Headscratchers / The Secret Life of Pets

• Where the hell did Gidget's one dog army skills come from?
  • I guess that's how strong her crush on Max is. Love Makes You Crazy, I suppose.
  • Adrenaline.
  • Also, Rule of Funny. Let's face it, if there's one breed of dog that most people would not expect to turn into an ass-kicking badass, it's a fluffy Pomeranian.
  • For all we know, she watches martial arts movies and acts out all the parts any time her telenovela isn't on.
• Snowball's combat skills are inconsistent. He completely ambushes and subdues a 200+ pound dog catcher, but later on, he can't really harm Max or get out of the grip of a 5-year-old girl.
  • Justified. He was exhausted from his ordeal at the river and even though he raged at humans, Children Are Innocent. They usually don't abandon animals, adults do. Then there's the fact that she found his sweet spot and all the fight went out of him.
  • Also, Rule of Funny. What's the last animal you expect to be able to beat up a 200+ pound dog catcher? Did someone say "cute fluffy little rabbit"?
    • There's a reason why weight classes exist in fighting sports. Even with a gap in physical conditioning and skill, a larger heavier man can potentially defeat you because of weight alone. And even then, there are so many variables in fighting that you may be heavier and in better shape than one guy but simply however his arm reach and height gives him a big advantage that you lose. Likewise, a person may be taller, heavier, and a BETTER fighter than that out of shape obese nerd however certain environments such as tight corridor would favour a smaller person and if he knows how, he can use his weight along with the tight space to KO even Mike Tyson. Real life is not just a skill and being taller, stronger, and heavier. T Oo many factors from how slippery the floor is to how dark it is can affect the outcome and that's just divorce of each individual's traits such as weight, how used he is in travelling in the dark without any lighting, etc.
    • Yes, but when's the last time anyone saw a 200-pound human male being flattened by a cute bunny rabbit? The Rule of Funny point still applies.
    • With that said, observe Duke's position in the various fights. When he takes out the dog catcher, he took him in a complete ambush and in addition he initiated with a jump attack. Contrary to what people think, hitting hard is not just strength+Speed+Technique but the positioning, how prepared your enemy is, and the angle and location with which he gets hit. Whereas Max was quite aware most of the time they brawled and Max did subtle stuff to minimize blows such as shaking his body when getting hit (which irl could deflect hits heavily into being weaker. In addition, most of the time Rabbit was trying to chase Max which totally requires different mechanics to hit hard. In regards to the girl, she was hugging Duke hard when he was trying to hit her and he was hitting her in the abdomen, the hardest place to KO someone. Unless you've trained to fight in that range, regular blows that can KO someone gets seriously softened.
  • To answer the original troper directly, in real life even the best fighters are inconsistent. In addition to the various variables I mentioned above (state of mind, flooring, etc), some fighters just have bad days where even when sincere effort they can't hit as hard as they could or their reflexes are weaker (even if yesterday they could dodge hits going 15 MPH and nothing significant happened up until today). It's unexplained but it just happens one day a brave veteran becomes cowardly or Michael Jordan's hands couldn't score hoops as well as he usually can in training. In addition, there is also the element of bad luck such as an object falling from the sky and hitting your head, K Oing you. Such random bad luck occurred to Duke several times in the story during his fights.
  • Rabbits can be painful when they want to be. They have very sharp teeth, and sharp claws. They're like cats but with more biting, and just as agile. You absolutely do not to be attacked by one - I know this from personal experience! But if you're holding them correctly there's not much they can do (not that the little girl was, but he was being held tightly)
• One thing I don't get how could Reginald, the cat at Duke's old home know about Fred? As Duke stated, Fred hated cats. But since Reginald's family bought Fred's house, I don't see how he could know about the old man.
  • He was probably told about it by other pets who live on that street.
  • Or perhaps he overheard his owners talking about it. They could have asked the real estate agent what happened to the previous owner when they bought the house (and probably would have to, so that they could deal with things like forwarding any mail received for the previous owner).
• When Max and Duke are in the sinking van, Max accidentally lets go of the keys. They float to the surface, due to the keychain apparently being buoyant. Moments later, Snowball grabs them, dives under the water with them, and then drops them through the open window... where they then sink to Max, buoyant keychain and all.
  • Bunny teeth are sharper than they look. Snowball's teeth pierced the Keychain's Statue of Liberty doohickey where Max's could not... so water got in and it wasn't floaty anymore.
• Where do the animals keep getting vehicles from? There are multiple times that the animals just drive up in a vehicle with no explanation, and that's ignoring the fact that they shouldn't have any idea how to drive, let alone drive competently as they do.
  • We don't know how many times the Flushed Pets have stolen vehicles before, and crashed them while attempting to drive. They've probably gotten enough practice to at least know how to start engines and work the wheel and brakes, even if they're ignorant of traffic rules and lousy at steering.
• How do the flush pets survive the viper bite? If it's initiation, that implies they've all been through it.
  • It was never explicitly stated the Viper was poisonous. (He appears to be a bushmaster...[sort of], a venomous South American pit viper.)
    • If I recall correctly, more often than not, a venomous snake tends to deliver dry bites because they need the venom for, well, food, so it's possible they survived because of that.
    • Viper may have been a venomoid, subjected to a rather cruel and unreliable procedure that removes the venom glands from venomous animals.
  • In-Verse, Viper is just as sapient as the other animals. He probably just jabs with his fang to leave a mark and to test the recruits' courage, but injects no venom.
• How did Pops know the Viper? Pops said he knew them, well enough to expect help from them, when the Viper should've eaten Pops the moment they saw him.
  • Remember that the Viper only tries to eat Max and Duke after Snowball flips out and orders him to; Pops had likely met him under different circumstances and hadn't earned his hostility, and at the very least it can be safely presumed that the Viper didn't automatically try to eat every animal who came across his path. Pops also doesn't seem to recognize Snowball, so presumably, his acquaintance with the Flushed Pets stems from before Snowball took over and instituted a more hard-line anti-owned pets policy.
  • Not to mention, Pops is very old. He may have met Viper when the snake was significantly younger and smaller.
• Why, if the Flushed Pets hate collars and are tech-savvy enough to (badly) drive vehicles, didn't they immediately remove Ripper's muzzle after freeing him from the Animal Control van?
  • Prior experience.