Old Yeller Characters

Travis Coates is the 14-year-old protagonist of Old Yeller. At the start of the novel, Travis’s Papa heads off on a lengthy cattle drive from their family’s Texas Hill Country home to Kansas. Travis… read analysis of Travis Coates

Old Yeller is the titular yellow mutt who wanders into to the Coateses’ homestead and quickly ingratiates himself into their lives. When Travis discovers Old Yeller raiding his family’s storehouse, he’s furious with the creature—but… read analysis of Old Yeller

Little Arliss is Travis’s five-year-old brother. Rambunctious, dramatic, and obsessed with nature, Little Arliss provides much of the novel’s comic relief. Little Arliss is small but fierce: he has a great love for all… read analysis of Little Arliss

Mama is Travis and Little Arliss’s mother. Though mama is a kind, generous woman, she’s just as gritty as she is gentle. A hard life in the Texas Hill Country has prepared her to… read analysis of Mama

Lisbeth Searcy is Bud Searcy’s granddaughter. A blonde girl of 11, Lisbeth is sweet, kind, and good with animals. She’s deeply protective, evidenced by how she takes Travis aside to tell him that while… read analysis of Lisbeth Searcy

Bud Searcy is a neighbor of the Coates family. A big, red-faced man who chews tobacco and who has a reputation for being “shiftless” within the Hill Country community, Bud frequently visits the Coateses to… read analysis of Bud Searcy

Burn Sanderson is a young, rugged cowboy who shows up at the Coates family farm one day to announce that he recently lost his “big yeller dog”—Burn is Old Yeller’s true owner. However, Travis… read analysis of Burn Sanderson

Jumper is the Coates family’s mule. Named “Jumper” because of his incredible jumping skills, he’s is a docile and easygoing animal who gets tired easily and hates doing too much work. Jumper’s laziness sometimes annoys… read analysis of Jumper

Spot is the Coates family’s spotted heifer. Spot has a stubborn personality that makes her a testy and difficult milk cow. Even though Travis finds Spot difficult and annoying to deal with sometimes, he has… read analysis of Spot

Bell was Travis’s childhood dog. An older dog who was very protective of the young Travis, Bell died when a freshly severed rattlesnake head bit him on the nose, injecting him with venom. Even… read analysis of Bell

Chongo and Roany are the nicknames that Mama and Travis give to a pair of fighting bulls that wander onto the Coateses’ property one day. The bulls have a violent fight, tearing up the family’s… read analysis of Chongo and Roany