This panel invites discussions on the contemporary politics of the “safe animal” in literature and media—in all the registers and valences of “safe.” An overworked but underexplored cultural trope, safe animals are constantly in demand across various forms of popular media: animal memes and pet-related small talk are the safest conversation starters, “cute” cat pictures always promise to comfort, and ample cultural scaffolding is in place to help us stick to animals that are safe. For example, the website Does the Dog Die, a crowdsourced platform for “emotional spoilers” about movies and other popular media, promises to protect viewers from “upsetting” material including the death of animals.