One Trek Mind #26: Pets In Star Trek

I tell ya, folks, I was planning to make this week's One Trek Mind a searing, intellectual look at the Kirk-Spock-Bones troika as a symbol of Freudian psychology. I had 90% of it written and then my annoying cat jumped on the keyboard, deleting the file and all the backups. Pets!

They make you sneeze, they crap in the house and they still haven't figured out a way to cook their own food. In the future, we'll wise up and stop keeping pets around, right? Wrong! Each iteration of Star Trek has had a li'l critters, and not all of them were trying to kill the crew.

Here are my favorite ten.

10 – Jil Orra's Wompat

9 – Dr. Phlox's Pyrithian Bat

8 – Worf's Targ

7 – Neelix

6 – Kes

5 – Spot

4 – Isis

3 – Tribbles!

2 – Porthos

Known as Admiral Archer's prized beagle in Star Trek 2009, Porthos spent his prime years on the floor of the captain's quarters on the NX-01. He was fond of cheese, made T'Pol gag with his pungent odor and knew to bark at hiding Sulibans and oncoming spatial anomalies. How do the animals always know?!?

1 – I-Chaya

I know I left out a bunch (the O'Briens' cat… those fuzzy guys from Insurrection), but hopefully not your favorite. If I did, please let me hear about it in the comments. And remember to get your Pyrithian bat spayed or neutered!

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Jordan Hoffman is a freelance writer, critic and independent film producer living in New York City. He fell in love with Star Trek through TOS reruns just as TNG was getting ready to launch. On his BLOG, Jordan has reviewed all 727 Trek episodes and films, most of the comics and some of the novels. He has a funny story about the one time he met Leonard Nimoy. Click HERE to follow him on Twitter.