I just had a thought - can animals be turned into Strigoi?
We know the basic process of becoming Strigoi: either a Moroi kills a person during feeding, or a Strigoi drinks a person's blood and then has the victim drink Strigoi blood. The latter is doable with an animal.
We also know that becoming a Strigoi means that a person loses their soul (or at least becomes detached from it, since restored Strigoi are able to get their souls back). Which brings us to the question of:
Do animals have souls to lose?
According to Vampire Academy's own lore, the answer is yes. To be shadow kissed means that one's soul has passed over to the other side (whatever that may be) and has been brought back. The person's soul has been "kissed by shadows", leaving a mark on it and making them bonded to the person that revived them. And on the very last page of Vampire Academy we discover that the raven Lissa healed is shadow kissed, and is also bonded to Lissa. Ignoring the fact that this is never mentioned again, this would imply that animals do in fact have souls, and that those souls act in a similar way to humans when it comes to moving between planes of existence.
To me, that would indicate that animals can in fact become Strigoi.
Which then opens up a whole new field of interesting stories and conflicts. What if there's a Strigoi whose evil plan involves turning a bunch of attack dogs and setting them loose in an Academy? Or a Strigoi who wants to sow chaos by breaking into a zoo and turning all the animals, leaving a bunch of Strigoi lions and hippos roaming around? What about Strigoi psi-hounds? Strigoi sharks? Strigoi Canadian geese??
The possibilities are endless and potentially hilarious, and now I kind of want to write a fanfic about the gang going up against a Strigoi hamster.
What do you guys think, can animals become Strigoi?