Kick the Dog

Would-be Dictator. Murderer. Kidnapper. Terrorist. Puppy punter.

"I'm getting five hundred phone calls a day asking what the hell is going on, that our police force is brutalizing women and misplacing children. Christ, all this picture needs now is for someone to kick a puppy for the cameras."

—Mayor Cryer, Changeling

A character performs an act so casually cruel or evil that you know that they are scum, incompatible with the moral rules of the series that they're in. This is a signal to the audience that it's okay to dislike the character. In short, dog-kicking is a sure sign that the writers want the audience to be wary of this character, even if he is nominally one of the good guys.

What separates this trope from other evil or cruel acts is that not only is the act bad, it's also pointless as far as the plot goes. It is the fact that it had no other point than to be evil, that puts them on the bad side of the Rule of Empathy.

Dog-kickings can be verbal as well, when a line of dialogue is used to shock the audience with its sheer repugnance. If it's uttered in the presence of the hero in an action series, he'll echo the audience's thoughts and tell the villain "You're Insane!"

This trope isn't about literal dog-kicking. It's any act or statement that shows the character's meanness or out-and-out evil, such as a boss demanding an employee come to work during Christmas when the employee's kid is in the hospital, or stealing from a blind beggar's coin dish, or a vicious No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the hero or one of his True Companions or Protectorate. A Politically-Incorrect Villain can kick the dog by showing gratuitous racism, sexism, homophobia, etc... or some combination of such non-PC traits.

If an animal is used, however, a dog is usually the pet of choice, partly out of connotations of blind loyalty, partly from tradition. Arguably, however, substituting a cat can be even more shocking. After all, even bad guys like cats. So, the argument goes, if someone goes out of his way to harm one, they must really be a bastard.

This trope is common in horror-based Monster of the Week shows, often to set up the Asshole Victim for the Karmic Twist Ending. Anthologies are especially prone to this, as they have to set up their villains really quickly, since they only have one episode to tell their story. This can be played up by having the very same kick of cruelty be the cause of their downfall. At the very least, it is designed to let you know who is going to lose at the end. The opposite of Karma Houdini.

In cartoons, someone who does this can be legally harassed by Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Warner Brothers and their Sister Dot, etc. The Screwy Squirrel, however, doesn't need one of these.

One possible origin of the trope name comes from Westerns, where three bandits would ride into the town, one would shoot the Sheriff, one would shoot the Deputy, and one, just to prove he was also a bad guy, would Kick the Dog.

If what is supposed to be a character's Kick the Dog moment is excessively horrible, cruel, or otherwise despicable enough to make an audience lose all sympathy for him, then he's crossed the Moral Event Horizon, rather than kicking the dog if he's not on the other side of it already. If the Dog in question is someone the character cares about and discovers Being Evil Sucks, then they've Kicked The Wrong Dog and might be in time to avoid a Face Heel Turn. If the dog belonged to a minion, expect it to help cause a Mook Face Turn because Even Mooks Have Loved Ones. On occasions, if karma works in the dog's favor, he'll manage to get a last laugh. On even rarer occasions, after being pushed around too many times, the dog may decide to plan against the Big Bad for his own ambitions, because Being Tortured Makes You Evil. When the dog-kicking is done in a way that (usually inadvertently) increases sympathy for the villain, it becomes Straw Man Has a Point.

A more benign, and more comedic, form of this shows the immorality of the villain by having them cheat at Solitaire.

Compare with Can't Get Away with Nuthin', And Your Little Dog, Too, Kick Them While They Are Down, The Dog Bites Back, Threw My Bike on the Roof, I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure. See "If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten" for when bad guys do a Kick the Dog test to make sure undercover heroes are really evil.

Contrast Pet the Dog (proving you're good) and Adopt the Dog (going from Neutral to Good).

Not to be confused with Shoot the Dog. (That's what you do when Old Yeller gets rabies.)

See Kick the Son of a Bitch for when it's less of a dog and more of a, well, you know.

Examples of Kick the Dog are listed on these subpages:

No real life examples, please; calling real people "evil" is not a good idea.

