Artistic License Animal Care

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
For those unaware, ice cream is not good for a cat's digestive system.

"I caught you a bullfrog outside. Poked some holes in its back so it can breathe—see, look at this... oh, boy."

—Peter Griffin, Family Guy

Handling animals, especially undomesticated species, is a very difficult thing even with the most "simple" of pets - so you can understand why some of your favorite shows might engage in a little Artistic License Animal Care once in a while. With that in mind, there are bound to be instances where even the layfolk in the audience can spot when a character feeds an animal something unsafe, keeps it in improper conditions, handling it just wrong, and so on.

A subtrope of this is Automaton Horses, where a horse or equivalent steed is portrayed as needing far less care than it 'realistically' should.

Note: This is not the place for wank about pet food brands.

Examples of Artistic License Animal Care include:

General

  • Goldfish bowls. They're so-named because goldfish are one of very few common species that both look good in the distorting sphere and are likely to stay alive there at all. Even then, they thrive better in aquariums, artificial ponds or both. The only advantage of a bowl is the minimal care and risks required (e.g., it has no seams and won't leak unless broken), and as such it is the aquarium of choice for those not interested enough to put more than absolute minimum of effort into it. In all other respects, it's plain bad—e.g., scrubbing a spherical surface is not as easy as flat one, but the intended user won't do it either way (at best, leaving it to the snails). Sadly, this is still widespread Truth in Television, as many companies still market small bowls as being for goldfish.
    • To elaborate: Goldfish are decorative breeds of gold carp, which can survive incredibly harsh conditions, especially when it concerns breathing.[1] They can live up to several decades, and do a lot more than the standard depiction of swimming around in circles would imply - as far as fish go, they're pretty bright, so long as they have some form of entertainment.
    • Other animals subjected to similar conditions include the popular Betta splendens (Siamese fighting fish). They are often sold in small decorative containers or vases, when in reality they are much happier and healthier in a larger aquarium. This is also true for baby turtles and most aquatic species - they need deep water for swimming, lights to bask under, and some form of filtration.
  • Almost no animal should ever be picked up by their tail. Most animals only use their tails for balance; tails usually aren't strong enough to safely hold the animal's entire weight. This especially applies to any instance where a character picks up a live rat by its tail and they're not trying to kill it at the time - not only is it painful, but there's a risk that the tail's skin will tear under the rat's own weight and peel entirely off. This goes double for animal wranglers who allow actors to hold rodents in such a dangerous way during filming - if one must grab a rat by the tail at all, it should be at the base of the tail, and for no longer than a couple of seconds.
    • Some lizards' tails will actually break off if they're so much as pinched, and then wiggle around frantically for several minutes after being detached. This isn't accidental—predators are likely to grab the lizard by its tail, and letting it pop off often distracts the predator long enough for the lizard to escape, but it's not a fun experience for the lizard either way.
  • Many illustrations of the old "Rabbit-Out-of-a-Hat" trick show the magician holding the rabbit up by the ears - this act is quite painful, much like pulling a person by the ear is. In fact, old-school magicians hold rabbits like that because it's painful — when a rabbit is being held by the ears, it kicks and moves around, which is much more "appealing" and shows the audience that it's a real, live rabbit.
    • Similarly, you should not hold a rabbit by the scruff of its neck the same way you would hold up a kitten. Kittens can be lifted this way, since they produce a special hormone that calms them when lifted by the scruff, as their mothers need to carry them like this. Rabbits don't produce this hormone - while scruffing a rabbit isn't too dangerous if it's done properly, most bunny care books will advise you not to try it. Doing it properly can be very tricky, especially if the bunny panics.
  • Any show portraying hamsters living happily in pairs or groups, most particularly Syrian hamsters, is an example of this. A normal Syrian hamster would eventually kill even a litter-mate, as they are loners by nature. Male-female pairs may occasionally work, but would still lead to the female breeding continuously till she dies of exhaustion.
