Life is made up of layers upon layers. They are what makes your story come to life. How would your life be without your favorite cat to curl up on your lap (or in my case try to take over my keyboard as I try to write this)? Or that warm summer afternoon spent throwing a ball around with your high strung terrier? Sit down in a quiet room or go for a walk with a favorite pet. Take note of what they do and how they do it. What makes the time you spend with them so special? What is the most endearing part of their behavior? Do they nuzzle you? Ignore you? Do they have any quirks or ticks that make them unique?
Clear your mind of everything except what you feel when you are with them. Do they make you feel needed? Loved? How would it affect you if they were gone? Go through different scenarios. Force yourself to feel the desperation of a pet getting out of your home. Let down the mental barriers that block you from the pain of having to put your pet to sleep and focus on what it would be like to rest your hand on them as they take their last breath. I know. It's difficult. But the goal here is to tap into the emotions that make us what we are and infuse them in your writing. Don't just look up words to describe loss and grief; pour them onto the paper from the tears brought forth by images and memories.
However, there are other ways to look at your animals. Do they inspire you? Have they been through a rough time and fought back to survive? Are they comedic characters? Are you writing a children's book and want to make them players in your story? Sure, you can do that too. Just apply the humor and whimsy you feel when you are with them into your writing.
I have three cats. My elderly calico is mostly deaf, but her nose works just fine and she can find that one piece of chicken in the garbage can from all the way across the house. My middle furchild is a longhair tuxedo that is afraid of everything and pulls her fur out whenever she gets stressed. And my youngest. She's an attention hog that has no sense of personal space.
This last one is the one that I think of most often. She was a rescue that was abused at a very young age and dumped on a neighbor's farm. I think of what she must have gone through to lose most of her teeth by the time she was a year old. Or what other animals she fought when she spent more than a year living in a barn, kicked out of whatever home she came from. Alone. Cold. Wet. Hungry. Until that day she wandered over to my house and I spoke to her (yes, I speak to all animals) and perhaps there was a glimmer that she might be okay. I think about the trust she placed in me and my husband that we wouldn't subject her to the same life she had known before.
Animals can be main characters or they can play supporting roles. Supporting characters can add humor, fear, desperation, devastation, and hope to any story and it creates sympathy and understanding between your readers and your book.
Lucy, my rescue mentioned above.
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