After recently waxing on about Sebastian as my favorite part of The Little Mermaid, why not a look at some other favorite animal sidekicks? Sebastian got his due time already, so here are five others:
Faithful, from The Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce
Faithful is Alanna’s cat, a mysterious creature with black fur, purple eyes and an uncanny degree of intelligence. He can talk, but only Alanna understands him–unless he decides otherwise. I think Faithful is rather the way I imagine all cats would be, if they ever decided to let us past their air of mystery and find out how smart they really are.
Dug, from Up
Dug the talking dog is the best part of a really wonderful movie. I’m so wildly amused by all the dogs’ dialogue. “My master made me this collar so that I may speak–SQUIRREL!” So much fun. And he’s a really sweet character too; he does so ever want to please everyone, and he’s so very bad at it…
Zero from Ordinary Jack by Helen Cresswell
Zero is an utterly unremarkable dog. Unlike Dug, he doesn’t talk, and he’s not very good at learning tricks (unless they’re demonstrated for him). But he’s still the beloved companion of Jack, who is frequently worried about Zero’s self-esteem. Jack tries to build up his self-confidence, which he judges by watching the way his ears are drooping. For being an ordinary dog, he’s a lot of fun.
Iago from Aladdin
The only side-kick to a villain on the list, Iago the parrot is a hilarious, sarcastic, very amusing part of Aladdin. I rewatched this recently, and found that all of Iago’s dialogue sounded far more familiar than everything else–I think I memorized most of it as a kid, and obviously it made a big impression. There was at least one line in there that I’ve been quoting for years without realizing it started at Iago.
Fire lizards from The Chronicles of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
None of the individual fire lizards ever stood out to me all that much, but the concept is so cool I have to include them en masse. Really–pet dragons! Very loyal pet dragons who deliver messages and like to sing and will sit on your shoulder. I want one.
Tales of the Marvelous 
Let’s give at least an honorable mention to Tarzan’s paranoic little monkey companion, Nkima, who lived in a constant state of terror that every living being in the jungle wanted to eat him. Fortunately, Tarzan spoke fluent Monkey, and was more than up to the job of keeping him safe from his enemies, real and imagined. That was in the books. His counterpart in the, movies,Cheetah, was all right, but never had Nkima’s personality or conversational skill…
To be honest, I was never quite sure what Tarzan saw in Nkima…he was afraid of everything, but he’d usually bring attack on himself by teasing creatures bigger than he was. But then, Tarzan had a dark sense of humor, so maybe that’s what he saw in Nkima…