    • In the History Channel documentary Hippies, the narrative of how LSD was invented is backed up by footage from early experiments with the drug, including a shot of a hamster trying to chew its way through the bare metal mesh at the bottom of its cage - exposed wire-floor cages are terrible for pets' feet, and conditions for research animals have improved substantially since then. The context also implies that the animal is chewing the wire only because it's drugged out of its mind - this is a case of Artistic License Biology, as gnawing on objects and attempting to dig its way free is perfectly normal behavior for a frustrated rodent.
  • This trope applies any time a cat is fed straight ruminant milk. Especially if it's a kitten. Feline bodies can't handle milk unless it's watered down. You can give your cat either goat's milk or special pet milk available at pet supply stores (note: this is different from the milk replacement formula for kittens). Also, cream and yogurt are less harmful for cats than regular milk. So long as your cat doesn't throw up or display other digestive problems, you can give small amounts of regular milk as an occasional snack, but it's still not recommended.
    • Same goes for dogs for that matter; dogs should not be given milk in more than tiny quantities. Being partial omnivores, some (very small numbers) canines can process milk, but most experience acute intestinal symptoms including gas, diarrhea or vomiting. That's because most dogs can't digest lactose well at all; others who can could only be given watered down milk—for example, 1/2 cup of milk & water is more than sufficient as a treat to large dogs while 1/4 of milk and 1/4 water for medium, while small dogs shouldn't even drink that small amount.
    • Mice and rats are also often fed milk by their owners, according to a book on rodent care[context?] : "...this is fine in small amounts like thimble sized cups for mice and bottle cap sized for rats for a once in a while treat it is alright if 2% or 1% milk." While most mice and rats are omnivores and like their wild cousins which not only eat seeds, grains, nuts, berries and other fruits, but they also eat worms, insects, fish and eggs—but milk is not a normal thing. In fact, lactose can give them gas and vomiting just like anyone who is lactose intolerant; so while it seems OK, it's probably not the best idea to feed your mouse or rat milk even in the 1% grade.
  • Whenever a piranha tank is included in an action scene, it's this trope if the tank doesn't have a lid of some sort. Not to prevent Mooks from falling in, but because they're notorious for jumping out of the aquarium to their deaths when kept as pets.
  • Whenever an iguana is portrayed as being fed live insects (usually flies). Unlike many lizards, iguanas are herbivores. They prefer fresh leafy vegetables to creepy crawly insects.
  • When just about any animal is given chocolate. Humans process theobromine much more quickly than most animals, and for most animals it's very toxic and potentially fatal, especially if they get hold of dark chocolate. Most vets will flat out state that animals shouldn't have any, no matter the concentration, just to be safe. See here for more. Note that it's also possible for humans to get poisoned by chocolate, but most of us don't eat nearly enough of it for that to happen.
    • Most media are aware that chocolate is toxic to dogs, but not cats. Cats are more sensitive to theobromine than dogs, but unlike dogs cats are obligate carnivores. They have no interest in such a sugary foodstuff. Interestingly, rats can tolerate even more theobromine than humans, but it's still unhealthy for them due to the caffeine content.
    • Justified Trope if it's British media. "Dog chocolates" still appear in UK-published pet manuals (and low-concentration chocolate like milk is only harmful in very large amounts.) In other words, the dog is very unlikely to die from eating a chocolate-chip cookie or even feel mildly sick but a five-pound baking bar would be cause for concern.
  • Any time a cat is shown being held up by the scruff of its neck. Mother cats carry their kittens this way, but it's generally advised that humans shouldn't even try it. Kittens held this way instinctively freeze so that they won't hurt themselves by squirming around too much. If you know exactly what you're doing you can gently pinch this area to evoke the same response in adult cats, but never actually pick them up by it. Adult cats, save for unusually tiny ones, are far too heavy, and being picked up like this strangles them.

Anime and Manga

  • In Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin, Gohei Takeda trains the protagonist, Gin, to be a bearhound by beating him with a piece of wood, feeding him only raw bear meat (which is mentioned to stink so terrible that even adult dogs cower at the smell of it) and forcing him to get pieces of aforementioned meat from the bottom of a large basin filled with water. Did we mention that this Training from Hell started when Gin was still supposed to be nursed by his mother? While he did grow up into a through-and-through Badass, making a puppy go through stuff like that in real life would definitely not end half as well.
  • In the Sailor Moon manga, a man feeds sugar candies to Luna. Never mind that a real cat probably wouldn't even like them or even be able to taste them at all (though this is now under debate), you should never try to give candies to a cat in the first place. In one episode of the anime, Minako tells a lengthy anecdote about feeding Artemis a piece of caramel and it getting stuck in his teeth. Although Luna and Artemis are alien cats from the planet Mau, the aforementioned man who fed Luna sugar candies in the manga didn't know this and thought she was an ordinary Earth cat.
  • In Wagaya no Oinari-sama. the anime, Kuugen eats insane amounts of chocolate cake, which should make ten humans sick, much less a fox. Then again, Kuugen is explicitly supernatural.
  • In Nichijou, the Professor doesn't want to eat her green onions, so she tries foisting them on Sakamoto. Sakamoto responds "Are you trying to kill me!?" (onions and garlic contain chemicals that can destroy a cat's red blood cells).
  • Goldfish Warning; a classic anime about a deranged farm school with both animals and humans as students. The school's pet shark lives on a steady diet of potato chips. The goldfish Gyopi and the cows in the school won't eat anything but human junkfood.
  • Invoked in DearS. Ren is entrusted with the care of a baby rabbit. She treats it delicately, but unfortunately neither she nor Takeya know that baby rabbits can't digest food without the enzyme from its mother's milk. The bunny dies on Ren's watch, and she is notably distraught.
  • In Pokémon, while berries and PokéBlock preferences depend on the individual, it seems all Pokémon can be fed with the same pet food, and also have no problem eating human-food. Convenient, but not realistic. Some justifications exist, like Snorlax, Big Eaters among Pokémon who can eat anything that seems edible, even able to eat spoiled or rotten food without any ill effects.

Comic Books

  • Harley Quinn loves her two pet hyenas Bud and Lou, but the way she feeds them in her own comic series, would likely have killed real ones by now, as she tends to feed them such things as pizza and fast-food hamburgers.

Film

  • In the biopic Temple Grandin, the Real Life animal-husbandry genius designs a revolutionary cattle-dip which cows willingly and safely walk through, unhindered by poor footing, sharp turns, or frightening surroundings. Contemptuous ranch hands take one look at it, assume it's ridiculous, and modify it to suit their normal practices ... which result in three drowned cattle within the first five minutes.
  • Oliver and Company, in which Jenny feeds ice cream to her cat, provides the page image. A few licks from an ice cream cone, or a little bit of milk is not going to affect a cat that much, but it's still not a good idea given the sugar and other things ice cream is loaded up with, especially since Oliver is a kitten and their digestive systems are not as resilient as an adult cat's (as any cat owner or animal shelter worker who's worked with kittens for long enough can tell you).
  • At the very beginning of The Aristocats, the evil butler Edgar actually pours some of Madame's sleeping pills into the titular cats' milk (and Roquefort the mouse due to him eating from a cookie that was dipped into the milk) so he can drug them and take them all away from her mansion while said cats are sleeping. In real life, the amount of sleeping pills Edgar used to drug the cats is enough to kill a human, never mind a cat! Since Edgar's goal was to get rid of the cats, he probably wouldn't have cared if he killed them, but the fact that they survive at all shatters suspension of disbelief.
    • Not that it's advisable to give adult cats milk anyway, but at the time the film was made, that wouldn't have been common knowledge - it still isn't as well known in this day and age as it should be, especially given the complication (for human comprehension) that some adults cats actually can cope with cow's milk without any reported side-effects.
  • In Rio, Tulio, the bird veterinarian, allows birds to eat out of his mouth, which is extremely dangerous due to the fact that human saliva is toxic to birds. It was lampshaded by Blu when he found this disgusting.
    • At the beginning of the movie, Blu is shown enjoying a hot chocolate and some chocolate chip cookies. See above under "General" for why this belongs here.
  • The Movie Seven Pounds features a dog that is according to its owner a vegetarian. While it is possible to do this under strict vet supervision, the food she's shown feeding the dog would cause long-term health problems.
  • In Jack and Jill, Jill's cockatoo is seen sticking its head under a chocolate fountain. See the chocolate example under "General" for why. This resulted in a minor Flame War on Tumblr where a user didn't realize that the filmmakers knew this and used a CGI bird for the scene. The original poster proceeded to refer to someone who disagreed as "cum-slut" and the entire thing degenerated hilariously.
  • A sad real-life example occurred with the film The Beastmaster. The tiger who played Ruh, Sultan, died two years after the movie was filmed because he was poisoned by the black dye they used on his fur, since the animal handlers apparently didn't realize that it was toxic and that cats, even large ones, tend to lick their own fur. As a result the second movie had to use a different tiger and didn't use any dye on him.
  • In Lilo and Stitch, Lilo brings Stitch home for the first time and feeds him coffee, thinking he's a regular dog. Had Stitch not actually been an alien, the coffee would have poisoned him. Stitch was a little more destructive afterwards, but he otherwise had no resulting health problems.

