In this guide, you’ll gain a thorough understanding of dogs in The Sims 4, covering essential aspects from acquisition to breeding. Learn the step-by-step process of obtaining a dog, along with invaluable insights on effective care and nurturing.
Delve into the intricacies of dog training and behaviors, acquiring essential knowledge to shape your virtual companions’ personalities. Additionally, explore the diverse array of dog traits, providing a deeper understanding of your furry friends’ unique characteristics.
Getting A Dog
Dogs have three life stages; puppy, adult, and elder. You can directly add dogs to your family in the Creator Sim tab or adopt them from the home section of your phone. When you select the option to adopt a dog, it will start a mini event where three dogs will visit your home. You have to interact with them during their visit and adopt one of them for 200 simoleons. You can also pet stray dogs for free.
Caring For Dogs
You need to have a bathtub and a food bowl for your dog. You can also purchase the programmatic pet feeder for your pets that can be used to automatically refill the bowl.
With bathtubs, you can give your dog a wash to clean them. You can get some toys for your dogs to play with. It is also recommended to purchase a pet bed for your pet to let them sleep properly. You can see the current mood of your dog by going to the icon at the bottom. If you’re providing everything to your dog, then will take care of themselves.
Caring For Sick Dogs
If your dog becomes sick, then you have to cure their illness. To examine them, you can use the Get-Better table and run different tests to uncover their illness and administer treatment.
You can also perform surgery to cure them which will improve your Veterinary skills. You also have the option to take your pet to the Veterinary doctor. You can also go for the Cone of Shame treatment for 30 simoleons to cure the illness. The best option is to access a pet Vending machine and buy different things from it to cure your pet.
You can purchase different treats that can age up your pets. The Ambrosia pet treat costs 2,500 simoleons, you can use it on a ghost pet to bring them back to life. The Poop Randomizer treat gives your pet an illness and they will poop out gold or rainbow poop. They may also poop a gold bar worth 6,006 simoleons. You can also craft treats using the medicine crafter.
Dog Breeding
If you have a good relationship with your dog, then you can encourage them to breed. Once successful, your female dog will have puppies. You can add the Breeding Ground trait to increase the amount of puppies. you can have your dog spayed by using the pet surgery station at a vet clinic.
Dog Training And Behaviors
You can train the potential misbehaviors of your pets like playing in puddles or playing in trash. You will have the option to scold or lecture them on these behaviors and it’ll shape your dog’s future behavior. They will stop doing this misbehavior. When you first get your dogs, make sure to get them toilet trained, and make them do their business outdoors.
After that, you can teach some tricks to your dogs depending on your sim pet’s training skill level. These tricks include speaking, rolling over, playing fetch, sitting, and lying down.
You can train them to shake, heal, and play dead at the pet training skill level two. At level three, you can send your pet to explore and dig the sand to bring a little gift for you. At level four, you can cause chaos by commanding your dog to attack other Sims. It is very helpful to disturb evil pet owners and it will give them an uncomfortable moodlet.
You can also show off pet tricks to other sims, and you will earn small tips as a reward. At level five, you can teach tricks to your pets faster and train them to perform tricks for other Sims. You have the option to obstacle courses to train your pets. The Training round lot trait can also help to level up your dogs faster.
Dog Traits
The Adventurous dogs love to go on adventures, you can select an interaction in the Friendly interactions to go on an adventure with your dog. Active dogs love running and they sleep less, you can roughhouse them to calm them down for a little while. The Couch Potato dogs like to relax and they don’t like to run around.
Aggressive dogs just feel like guard dogs or scary dogs and they might attack others if you have trained them not to do so. Friendly dogs greet other sims around them. You can also ask friendly dogs to be friends with other Sims. Glutton dogs eat much more and you can give a big treat to them that costs 10 simoleons.
The Loyal dogs stay closer to their owners and even follow their owners. You can pet loyal dogs to boost your social needs. They also get 25% more satisfaction points from the Feel the Love interaction. You need to brush the Hairy dogs regularly to avoid them leaving hair piles all over the floor.
You can send Hunter dogs for hunting and they will bring back a little gift for your sim. You can let the Independent dogs out, they will run around and care for themselves. It is because they don’t need much affection from their owners. Playful dogs love playing with toys and you gain more relationships with them while playing with them.
The Jumpy dogs get frightened and hide themselves in a hidden location. You can also scare them which is a Mischief interaction. Troublemaker dogs will misbehave more often, you can click on them and choose to encourage their misbehavior if you love drama.
Smart dogs are easier to train because they learn behaviors and tricks faster. They are the best option if you’re looking to have a highly trained dog. Sleuth dogs love to investigate objects around the house. You can ask them “what’s that” to send them searching around the house.
Stubborn dogs rarely learn behaviors and they are very difficult to train. You have to use the lecture interactions and try to train them by begging them. Vocal dogs like to howl all the time, you can request a song with them.
Quick Tips
Your dogs might run away from time to time, so you have to post a pet alert using your phone. It will make your dog return home faster. The cats and dogs expansion pack also brings pet doors, you can use them to help your pets get around.
You can use Feel the Love interaction to gain 100 satisfaction points and if you become a companion with your dog, then you can earn 200 satisfaction points. If your pet has the loyal trait, you’ll get a 25% boost. If you love gardening, then you can use your dog’s poop to fertilize the plants.
If you have the realm of Magic game pack, then you can make dogs become your spellcasters familiar. If your sim is in a sad mood, then they can give a comforting hug to dogs to remove their sad moodlets.
The Dog Hangout and the Dog-Friendly traits will ensure more dogs visit spaces with their owners. You can complete the Friend of the Animal aspiration to get your Animal Whisper trait which will help to train animals a lot easier.
