The Cat-Dogs

by A. Finnis (Editor)

A collection of scary tales from six different authors:

The Piano by Diane Hoh;
The Devil's Footprints by Malcolm Rose;
Softies by Stan Nicholls;
The House That Jack Built by Garry Kilworth;
The Station with No Name by Colin Greenland;
The Cat-Dogs by Susan Price.

They're not exactly dogs. They're not really cats. They have teeth like a dog's and claws like a cat's. They're the perfect combination of two of our best-loved pets. There's only one problem--cat-dogs love to hunt humans.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Young Adult

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Zach MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a kid who was obsessed with scary stories and horror in general, I purchased this book at a book fair in the late nineties, when I was in elementary school. The reason I've decided to review it now, lo these many years later, is because I returned to re-read a few stories from it many times back in the day, and they've stuck with me over the intervening decades. I'll focus on two of them in particular for this review (no spoilers): "The Devil's Footprints" by Malcomb Rose and "The House That Jack Built" by Garry Kilworth.

I'd say "The Devil's Footprints" was, at the time, the most deeply frightening story I'd ever read. I still remember finishing it late at night and immediately going to sleep. That night I had the one of the most terrifying nightmares of my life, directly related to the story, which I still remember vividly now, more than 20 years later. I can't help but respect a piece of fiction that had that effect on me, considering I sought out and devoured such tales for the shivery thrill they provided in the first place.

"The House That Jack Built" didn't scare me to the point of nightmares, per se, but I loved it, and in fact, it's safe to say I'm still a fan of it even now. It's imaginative, eerie, and mysterious, creating a a dark Twilight Zone-esque dimension of the classic nursery rhyme from which the story takes its name.

Another notable is "The Piano" by Dianne Hoh, about a supernatural piano that communicates with a girl through the titles of the songs it plays on its own. The title story, "The Cat-Dogs", along with "Softies" and "The Station with No Name" simply haven't stuck in my mind well enough for me to comment fairly on them. "The Devil's Footprints" and "The House That Jack Built", however, are alone worth the price of admission in my eyes, and I think this is a fine collection in general for young readers looking to scare themselves.

[John Meszaros · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Cat-Dogs is one of the more unusual, dream-like YA scary story anthologies I’ve read. The horrors in these stories aren’t clear-cut ghosts, werewolves, vampires or other conventional monsters. Each story in the anthology is written by a different author, and thus each has a slightly different tone. Based on the majority of the settings, it seems like this anthology originally came from the U.K.

Here's a run-down of the individual tales.

THE CAT-DOGS
by Susan Price
The titular story is about a girl, Liz, who finds an abandoned litter of odd baby animals and brings them home to her parent’s farm on an old English estate. The animals are something like felines and something like canines- hybrids, somehow. Biologically impossible, of course, but this is horror, so who’s paying attention? As the cat-dogs get older, they get more and more vicious and eventually murderous. The story climaxes with a slow, suspenseful chase through the dark woods as Liz and her father try to hunt down the creatures before they can cause any more death. And of course they’re being stalked themselves. A very simple- indeed, one of THE most basic horror plots- but done very effectively.

THE PIANO
by Diane Hoh
This one feels like a dark fairy tale. A teenage girl, Laura, is forced by her cruel stepmother to practice the piano for hours so that she can win a contest that will allow said evil stepmom to live in luxury. As Laura sits at the bench complaining to herself, the piano actually responds. It communicates through snippets of songs: “Black-hearted Woman”, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”, “Let It Be” and so on. Laura is surprisingly unfazed by this, which adds even more the fairytale logic of the story, and quickly develops a close bond with the supernatural instrument. Then people that Laura hates start dying in bizarre accidents, which the story implies is being orchestrated (ha!) by the piano... somehow.

I’m pretty impressed that the author was able to create entire dialogues between Laura and the piano with the instrument only using the titles of songs. I like the fact that there is no explanation for what the thing actually is. Maybe it’s haunted? Maybe it’s alive? Maybe it’s like the car from Stephen King’s “From aBuick 8”- it only looks like a piano, but is actually something completely alien.

THE DEVIL'S FOOTPRINTS
by Malcolm Rose
A story set in the future world of 2004 (the book came out in 1994) where a rich kid named Darren throws a huge Halloween party at his technologically-advanced house while his parents are out of town. Seeing as how this is a horror anthology, you know someone is going to show up to kill all those dumb, unsupervised teenagers. And seeing as how the story is called “the Devil’s Footprints” you can probably guess who.

The interesting thing about the story is that it’s inspired by a real supernatural phenomenon that occurred in England around East and South Devon. Residents of the area awoke one cold February in 1855 to find eerie horseshoe-shaped prints running everywhere through the new fallen snow. In many places the prints seemed to defy normal physics. They’d go right up to high stone walls, over the top, then continue on the other side. Other prints would go up to the walls of two-story houses, and immediately continue on the roof.

The future setting is a weird addition, though it seems that it was done so that the house could have an intelligent A.I. program that can’t record the Devil on any of its cameras to heighten the supernatural nature of the part-crasher.

SOFTIES
by Stan Nicholls
One of the most bizarre stories in the anthology. The main premise is that everyone on Earth has a human-sized, sentient stuffed animal as a permanent Companion that follows them everywhere and always keeps them company. Problem is, despite being clearly intelligent beings with their own individual personalities and wants, Companions are treated as little more than slaves and property. And they’re not very happy about that...

So yeah, it’s a horror version of “Ted”

The premise sounds goofy, but there is something weirdly sinister and creepy about the tale. Maybe it’s the imagery of giant, sentient stuffed toys having dark thoughts of revenge. Like The Piano, it creates a grim, very fairy tale feeling.

THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT
by Garry Kilworth
This one was my favorite of the bunch. The story that stayed with me all these years and got me to pick up a used copy of the book for a second look.

The story features another living inanimate object with malevolent intentions. This time it’s a living house that captures a lone drifter, Caleb, and forces him to spend several years constantly repairing and maintaining its wooden facade by cutting and preparing boards from a nearby copse of trees. Every time Caleb attempts to escape, he is dragged back by tough white roots- part of the house itself- that burst out of the ground. Like The Piano, the exact nature of the sentient dwelling is never explained, though it is clearly more than just a haunted house.

You actually get a good sense of the loneliness and desperation Caleb feels as he’s forced to work all day, every day, for over two years just to keep the house in good condition. The house won’t allow any furniture to touch its floors, so he has no bed or chairs. No comforts or distractions, which is in itself pretty nightmarish.

THE STATION WITH NO NAME
by Colin Greenland
Considering how surreal the majority of the stories in this anthology have been, the last tale is surprisingly conventional horror. A graffiti artist named Mark finds an old, forgotten train station and breaks in to cover it with his tags. While exploring, he runs into odd, possibly delusional people wandering around the station in rotting, ancient clothes. It’s briefly implied that they’ve been inhabiting the place since the onset of World War II, though it’s ambiguous as to whether they’re ghosts or people who have somehow survived in the darkness for decades, hiding from the war they still believe is going on around them.

As I’ve said before, The Cat-Dogs is a weird, dream-like anthology. It’s like that feeling you get when you’re lying half-awake on the couch at 2 am and some obscure horror movie from the 80s comes on the TV and you half-watch it, drifting in and out of consciousness so that your dreams start to meld with the snippets of plot. Yeah, just like that

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 excellent creature horror stories 5/5 stars: The Cat Dogs, The Piano, and The House That Jack Built. One pretty good story: The Devil’s Footprints. And 2 stories I could’ve done without.

[Rowen H.]

This collection of stories did a doozy on my psyche as a child, and I recently managed to remember enough specific details to hunt it down, and then ordered a copy from my old friend abebooks. When it arrived, I thought, "Oh, this will be fun to read. Probably not as wild as I remember." It was, however, exactly as wild as I remember. The first story and fourth story were the ones I had the most vivid memories of, but I reread all of them, and they all have wildly different tones, varying levels of skill involved, and were all completely wack in their own special ways. I have a lot of feelings about them. (Except maybe for the piano one, which I didn't care about). I truly cannot even give this book a rating.

[Paul Lê · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Cat-Dogs is a surprisingly mature (as in how it is written as opposed to content) horror anthology aimed at younger readers. However, these stories can easily be enjoyed by adults as well. For the most part, every contribution here is British with the exception of Diane Hoh's The Piano. It's an uneven collection, but the aforementioned Hoh tale, as well as the eponymous story (Susan Price), The House That Jack Built (Garry Kilworth), and The Devil's Footprints (Malcolm Rose) are all solid. Colin Greenland's The Station with No Name and Stan Nicholls' Softies were hardly bad stories, yet they pale in comparison.

[Derek L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. Susan Price, "The Cat-Dogs" - 3/5
2. Diane Hoh, "The Piano" - 4/5
3. Malcolm Rose, "The Devil's Footprints" - 5/5
4. Stan Nicholls, "Softies" - 1/5
5. Garry Kilworth, "The House that Jack Built" - 4/5
6. Colin Greenland, "The Station With No Name" - 4/5

[Robert Wolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

I vaguely remember reading this in middle school. I didn't like the characters, the pacing and overall didn't feel like a compelling narrative.

Maybe that I'm an adult I'll reread it when given the chance.

[Amanda Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

They’re not quite cats but they’re not quite dogs…
BEWARE THE CAT-DOGS!!!
I was in a rare mood for short stories so I finally picked this one up. Overall a very solid & enjoyable collection that far exceeded my expectations.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my absolute favorite books as a kid. I can't count how many times I read it.

[Madame Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five scary stories that made me scared to turn off the lights before bedtime. English woods are the most sinister places.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of stories includes some scary tales that are aimed at teenagers but that can also be enjoyed by adults.
I’m really glad that when I ordered this book, I didn’t know that it was a young adult book. Had I known that, I may not have bought it from Amazon. As it was, I am very happy that I read this because the stories in it were excellent.
The first story, the title story, was about a family that find this strange litter of animals, not quite cats and not quite dogs, abandoned in the forest. They take them home and nurture them, only to have them grow into these deadly killers. There is a scary scene of a hunt in the forest that finishes the story.
The second story is called The Piano. It’s about a haunted piano that deceives a young girl into committing a string of crimes.
The Devils footprints was a story about a monstrous beings who makes an appearance at a teens party and brings death and destruction with it. It was a very suspenseful story.
Softies was a science fiction story about a society in which humans were bonded with Companions,cute and cuddly creatures that are supposed to be their guardians and protectors. But what happens when these companions start having wishes and desires of their own?

The final story was called The Station with No Name. It was about a young gang member who decides to visit an abandoned subway station and make his mark. He does, but not in the way he would’ve hoped…

This was overall a great collection of stories and I really enjoyed it from start to finish

[Shirley · Rating 5 out of 5]

These six horror stories are intended for a young adult audience. Though I'm not a normal fan of horror stories, I did enjoy these. A student purchased the book and brought it into the library for me to read because she enjoyed it so much. I think the book would really appeal to our students who enjoy suspense. For me, "The Piano" was the haunting tale that really stuck with me.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I truly thought this was a really great set of short stories!!!

[Searska GreyRaven · Rating 4 out of 5]

None of the stories are what I'd call high-literature, but they're mostly good campfire stories. Short, sweet, and unsettling. ^_^

[Angélica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exactly what I was expecting, gives you the chills.