I think the bad part of C is the confusing syntax for types. In a declaration of the initial value, you are assigning the value of "p_dog" and not of "*p_dog".

I think the bad part of C is the confusing syntax for types. In a declaration of the initial value, you are assigning the value of "p_dog" and not of "*p_dog". I tend to omit the spaces on both sides of the asterisk, though, and don't declare multiple pointer variables in the same line; I will use separate lines if the type isn't something as simple as "int" or "unsigned char". If I need especially complex types, then I will use typedef.