As popularised by the Can You Pet the Dog Twitter account, many video games offer endearing and supportive animal relationships. However, not every video game critter is helpful, loving or safe to pet.
In this list, we pull together games where you decidedly don't want to pet these animals. Sometimes it's mild irritation caused by the animals, like Untitled Goose Game. Other times the creatures are downright dangerous like the farm dogs in Inside or the creature in Carrion. Or maybe the animals are just being a bit of a dick, like Donut County. Finally, we include a few games, like Frog Detective where the animals are basically a confused mess.
This list includes 33 games from the last 33 years, with 1,227 likes. They come from a range of different genres and play-styles and are all good games if you want to deal with troublesome critters. We break them down into the following areas: