Non-human characters

It's normal do to regular characters. We're all used to thinking of characters as people.

But what about other forms of characters? What about pets? Wild animals? Buildings and countrysides? Anything that interacts with the story can be viewed as a character. Pets have motivations. I can think of two mystery series off the top of my head where cats are main characters, for example.

Anything that is a character has a motivation and interacts with the story. A countryside could be a character if it interacts with the story, causing things as well as being effected by them. The farther something is from human, the more difficult it is to treat something as a character instead of a background. But stories can be greatly enriched by approaching things other than human as characters in their own right and able to interact with the story.

Writing prompt: write a character sketch of something that isn't human. Give a few hints as to how it can interact with the rest of the story.