specifically the death of John Wick’s dog incites the whole franchise. Wick kills 299 humans in revenge of one dog. Why?
This is the article I wish I wrote on the subject, by Ben Lindbergh, and it explains the breach of conduct in psychological terms. I’ll add just one thought, in more writerly terms: because of the psychological elements — to summarize, we bond to dogs with the same strength we bond to children, and either suffering brings us equal discomfort — hurting a dog is the nuclear option of getting a reaction from your audience. Like, say you’re watching a romcom, and in the inevitable fight scene one of the leads goes on some operatic rant about the evil of their costar, about tyranny and fascism, about the cruel winter of fate and the baleful silence of whatever god is said to shepherd the good and punish the wicked. It’s emotionally dissonant.
Killing a fictional animal is the equivalent. It says, “I, the filmmaker, am setting up an emotional payoff of the greatest imaginable magnitude.”
Such a payoff is very hard to come by. So what it actually reads as, in most cases, is, “I, the filmmaker, couldn’t think of anything better to make you feel something.”
Every audience starts out trusting their narrator. Your job is to keep that trust, to not betray it. Treating animals well is the best olive branch you can offer.