The Rabies Effect

So I'm not exactly a dog person. When I was younger and would visit a friend's house, their dog would jump on me and I would hate it. What makes a dog think that this scared-looking, four-foot-five girl wants them jumping on her, scratching her leg, and licking her hand? I had another friend whose dog would either be trying to kill me or find Narnia in my crotch; I couldn't deal with that bi-polar beast.
I don't remember how long ago it was when I decided to break out the old VCR player and watch Old Yeller (recently enough for VCRs to be considered "old"). I knew the basic plot before starting it: a beloved dog gets rabies and must be shot. So it was no surprise when the beloved dog, Old Yeller, got (gasp) rabies and had to be shot.
Maybe it's because I've never had a dog and I sort of hate them, but I seriously didn’t really care when Travis pulled the trigger. I'm an awful person, I know.
Not long after this, I watched the 1983 horror film, Cujo. In this dog-gets-rabies-and-is-shot movie, a less "family friendly" approach is taken. Based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, the majority of this film is just a woman trying to get out of her car but avoid Cujo's (the rabid dog in this movie) thirst for blood. If you have an affinity for repetition, you should watch it.
Eventually, though, the lady gets out of her car, shoots Cujo, cries over her dead son's body, shoots Cujo again, and by this time I was just counting down the minutes until the movie ended.
Now I'm not saying that I love cat movies. Most of them are annoying because the cat is always either incredibly lazy and everybody hates them or the antagonist and everybody hates them. Yet when the dog in a movie goes on a killing rampage everybody feels bad for it. It's just animal bias and I’m sick of it!
Just kidding. I really don’t care. Movies where animals are the main characters are usually awful kids’ movies where they all portray human stereotypes and are voiced by George Lopez and Drew Barrymore.
And although rabies isn’t exactly an awesome subject for a movie to be based around, it definitely makes them more interesting. If Old Yeller had just been about a boy and his dog fighting off some non-rabid pigs, I would’ve fallen asleep. If Cujo had just lounged around the farm for the whole hour and a half I would’ve shot my TV. And if the Air Buddies had gone to space and contracted rabies from some extra-terrestrial being, I would’ve actually watched the 2009, straight-to-DVD movie, Space Buddies.
So in short, animal movies: bad. Animal movies with rabies: slightly better.