Where's the Dog?

A subtrope of Fridge Logic, in which the problems or situations presented by Too Dumb to Live, Idiot Ball, or Genre Blindness could have been solved by the presence of a dog.

That's right. A dog.

Zombie Apocalypse? Who do you think will smell them coming and warn you? Stalked by a Serial Killer? Guess what wouldn't let that guy into your house without at least giving you a heads up?

Dogs in Real Life number about 77.5 million in America, yet appear conspicuously absent in a large majority of works. An Angry Guard Dog or an Evil-Detecting Dog doesn't get much more convenient than a visit to a local animal shelter. Justified in some cases due to animal actors not always being available, but considering that the number one deterrent to thieves is a dog, regardless of its size or ferocity, you just have to wonder how many people wouldn't end up stabbed if they'd just brought Fido along.

Note that this trope doesn't necessarily apply when the presence of a dog would eliminate the whole plot, but only solve moments of What an Idiot! or its sister tropes.


 * The Walking Dead has a group of people up in the mountains who discover a lone zombie, kill it, and then promptly fail to post even a single guard the next night during their fish fry. A dog sure would've been handy to have before that bloodbath.
 * Averted in the Terminator series, where the military uses dogs to detect automatons.
 * The Strangers could have had an easier time of it if a dog had been present, even if it got killed by the titular attackers. Doubly so for the fate concerning Mike.
 * Pet Sematary manages to subvert this entirely, as the presence of a dog definitely doesn't help things.
 * Snakes on a Plane manages to avert the trope entirely, though unfortunately doesn't eliminate all of the Too Dumb to Live.