The Sopranos: Did Tony Really Love Animals?

It’s no secret that Tony Soprano is something of a scumbag. He’s not only a vicious criminal, he’s an adulterer, a neglectful parent, and has personally killed many friends and family members. The show is unapologetic in showing Tony’s moral decline, and we the audience are supposed to be horrified by his actions.

However one thing that is often brought up in his defense is the fact that he loves animals. It’s supposed to be a redeeming quality, showing that despite all his issues he has a core of decency.

However, I do wonder if Tony really does love animals as much as he says, or if it’s just another part of the persona he puts up to shield himself from all the horrible things he’s done. Let’s take a look.

Now there is no doubt that Tony likes animals. In the pilot, he becomes obsessed with the ducks that have landed in his pool. He builds them a ramp, and even buys food to feed them when they come back.

Later on, Tony becomes attached to Pie-O-My, the racing horse Ralphie buys. Despite the fact that Ralph is her owner, Tony worms his way in, not only taking a cut of her winnings but also demanding that Ralph pay for very expensive vet care. When Pie gets sick, Tony also stays with her all night.

When Tony meets his father’s mistress, he learns that his father was forced to give away his childhood dog Tippy because of his mother Livia. Tony is deeply resentful of this, and even though he comes to sympathize with his mother after getting to know the mistress, he ultimately continues to hate her because of his act.

“Gave my dog away to his girlfriend’s kid, big fucking deal! If it was up to her, she would have had it killed!”

-Tony

On the surface, it seems like Tony really loves animals. However the question then is, why didn’t the Soprano family ever have any pets over the course of the show? You would think that since he loved animals so much, they would have had a dog or something.

Now AJ mentions that they had a dog when he was a kid, but it was hit by a car. And you could say that given Tony’s reactions to the death of animals, he might have been too grief stricken to get another dog.

“That’s because I know what it’s like to lose a pet!”

-Tony

There is also the possibility that the writers never gave them a pet because it would have made production a lot harder to film with needing an animal handler. However we accept that, I actually think there is an in-character reason.

Tony’s fixation with animals is actually a way for him to deal with the trauma in his life without facing the actual source. The animals serve as a way for him to experience the grief and compassion that he can’t in his life as a mobster.

In the Pilot, Tony becomes devastated when the ducks in his pool eventually fly away. Melfi identifies that the ducks remind him of his family and personify his worry that one day he will lose them as well.

“I’m afraid I’m going to lose my family. Like I lost the ducks.”

-Tony

By taking care of the ducks like he does, it’s like he is taking care of his family. But this only obscures the fact that Tony doesn’t actually provide much for his family aside from money. He’s often not there for them emotionally, and when he is he is often a negative presence in their lives.

There’s some beautiful symbolism for this in the fact that Tony hides money from his family in the bird food for the ducks. Even his supposed love of animals is corrupted by his greed and secrecy from his family.

It’s like Tony is aware of how bad he is as a father, and the ducks are a way of coping with that fact. The same thing holds true of Pie-O-My. Tony is devastated when she dies in the fire, and blaming Ralph, kills him over the issue.

The show leaves open the question of whether or not Ralph killed Pie. Now David Chase has since confirmed that he did set the fire, which I actually don’t like. I prefer it remains an open question, because I don’t think it matters whether he did or not. Because Tony did not kill Ralph over Pie O My. He killed him because of Tracee.

Tracee was a stripper at the Bing that Ralph was dating. She tried to reach out to Tony for advice and support, but Tony kept her at a distance. When Ralph eventually kills Tracee after a fight, Tony is so shaken he breaks the mob rules and hits Ralph.

It’s clear he blames himself partially for her death, and when he talks about Ralph hurting an innocent creature, he’s really talking about Tracee.

“She was a beautiful innocent creature, what did she ever do to you?”

-Tony

There are further details to support this. When talking about Tracee’s physique, they call her a thoroughbred, which is a term used for horses. And when Tony dreams about Meadow in the Test Dream, she is replaced by Tracee in his mind, viewing her as something of a daughter figure.

The grief Tony feels over Pie-O-My’s death is really his displaced grief over what happened to Tracee. Melfi correctly calls this out in their therapy.

“You haven’t grieved in this way for people. Your mother, your best friend.”

-Melfi

Because of his profession as a mobster, Tony deals with death all the time, and often he is the cause of it. He can’t show grief or compassion, as that would be viewed as weak. So instead he projects those feelings onto animals.

“Can’t I just be sad for a horse without some touchy-feely Freudian shit competent to it.”

-Tony

But even though Tony shows more empathy for animals instead of people, there is still the question of whether those feelings are real, or just a performance.

In Season 6, Melfi reads a study about criminals. One passage in particular states that "the criminal sentimentality reveals itself in compassion for babies and pets." This along with other events leads Melfi to believe that Tony is not genuine in his therapy, and is instead just performing the emotions he thinks is necessary to appear normal.

Now this has led to a lot of debate among fans about the psychological nuance of Tony’s character. People argue whether he was a psychopath or a sociopath, and if a love for animals proves or disproves either case. But honestly most viewers including myself really only have a surface level understanding of the differences between those terms.

And the show itself doesn’t have the best track record in presenting psychology in the most accurate of lights. Melfi uses Freud and dream analysis as a major part of her treatments, when most psychologists agree that it is an outdated practice. So I’m taking everything the show presents about actual clinical psychology with a grain of salt.

But I do think the larger message of this study within the context of the show, is for us the audience to question the truthfulness of Tony’s emotions. Tony is a master of lying to everyone, including himself. He goes out of his way to convince himself that despite all the bad things he has done in his life, he’s really not a bad guy.

And I think the same holds true for Tony’s love of animals. Though he might care about animals to some extent, in reality it’s just a mask for his deeper problems. And at the end of the day, I don’t think Tony really loved animals. Not the ducks, not the horse, and especially not that motherfucking animal Blundetto.