“If Dog Dies We Riot”: The Walking Dead Fans Fear for Daryl’s Dog in Season 11

From “if Daryl dies we riot” to “if Dog dies we riot,” Daryl’s dog is the survivor fans are most worried about in Season 11 of The Walking Dead. A fan-voted poll aired on The Walking Dead Season 11 Preview Special, a live episode of Talking Dead taking a look ahead at the final season, asked viewers to vote for who they’re most worried about this season of The Walking Dead: Maggie (9%), Connie (13%), Negan (15%), Ezekiel (23%), and Dog (40%). If anything happens to Daryl’s dog, actor Norman Reedus says he’s going to go “apesh*t.”

“I think he would go to any lengths to protect Dog. He’s been out in the woods, that dog has been his best buddy,” Reedus said on Talking Dead. “I think if anybody hurt the dog, he would just go ballistic, apesh*t.”

The extended Season 10 told Dog’s origin story in a flashback to the mostly skipped-over six years after Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) disappeared, revealing Daryl’s untold romance with Dog’s original owner: Leah (Lynn Collins). When she vanished without a trace, Dog was left behind to become Daryl’s canine companion.

Trailers for Season 11 hint that Daryl — and Dog — haven’t seen the last of Leah, but fans were quick to point out a worrying yelp from Dog when one of the Reapers attacks the Dixon duo at the 90-second mark in the Comic-Con trailer.

“I don’t know if I have the heart to kill the dog,” showrunner Angela Kang told Entertainment Weekly in 2018, but that was before series producers promised a dark and brutal Season 11.

“Not totally [dark and gloomy]. There’s some sunshine between the gloom, but the dark stuff gets very, very, very, very dark,” Walking Dead executive producer Scott Gimple told TWDUniverse on Twitch. “But it’s not unrelentingly dark. There’s some bright spots.”

“Without getting too into it, there’s a level of intensity to these episodes that’s both an intensity of threat intermingled with the intensity of emotions behind that, and various histories of the characters getting intermingled with that,” added Gimple. “There’s some really brutal stuff in it, and yet it directly affects some of our most beloved characters and ties into their histories in ways that we’ll see.”

Follow the author @CameronBonomolo on Twitter for all things TWD. The Final Season of The Walking Dead premieres August 22 on AMC.