http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CoolPet

Rainbow Dash, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic "It's of utmost importance the pet that I get is something that's awesome and cool!"

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What do you give the guy with a Cool Ship, Cool Shades, and a Cool Sword? A Cool Pet! Said pet will be completely loyal to them, to the point of death (maybe even beyond...), and may be a MacGuffin. Said pet will also have a unique appearance, and may or may not be a rare mystic animal. A bit of What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic? tends to occur since the pet will usually reflect its master in some way. Expect a cool pet to be an Empathy Pet or Bond Creature if there's supernatural happenings afoot.

A Subtrope of Loyal Animal Companion, and a frequent All Animals Are Dogs offender.

Common Subtropes of this include:

Pet Monstrosity: Has its own page.

Uncommonly Common Exotic Pet: It is very common for fictional characters (often with a bit of Wish Fulfillment thrown in) to own pets that in Real Life, are not common at all. Likely, due to the Rule of Cool, as most of us have daydreamed of owning such a pet at one point in our lives. Sometimes the pet will be symbolic of the owner in question. Commonly the creature will be more intelligent than is usual for its species.

Advertisement: Alien Pet: Why own a critically endangered animal when you can own a creature that's not of this world?

Mythical Pet: a creature or character that is actually a powerful mythological creature but treated as a regular pet. Muggles might actually see an odd-looking peacock instead of a phoenix, a horse instead of a unicorn, etc.

Impossible Pet: due to sloppy research, a character owns a pet whose care would lead to Fridge Logic.

This can be a Truth in Television since some brave souls do keep rather... exotic... pets. Some foolish souls do that too, but without actually knowing what they're doing.

Can overlap with Action Pet and Unusual Pets for Unusual People. Unfortunately this trope in a popular work often becomes a Pet Fad Starter, especially if the pet is somewhat easy to acquire. Of course this is hardly the best for the pets.

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Compare and Contrast Mons.

Examples:

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This DirecTV ad features a wealthy man who owns an unnaturally tiny giraffe as a pet.

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Live-Action TV

Tabletop Games

Forgotten Realms Drizzt has Guenhwyvar, who is animal companion and nigh-immortal figurine-summoned monster at the same time.

Dungeons & Dragons in general, with Rangers and Druids having access to such exotic animals as panthers, gorillas, and even Shocker Lizards, while wizards and Sorcerers can acquire things like tiny dragons. Additionally, with one version of the Leadership feat (an ability that grants you a slightly weaker cohort) can instead grant you an exotic mount or pet such as a Pegasus or a Dragon.

Miliana da Sumbria got some beautiful "silly bird". Let's just say there was a good reason why it was called "sacred, untouchable, and extremely dangerous; avoid at all cost" in a treatise on all sorts of flying creatures including literally hellish ones.

In Yu-Gi-Oh!, the Madolche are a Sugar Bowl royal family that have five Cool Pets thus far: Cruffssant, Baaple, Hootcake, Mewfeuille and Chickolates.

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Real Life