[spoiler warning.....]

I should probably put this into an article of my own, but while I've watched too many movies in the past few years, I probably haven't seen enough. That is to say, all of those involving a dog potentially in harm's way.

It seemed to me that Independence Day featured the most ridiculous dog escape-from-peril in all of cinema. But it was a popular film. And in ensuing years it also seemed as though filmmakers went out of their way to kill off any dog involved—almost in reaction to absurd escape in Bay's film.

Today, a generation later, with Internet users often having some version of I don't care who dies as long as it's not the dog! in their sigs, filmmakers return to giving man's bestie a break.

I doubt that trend strongly influenced The Killer. More likely it was a) humerous, & b) necessary because after the killer offed that sympathetic cabbie (the secretary was also sympathetic, but not entirely innocent given she knew who he was & what he "was capable of") I think the audience would have turned against him completely if he'd just killed Diva.