The Red Herring...

A few treasures from the oracle...

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If ur gonna use a red herring like this, then might as well go all the way to mislead and subvert audience expectations

so, forget abt making it the pet, your storyboard with the barking dog sound good and logical now, ie the dog is barking because it's not a pet, its a scruffy street mongrel hauled back to be fattened as a macabre/cheap version of meatloaf

now you work your narrative on 2 parallel levels:

(1) you have your butcher fatten the poor unsuspecting mongrel (up to this point mistaken as a pet by audience) for the kill;

(2) you as the director-writer fatten your unsuspecting audience for the kill 

so picking up from your original storyboard, go for the macguffin after the "pet feeding-*pet*pet* good dog" cliched moment of affectionate bonding and stroking

(1) do a cut-away shot to something seemingly unrelated (cld be environment, storm outside abating etc); (2) camera slowly pulling out to re-establishment (3) slow fade to black

basically u PLAY UP to the audience's stereotype or expectations of nice warm fuzzy ending, except this is a false ending

u need to pace very carefully here, basically it shud slow down enuff to lull audience into a false sense of security-some editors will tell u pacing shud slow to mimic human breathing 

(commando friends have told me that is exactly how they kill chicken with their bare hands in the jungle, u must stroke your animal affectionately...slowly...until their breathing becomes slow and relaxed....then they twist the head off in one gesture.)

I know cos I am vegetarian

then sharp sound of cleaver slash

CUT TO: aftermath of slaughter etc 

basically the dog didn't see it coming, and neither shud the audience

u dun even need to show butcher eating fattened pet (that's stating the obvious + there's unspoken screen taboo abt death of animals and children in film, ie it evokes v strong neg aud reactions. implied is gd enuff.)

mebbe the last shot shud be a recipe book open to the page on How to Make Christmas MeatLoaf? I dunno 

subtle but clear enuff