There’s something about putting an animal into a story. At first, they’re just supposed to be there.
A horse carries the hero into town. A dog sleeps beside the stove. A barn cat wanders through a scene. Maybe there are chickens scratching around the yard because, well, it’s the Old West and there ought to be chickens scratching around somewhere.
And then something happens…
The animal develops a personality, and before you know it, the hero’s horse has opinions, the heroine’s dog has chosen sides in the romance, and the chicken has wandered into a scene where it most definitely does not belong.
In other words, the animal has become a character.
I’ve always enjoyed animal sidekicks in books, especially in Westerns. Animals were part of everyday life, so it’s only natural that they become part of our fictional towns and families too. Sometimes, however, things get a little out of hand.
Take Mr. Gilbert Snow who lives in my fictional town of Clear Creek. Mr. Snow has a soft spot for animals, particularly ones 
that need rescuing. At one point, he rescued a collection of exotic animals from a cruel circus owner in New York before moving his family to Clear Creek. And when I say exotic, I don’t mean he brought home an unusually large dog. He has a lion. A camel. A chimpanzee. A zebra. And two lemurs.
The lion has since taken up residence in the chicken coop. This meant that the chickens, understandably, needed new accommodations. Then there’s Sheik Ali, the camel, whom Mr. Snow rides into town. Because apparently arriving in Clear Creek on an ordinary horse just wouldn’t do. Alexander the chimpanzee is also part of the family menagerie, along with the zebra and two lemurs. At this point, I’m not entirely certain whether the Snow family owns the animals or the animals own the Snow family.
And that’s one of the things I love about using animals in stories. They create possibilities. An animal can add humor without a single line of dialogue. Put a dignified character on a camel and you already have possibilities. Put a lion in a chicken coop and suddenly an ordinary household problem becomes something quite different.
But animals can do more than make us laugh. They can tell us something about the people who care for them. Mr. Snow didn’t collect exotic animals because he wanted a private zoo. He rescued creatures that had been mistreated and gave them a home. That tells us something about him without my having to stop the story and explain what sort of man he is. The way characters treat animals can reveal tenderness, patience, stubbornness, compassion—and sometimes a remarkable tolerance for chaos.
And animals can have relationships of their own with the characters around them. A horse might tolerate one person and adore another. A dog can become fiercely protective. A cat will, of course, do whatever it wants.
And every so often, you get a creature like Clyde, the Muiraran justice bird (belonging to my other pen name’s story world) who appears in some of my western books and definitely has his own ideas about how things ought to be handled.
But Clyde is another story.
The Snow family menagerie has always been one of my favorite examples of what can happen when animals become more than
background decoration. They become part of the family, part of the town, and sometimes part of the trouble. And once that happens, it’s hard to imagine the story without them.
Now I’d love to hear about your favorites. Is there an animal from a book that completely stole the scene for you?
And just for fun—if you lived in an Old West town and could have one unusual animal sidekick, what would you choose? I’m giving away one e-book copy of Wilhemina, The Snows of Clear Creek, Book 1 to one lucky commenter.
If you haven’t read them, or even if it’s been a while, they are always good to revisit and are classic examples of why detailed descriptions of “things” can be so important to a story’s premise.
It’s coming October 6…so very soon. 
Can a near-tragedy help two best friends realize they’re meant to be so much more?