What is King's fascination with abusing dogs?

[GNTLGNT]

Never thought Uncle Stevie focused just on canines-he pretty much uses and abuses with abandon, no particular genus or species is safe in his storytelling...

[Miibi]

Hi. I'm going to share my thoughts on the subject althoug a lot of it has allready been said.
First of all, I also think, that it's a quite interesting scene in the book, and that it's a very important part of building up Greg Stillsons character.

I think, this scene shows a number of things. First of all, it plays on the emotion. When we are shown the dogs thoughts etc. we understand and feel with the dog. I think we all have this idea of a "good dog"; a loyal, loving etc. dog. And then we have an idea of a good working dog (guard dog? english isn't my best), who protects and serve the family because it is loyal and loving. So the dogs wish to protect is understandable to most of us, as it just underlines how loyal and loving it is. SK in other words, makes us think of this dog as a "good dog", an animal, which most people can sympathise with.
Greg stilson lacks this sympathy, he's annoyd with it. This tells us something about his empathy (is that a word in english? otherwise: His ability to feel sympathy for and understand other living beings), a quality we often find is most wanted in our leaders. The ability to feel sympathy for others is often a part of our perception of the "good person". Anyways, it is definily a part of being a good leader, that much is clear.

Also the dog, and other pets for that matter, evokes some feelings in people, that otherwise only ones children and closest family tend to do. I think it has do with the fact, that one tend to see pets as defenseless, and the way that a pet gives you unconditionally love, especially dogs.
By tapping into these feelings you can underline a specific thing in a character or a situation. In SK's work, I have found, that it often shows cruelty in a person. Another example is in UTD, where a dog is shot. This underlines how the situation has gotten out of control. I think, that he on purpose uses it as a tool in his writing, when he needs to evoke strong feelings.

[Lizziee]

If you find SK bad, don't even open a Larry McMurty book As miibi says, I think it's an effective way of charachterising someone as completely sociopathic/psychopathic (i.e. attacking a defenseless and unprovocative being) without going that step-too-far and depicting child abuse or murder. Animal abuse can be dealt with relatively quickly, a short shock, whereas child abuse would need to be treated as an integral part of a plot and fully explained to be socially acceptable. For example, in UTD Little Walter is ignored by Sammy's rapists, despite him being an easy target if SK wanted to portray them as really evil, and even if inadvertantly evil by letting him die on the road, yet he kept LW alive to the end.

[herethere999]

Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but is the dog killing in the movie version? I have a friend who doesn't like to see that sort of thing and we might watch it soon.

[jellydonut25]

I've noticed this as well and while I agree that it is an easy and quick way to make you hate a character, that sort of is one of my complaints about it...it's easy and quick...also, it always makes me cringe - The animal violence is Wizard and Glass is especially gratuitous, imho...

[lightninghawk]

i've noticed a hell of a lot more humans take a beating in king's works than do animals!! in the case of greg stillson, it was meant to set the precedent of his lack of control of his evil tendency.

[kirkpanzer]

If all that BS is correct about making the monster badder and more hated then, what's up with " Stand By Me" four boys and the only dog they know of is the monster and they do what they can to hurt it! SK does a lot of unnessary killing and hurting of dogs not cats, not birds or fish or hamsters and so on. As a dog lover I have yet to see a happy dog get a good ending and some or so ambiguous some of you have missed them all together they are in every movie so far horror or not. " Riding the Bullet" , "Night Shift, IT, The Green Mile and so on