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The Winchesters owed too much to Crowley as of late. It irritated them to be dependant upon someone of his ilk. It bothered Dean in particular that with a simple command, the King of Hell could control hellhounds and call them off, making them feel indebted.
The whole relationship between Crowley and his hellhounds had Dean considering the beasts and their nature. When he actually thought about his time in hell he had a vague recollection of the souls of animals as well as people in the pit and wondered what those poor dogs had done to earn such a fate. In hindsight he was relieved that he’d never had to carve on them. If there was anything that could have broken his spirit any more, that would have been it.
While Dean wasn’t fond of dogs he knew them to be decent and loyal creatures by nature. He thought about Stephen King’s closing part of Cujo.
“Cujo was a good dog who always tried to keep his owners happy, but the ravage of rabies drove him to violence.”
He couldn’t believe that something like that, beyond any animal’s control could damn them to a life in the pit.
He had always flippantly referred to Dogs gone mad as “Cujo”. Maybe there was something else at play, something he didn’t quite understand. He’d file it away for some other time to ponder the question.
Regardless of whether hellhounds were the twisted, tainted souls of dogs that had been driven mad by disease or had been trapped and harnessed against their will they certainly maintained their sense of loyalty, and for that he was grateful. The loyalty of Crowley’s hellhound Juliet was the only thing that kept her in check. Being shredded by hellhounds once was more than enough for his liking.