Literature

  • The treatment of owls in Harry Potter. Possibly justified in-universe since owls seem to be at least partially magical in the Potter Verse as it's been noted a number of times that they can find the recipient of a letter without an address. However, this led to an all-too-real Red Stapler situation, which J. K. Rowling herself has come out against. Also the behind-the-scenes special features on the DVDs have twice felt the need to directly address the fact that owls do not actually make good pets.
    • Particularly bad is the scene when Harry attempts to feed Hedwig vegetables. Not his fault—the Dursleys hadn't given Harry anything else to eat himself—but Harry would have been wiser to use the veggies as bait for mice or bugs than to expect a carnivorous bird to eat them. Perhaps as a Lampshade Hanging, Hedwig reacts with disgust.
    • Letting any pet as tiny as a rat sleep in a boy's bed, even if it's not an adult animagus, is a good way to get it squashed. Again probably justified in universe, as a witch's or wizard's animal familiar is more likely to escape such a fate than your average unintelligent rat.
  • Inverted in Black Beauty: this was the book that kicked off concern about animal care.
    • One sympathetic character does what he thinks is right for Beauty—gives him a lot of cold water to drink after a straining effort and leaves him standing uncovered in his stall—and it nearly kills him. This becomes a saving grace for Beauty in his later years when the same character, now much older and wiser, recognises the scars on Beauty's body from the methods used to save Beauty's life at the time of his past mistake. Able to confirm Beauty's identity from these marks, he's then able to ensure Beauty is able to live out the rest of his days with a caring owner who looks after him kindly.
  • The Bad News Bunny series' title rabbit eats nothing but junk food, including Twinkies, Ring Dings and potato chips. To be fair, it is a series about a wisecracking talking rabbit, and it does allude to the proper care of ordinary rabbits.
  • Harold the dog of the Bunnicula books is regularly depicted as eating fudge. In one of the young reader books, he flat-out tells the readers that he can only eat chocolate because he's fictional, but the trope is otherwise in full effect. While fudge is probably one of the less dangerous types of chocolate a dog the size of Harold can have, it still makes his owners look pretty careless. In another young reader mystery book, his owners are still aware that he steals fudge and also still unaware that he's fictionally immune to chocolate, and the plot is centered around the animals determining what, exactly, a pan of white-chocolate fudge is.
  • Pippi Longstocking keeps her horse on the veranda of Villa Villekula. While being there isn't directly harmful to the animal, the horse could easily trip and hurt itself if it ever tried to use the veranda's steps to enter or leave. (Fortunately, Pippi's strong enough to lift and carry it when necessary.)

Live-Action TV

  • Played for Laughs in the Monty Python's Flying Circus "Fish Feeding" sketch.
    • Then, of course, there's the "Dead Parrot" sketch, in which it's a bit late for proper animal care; though bad animal care on the part of the incompetent pet shop owner is almost certainly the reason the parrot died.
  • In FlashForward, a pet store owner grateful for the FBI's help offers Janis a free cockatiel. Um. First there is the obvious problem of giving a pet to someone who isn't fully committed to taking care of it, but cockatiels in particular need a ton of time and attention and socialization or else they can become self-destructive. No bird breeder or caretaker worth their salt would consider just giving a bird away like that.
  • On Medium, the psychic daughter gives a piece of candy to the class pet she's minding, then finds it dead and blames herself for killing it. Said class pet is a tarantula, which isn't any more equipped to eat a piece of candy than to eat a rock. A You Fail Animal Care for the daughter and a You Fail Biology for the writers.
  • Done in-universe in an episode of the original version of Survivors; The heroes have been struggling along, attempting to keep their post-pandemic farm going, when a genuine farming expert turns up and chews them out for all the things they've been doing wrong with their animals.
  • An episode of Scrubs had two college friends of JD and Turk getting married, they considered buying a ferret as a wedding gift. At the end of the episode, since they can't make the wedding themselves, they give the ferret to another friend who is attending. Turk reminds him that "The ferret only eats fresh vegetables". In reality, ferrets are carnivores and should not eat any vegetables as their digestive systems cannot process them.
  • In the TV show It's Me or the Dog, one woman fed her dogs ice cream, cookies and human tea. Victoria pointed out that dogs should not be fed human food with sugar in it.
  • Sadly, about ninety percent of the cases that come up on Animal Planet Heroes programs are Truth in Television examples of this trope.
  • On Total Blackout, one challenge required contestants to identify objects in a set of four glass tanks by touch. Live rats were in the first tank, and a live snake (probably boa) in the third. Any responsible snake-handler would have put the reptile before the rodents, as the aroma of rat on contestants' skin could have potentially incited the snake to attack, mistaking their hands for a food source.