Examples of Kick the Dog include:

Toys

The Piraka in Bionicle would occasionally kill animals for fun. Chiara, supposedly one of the good guys, had a scene where she casually killed a lizard with her electricity powers just to make a point. Because of this trope, many fans assumed it was foreshadowing a darker side to her personality, but Word of God states that this is not the case.

Web Animation

Appears on Homestar Runner, in Teen Girl Squad Issue 11. So-and-So is getting chewed out by her obnoxious manager at Shirt Folding Store when the manager is suddenly punched out by an astronaut ("MEET A FIST!"). The explanation for this behavior?

Astronaut: *ckhk* She killed my dog.
So-and-So: Um... 'kay.

- Also referenced in the Strong Bad Email rated, where Strong Bad claims that some of his favorite movies have been banned in Transylvania, "where you're required by law to eat puppies for breakfast."
- Strong Bad is also known to kick The Cheat, even though he's not really a bad guy.
- In another Strong Bad Email, for kids, on his kids' show, Strong Bad invites children to play "Where's The Cheat?" with him:

Strong Bad: All right, dumb children. Find The Cheat!
(The Cheat peeks out from behind a box.)
Kids: (half-coherent) He's over there. Right there.
Strong Bad: Um, no, he's behind the box. No, he's not even behind the box, he's barely obscured by the box. (getting upset) Look, The Cheat is behind the freakin' BOX! (screaming) HE'S BEHIND THE BOX!! I'LL KILL YA!! I'LL KILL ALL YOUR DOGS!!!

Richard kicks a dog, literally.
Flint, Big Bad of Bunny Kill 4, does this big time when he kills Ruby, Snowball's potential love interest. Oddly enough, this makes him the only Big Bad of the series to do something truly villainous onscreen.
- As of Bunny Kill 5, Smoke has joined the dog-kicking party. He has Snowball's friend Dust injected with Psycho Serum, turning him Brainwashed and Crazy and ultimately leading to Snowball's death. For added dick points, he also betrays his partner Professor Sludge, the designer of the serum, leaving him to become Dust's first victim. The second half also has him throwing his own mooks into Dust's way to save his own hide. Not that it helps him in the end.

Web Original

In the animation Ninjai the bad guy attacks the hero's little bird friend for no reason at all. The bird gets his own back later.
The Saga of Tuck's Principal Nickerson has no qualms about assigning detention to students who skip class to commit suicide. Just so you know how badly he deserves the Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
Survival of the Fittest
- Cody Jenson: Raped Madeline Shiohara and bit out her neck. How did he feel? He didn't.
- Danya: Establishing Character Moment in the first version was when he was briefing the v1 students with a very... smug tone. Then towards the end mentioned he hated punks, and ordered his minions to kill a student for wearing his hat sideways.
- Jeremy Franco kicking Kimberly Nguyen in her bullet wound for refusing to give him her fedora, then taking it anyway.
In the video The Unspeakable Deeds of Bill 42, it's not enough for the character representing the bill to fine people for meeting to air their grievances. He has to up the evil quotient by deliberately knocking over a woman's crutches.
In Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series, Bakura mentions that he once killed a puppy. "And it was very cute."
- Seto Kaiba also gets a bit of a gem. In episode 19, Mokuba says "Big brother, whenever you smile, a puppy dies." When Mega Ultra Chicken is summoned, Kaiba smiles, giving the caption "+1 DEAD PUPPIES." It continues, all the way up to "+9001 DEAD PUPPIES."
The Ascended Meme NEDM (Not Even Doom Music) came from a literal example of this. Except, replace "kick" with "burn," and "dog" with "cat." Anonymous was not pleased.
Awkward has a fight between Lester and Alex culminate in Alex telling Lester to give up on his relationship with Steph because "everybody knows you're just going to mess it up like last time". Lester doesn't take it well. Later we find out that Ernie dumped Karen, calling her "worthless".
Discussed by Tanna and Elon in this strip of Ears for Elves, though no literal puppy-kicking happens.

Real Life

In Euboia, Greece, a 69 year old bartender threw a chair into a dog and killed it because he thought it was sick. Everybody was furious and held signs writing "The murderer must pay!" and more.