Boomer Will Live

There are three main types of character that most audiences don't want to see come to harm:

First, women, hence the Wouldn't Hit a Girl trope.

Second, children (of both genders), hence the Wouldn't Hurt a Child and Children Are Innocent tropes.

The third one is animals.

There's a visceral reaction in most audiences when most animals (especially "pet" animals such as cats, dogs, parrots or mice) are put in any kind of danger.

This is why tropes like Kick the Dog, Yank the Dog's Chain and Pet the Dog all have the word "dog" in them: having your main villain kill an innocent animal is one of the most surefire way to have the audience hate him/her.

Likewise, seeing an animal survive an apocalyptic distaster, or the rampage of a heinous villain, can be a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming for most people.

Simply put, this trope is when animals are used in the same way Wouldn't Hurt a Child and Would Hurt a Child uses human children.

It should be noted that What Measure Is a Non-Cute? plays a huge factor in this trope, since insects or reptiles don't usually evoke this kind of reaction from the audience.

This trope was identified and named by The Nostalgia Critic.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This is when the work is using the animal to wring ANY emotional reaction out of the audience, be it positive or negative. As such, this mean the animal will either live, or he will die. For a trope specifically about the animal surviving (ie. the animal equivalent of Improbable Infant Survival), see Disaster Dodging Dog. This Is Not That Trope, as this also covers the animal dying in order to provide a Tear Jerker and/or Nightmare Fuel.

Examples of Boomer Will Live include:

• Frodo the Cat survives the entirety of A Quiet Place: Day One unharmed.
• This trope is a major part of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. The High Evolutionary's horrifically painful (and often lethal) experiments on animals is supposed to paint him as a despicable Hate Sink, and the fact that Rocket Raccoon not only survives, but gets revenge for the death of Lylla the Otter is supposed to be a "HELL YEAH!" moment for the audience.
• The indirect Trope Namer is Independence Day, where the dog Boomer survives the devastating attack of the alien mothership that otherwise levels the whole city.
• At the end of Star Trek Generations, Data is overjoyed to see Spot the Cat emerge from the wreckage of the Enterprise completely unharmed.
• One of the victims that Trantor turns to wood in Ernest Scared Stupid is Rimshot, Ernest's beloved dog. Once the spell is undone, Ernest is overjoyed to see Rimshot safe and sound.
• One of the moments that establishes the T-Rex as the Villain Protagonist of the Jurassic Park franchise is that when he (she?) eats a family's dog during its rampage in San Diego in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
• One of the acts that establishes Sunset Shimmer as the villain of the first Equestria Girls movie is when she sends Snips and Snails to kidnap Spike, who has been turned into a dog. Later the roles are reversed in Friendship Games, when Midnight Sparkle notices that her dog, Spike, is caught in the middle of her rampage, which allows Sunset Shimmer to purify Midnight Sparkle back into Sci-Twi.
• One of the most heinous acts the Octopus does in The Spirit is to dissolve a cat in acid.
• In Asterix and Obelix Take on Caesar, torturing Obelix doesn't work (because he has Super Toughness) and torturing Asterix doesn't work (because he has Nerves of Steel), so the villain instead tortures Dogmatix, Asterix and Obelix's dog.
• One of the Evil Lamp (seriously)'s heinous acts in Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes is to roast the family's pet parrot in a toaster oven.
• The first sign that the rest of the Mogwai in Gremlins aren't like Gizmo is that they tie up the family dog in the Christmas lights. The family believes Mrs. Deagle (who threatened to kill the dog before, thus showing the audience how despicable she is) did it.
• One of the acts that establishes one of the inmates in The Green Mile as a villain is that he kills the pet mouse of a more benevolent inmate. Said inmate knowing that he will join his beloved mouse in the afterlife is both a Tear Jerker and a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
• This trope is why Old Yeller is considered one of Disney's saddest movies.
• Likewise, this trope is why "Jurassic Bark" is considered the saddest episode of Futurama.
• Free Willy is built on this trope, with one of the most satisfying moments in the audience is seeing Willy escaping the Corrupt Corporate Executives keeping him captive and seeing him return to the ocean.
• One of the signs that Wolverine is fighting against HYDRA's mind control in the "Enemy of the State" story arc is that he spares a stray dog from his rampage.
• During the Buu Saga of Dragon Ball Z, two random Jerkasses shooting and killing Good Buu's pet puppy is what enrages Good Buu so much that he releases what becomes the Big Bad for the rest of the story arc, Evil Buu.
• What sets the entire plot of John Wick in motion is the villain killing John's beloved dog, causing a grief-stricken John to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.