My wife Renee’s opinion reflects that of many when it comes to messing with animals, even fictionally. “Do what you want to the humans. They at least have a chance of knowing why something is happening to them. But leave the animals out of it!”

And I agree. All I can say is, maybe I should never have let Festus have a dog. Because now I’m just letting the critters and characters in the strip behave like they ought to.

Sorry, Varney. Oh, yeah, and Festus.