Music

  • Averted, believe it or not, in Toby Keith's song "Beer for My Horses"—some Thoroughbred trainers do give their horses beer as an appetite stimulant. Guinness is the traditional choice. Because horses are so large they're pretty unlikely to be harmed by alcohol since they process it much more quickly than humans, and most beers are made of things horses eat anyway like barley and grains.
  • In a song, the Dutch Santa Claus' horse is asked what he gets once the holidays are over. After the reasonable extra bag of oats, an old piece of speculaas and a loaf of bread with lots of jam are mentioned.

Newspaper Comics

  • In FoxTrot, Jason regularly feeds his pet Iguana mealworms or crickets - they actually are vegetarians, or are at least 98% vegetarian. However, an early comic shows him pouring a bowl of fruits and vegetables into Quincy's terrarium, so maybe he wasn't too far off...
  • In Get Fuzzy, Rob Wilco's mother tries to force her cat to go vegetarian (something her also-vegetarian son would never dream of inflicting on his own pets); although it's unrealistic in that the cat is still alive, she's in obvious distress and begs Rob to kill her. Cats are carnivores; feeding them vegetable matter is at best a starvation diet and at worst actively detrimental to their insides.
  • An early Dilbert strip had Dogbert eating chocolate cake; when it was first published, the author was immediately bombarded with emails pointing out that chocolate is poisonous to dogs. See above under "General" for more about chocolate. Bipedal talking egg-dogs are, apparently, not immune.
  • Garfield is made of this. Granted, though Jon provides some of what he eats,he often does the obtaining food on his own, but with all the lasagna,ice cream,cake,candy,ect he eats, it's amazing he's alive.
  • In the early days of Peanuts, Charlie Brown often let Snoopy have treats a dog should never eat, like potato chips, cookies, and chocolate. This tended to taper off in later years, but there were a few modern strips where Charlie Brown let him have pizza. The cheese would've made the small dog very sick.
    • He seemed sick in one pair of strips in the 80s where he ate 23 hot dogs that Lucy had sold to him during one of their baseball games, but in reality, he'd be far more than "sick". Seriously, most humans would be pretty sick after eating 23 hot dogs.

Video Games

  • In The Sims 2, womrats (a fictional rodent-type creature similar to a hamster or guinea pig) are depicted living in a maybe 5-gallon plastic cage. In reality, that type of cage should never be used because not only are they too small, but they do not give the animal adequate ventilation.
  • In MapleStory, there are a wide variety of Pets, of both mundane and fantastic species: cats, dogs, pigs, bear cubs, little mushrooms, little dinosaurs, little dragons, and cute demons. But no matter what sort of pet you have, the Pet Food you feed them is the same.

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • Subverted in an episode of Arthur, when Pal got sick and had to be taken to the vet, and it turned out it was from the junk food Arthur had been feeding him earlier in the episode. This is made even stranger by the fact that several of Arthur's classmates are dogs of the bipedal, sapient variety.
  • Ruby Gloom has been shown to give her cat Doom Kitty muffins with chocolate chips. Not a good idea.
  • Looney Tunes taught generations of children how to kill their pets through poor diet. Mice would only eat cheese if starving to death since it's too soft for them after eating mainly nuts and grains, most adult cats cannot digest cows' milk, and a diet of nothing but carrots would kill a rabbit.
  • In the 1985 Halloween Special Witch Cat, it's Defied. A cat familiar gives a dog a candy bar with raisins in order to get rid of him. And succeeds.
  • The Joker proved no better than Harley at this in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Joker's Millions", letting Bud and Lou eat birthday cake.
  1. ↑ Which helps it to become an invasive species far from home.
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