Why did my dog just eat my cat?

Question

I was carrying around a tripe ration in an effort to keep my dog close, when I found a nice housecat that was in need of a good home.

So I fed it my tripe ration, and a very happy heart appeared over its head. I named him Katt, and he purred and snuggled against me because he was so happy to have a real home.

Then a few turns later, my dog attacked and ate him. I don't know if it was sibling rivalry or not, but he just got angry at the cat and went to town.

Do pets not like each other, or was it something else? Up until that point my dog had a nice and sunny disposition.

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Aside from the bolded edit above, here are some more clarifications:

1. The dog had just killed and eaten a black naga hatchling
2. The cat was alive at the time, the dog simply started biting him.
3. I'm pretty low level still, I'm not wearing any jewelry of any kind.
4. The dog has eaten pretty well...I've been letting it take care of all lichens, jackals, etc so far.
5. Also no traps within the immediate area either.

Answer

Under normal conditions pets won't attack other pets. However they have no problem eating a former pet's corpse. So one of the following things might have happened:

• Something else (a monster or a boulder trap for example) killed your cat and your dog ate the corpse.
• Your dog became confused from hunger, randomly attacked your cat and then ate it.
• You're wearing a ring of conflict which caused the dog to attack anything in its range including your cat.

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Why aren't my pets getting paid?

Question

I have The Sims 2 installed with all expansions and official patches (I miss stuff packs however).

I have a problem concerning pets: basically when they come back from work (after a few game days where everything works fine) they don't get a salary. They also can't get a promotion: it seems that the pets coming back home fails to trigger some routine.

I also tried totally erasing the Sims2 directory in my Documents and Settings folder (thus forcing the program to recreate the neighbors from scratch) but I still have the same problem.

However, this doesn't seem to be a common problem around the Internet. Is this bug known? Do you know how to solve it?

Answer

Found a couple other people and have the same problem myself. Seems to go away if Apartment Life is removed. No other fix found yet.

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How to handle unwanted pets in a "light side" manner?

Question

Landing on Tatooine, I ended up with a bunch of Gizka on my ship. I already saw Gizka poison at a trader, so I could get rid of them. But then again, I'm a light side jedi (at least for now), so what's the most "good" procedure to deal with them? Do they pose a threat at some point or can I just let them hop around?

Answer

You do not gain any Dark side points for dealing with the Gizka infestation with poison.

However there is an alternate way to handle it, on Manaan there is a person who can take them off of your hands. But if you don't take either of those actions near the end of the game they will just leave.

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I got pets I didn't ask for

Question

Landing on Tatooine, I ended up with a bunch of Gizka on my ship. I already saw Gizka poison at a trader, so I could get rid of them. But then again, I'm a light side jedi (at least for now), so what's the most "good" procedure to deal with them? Do they pose a threat at some point or can I just let them hop around?

Answer

You do not gain any Dark side points for dealing with the Gizka infestation with poison.

However there is an alternate way to handle it, on Manaan there is a person who can take them off of your hands. But if you don't take either of those actions near the end of the game they will just leave.

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How can I bring my pet to the valley of dead?

Question

I've finally reached the valley of the dead, but I'm having trouble getting my pet to follow me down there. Seeing that it is a silver dragon, I really didn't want to leave it behind.

The problem is that pets don't normally follow you through trap doors (only through stairs) and the only ways to get to the valley are the trap doors inside the catle. Is there a way around this problem? As long as I'm in the valley of the dead with my pet beside me, it's fair game. I'm playing a barbarian with tons of scrolls and a wand of wishing (which I didn't want to waste).

Answer

I tend to lose my pets pretty early on, so this won't be a great answer. I think the best way to do this is to get a saddle and ride your Dragon. Ridden animals are affected by traps, so I think in the case of a trapdoor you both fall through, although I'm not certain.

The only other way down to the Valley is by level teleport, but I'm fairly sure that doesn't take your pet with you.

Once you're in the Valley, there are stairs leading back up to the Castle. I don't recall whether you can use the stairs to subsequently return. If you can, then you could pick up your pet by coming back upstairs, meeting up, and then walking down again.

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My pet is a public menace, what did I do wrong?

Question

In my current attempt at nethack I'm playing a dwarven samurai with a dog pet, so most dwarves I've encountered are peaceful. However, for some reason, my dog has been going beserk on every friendly dwarf we meet and I'd like to know why.

Since this doesn't really incur penalties on me, not to mention he was getting experience, I didn't mind it while going down the gnomish mines, but now it's becoming a problem. I've just reached Minetown and imagine my surprise when my pet decides to attack the owner of the first shop I visit. Though this still incurs no penalties, I'm afraid he's going to get zapped to death, so I have to lock him out of every shop I visit.

Now I wonder, did I do something wrong that is causing this?
I didn't catch any message like "Rex is confused with hunger." or something (plus, I almost starved because he was pouncing on every single corpse we made).
I've heard you can train your pet to steal by feeding him when he drops you stuff, is it somehow possible that I have accidentally trained him to be aggressive?

Answer

As far as I know, there's no way to train or otherwise cause your pet to be more aggressive. In general, pets don't much care if a monster is friendly to you or not - they'll go ahead and attack anyway, as long as the monster is close to their level.

It's quite possible that your dog has reached max level by this point in the game, especially if he's been getting a lot of kills. However, dogs don't normally attack shopkeepers, even at max level.

I can think of a couple possible explanations for your situation:

• You're wearing a ring of conflict. (Unlikely, since you'd be getting attacked too.)
• Your pet was at maximum level and ate a wraith corpse. This would put him within a level of the shopkeepers and liable to attack.

Some pertinent info from the wiki article on pets:

They say discretion is the better part of valor. Pets don't always possess such discretion, and often find themselves overpowered by opponents they take on. Although a pet will not attack a monster which could kill it in one round, this calculation takes no account of the monster's weapon or passive attack. Be especially careful about bringing dogs or cats into the Gnomish Mines, or horses into shops, especially in the deeper levels. Horses seem especially vulnerable to mimics, and have also been known to attack shopkeepers, as they reach a higher level than dogs or cats. (A pet will not attack a monster which is two or more levels higher than itself. A fully grown large cat or dog is level 9, a fully grown warhorse is level 10, and a shopkeeper is level 11.)

also

Carnivorous and omnivorous pets will eat wraith corpses and gain one level for each, capped at 15 over base level. (There is no cap for gains from engulfing live wraiths.)

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