For years, people have asked why my books don’t feature more animals. After all, ninety percent of my social media presence can be summed up as “assorted portraits of my pets,” so why not include a few in my fiction? In truth, the answer is both vague and silly: For one thing, it hadn’t really occurred to me until a few books ago; for another, I’ve written a lot of horror. Animals tend not to fare very well in horror, which is not – shall we say – my favorite thing about the genre.
But I broke my streak a few years back with a project called Brimstone, which included a personable little chihuahua who survives, let me assure you. If I’m going to write animals, those little stinkers will absolutely get a Happily Ever After…regardless of what terrible things befall the human characters.
And so it goes with my most recent project, Grave Reservations, which includes a family dog called “Cairo,” named thusly by a middle-schooler after her favorite Beanie Baby. The toy in question was actually a lion, but the lion and the dog are the same color, so there you go. I mean, my little brother once named a (black) dog after his favorite Scooby Doo character (Daphne. I don’t get it, either.). A vintage collectible isn’t such a far reach, is it? Today, my brother – now in his thirties – has a dog named for a character on Futurama, so some things never change. “Bender” is beloved and spoiled, as all of them should be.
And as for me, I have two dogs and a cat. All three are minor internet celebrities, though none of them have quite achieved the fan club of our dearly departed ElderCat, who we lost about a year and a half ago. She was quite ancient. How ancient? She once had a fan club on LiveJournal. A literal fan club, yes. With more than a thousand people in it, if I recall correctly. By the time we lost her, she was plenty old enough to drink.
But for now, it’s just the following three maniacs:
Greyson is presently the senior member of the Pet Squad. We adopted him almost a decade ago, from a rescue group in Red Bank, Tennessee, when he was five months old – and I don’t want to blow your mind or anything, but he’s a Great Pyrenees/beagle mix. No, I am not joking. Yes, we also have…questions. What can I say? Life, uh, finds a way. Greyson is a gentle goofball who never met a stranger and especially loves children. He’s also known as The Gentleman Dog, HandsomeSauce, and Momma’s Boy in Chief.
Then a few years later, some friends of mine thought something was wrong with their car…due to a weird, terrible noise it was making on the interstate. When they got home and popped the hood, they found not a cracked head gasket or a thrown spark plug…but a tiny gray and white kitten. She was half starved and streaked with motor oil, but miraculously unharmed – weighing in at just 1.12 pounds. She could stand in the palm of my hand. I know this, because they suckered me into taking her “just for a little while,” on account of how they knew we had fostered kittens before. But then Greyson fell in love with her, so she stayed.
About a year after that, my husband and I were making a quick Petsmart run for kitty litter and dog food when we encountered an adoptathon in progress. One of the potential adoptees was a tired, thin momma dog who was visibly relieved to be apart from her wild bunch babies – who were also up for adoption. She’d been dumped with the whole crew at the pound, then they were pulled by a rescue group. My husband turned into a giant heart-eyes emoji on the spot; and that’s how we ended up with Lucy, aka the ScornDog, aka ChaosHound, aka Daddy’s Girl. She may have resting bitch face, but she’s a total sweetheart who just wants a good cuddle. And also, perhaps, to create a little havoc.
At any rate, I’ve put down more than a few books and tv shows due to gratuitous animal harm, and I would expect the same from any readers of mine – so you may safely assume that any animals who appear in any given story will survive and thrive in the long run, just like I hope my own will continue to do for years to come.
Cherie Priest is the author of two dozen books and novellas, most recently Grave Reservations, in addition to horror novel The Toll, acclaimed gothic Maplecroft, and the award-winning Clockwork Century series, beginning with Boneshaker. She has been nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, and she won the Locus Award for best horror novel. Her books have been translated into nine languages in eleven countries. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband and a menagerie of exceedingly photogenic pets.
