Was it Greebo from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series? That evil, slinking, massive, gorgeous cat is one of my favourites. Particularly Nanny Ogg's blindness to seeing what he's really like. To her, he's still a cute little kitten, not a brawler.
Merlin, the German shepherd from The Mark of Merlin by Anne McCaffrey, is lovely and loyal. Anne McCaffrey's famous for her science fiction, but this book, set toward the end of WWII, is a fabulous romance and mystery, the heroine snowbound in a remote house.
Then there are those cat mysteries, like Sneaky Pie Brown by Rita Mae Brown, where smart felines solve crimes, and hapless humans have to keep up!
I can't remember the name of the bull terriers in "Death in the Stocks", a mystery by Georgette Heyer, but for those readers who only think of her in terms of her famous Regency romances, she wrote Golden Age mysteries, with bull terriers featuring incidentally, usually owned by the heroine.
Actually, when I think about it, most of my favourite fictional pets feature in mysteries. Marion Babson's "Murder at the Cat Show" captures the charm of succumbing to the fascination of pets particularly well.
Widening the definition of pet to include any animal you can drag home, don't miss reading Gerald Durrell's delightful autobiography of his childhood in the 1930s on Corfu. "My Family and Other Animals" is a classic. It's also been made into a TV series, but I prefer the book.
But if I have to choose just one fictional pet, it has to be Scooby-Doo!
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If you're interested in fantastical creatures, my novel Fantastical Island features an abundance of them. In fact, you'll get to meet Cliff quite early in the story. Cliff, curious and cute, is a flying pig. Technically, that makes him a behemi.
Fantastical Island, free in Kindle Unlimited: https://www.amazon.com/Fantastical-Island-Old-School-Book-ebook/dp/B01N56RZ7Z/
I read Gerald Durrell's books over and over as a kid. "My Family and Other Animals" is still my favorite, and it's on my Keeper Shelf right now, along with its sequels, "Birds, Beasts and Relatives", and "The Garden of the Gods". I never knew that a TV series had been made --- I'll have to check it out!
ReplyDeleteThose books are gems. I think "My Family and Other Animals" is the perfect read for plane flights. Calming and distracting.
DeleteThe TV show had its own charm, but I didn't think it was true to the books - heresy!