The Family Dog
Every family can have a dog. You adopt a puppy at the kennel of the nation you are in, give it a name, and from then on it lives with you: it eats from your backpack, needs a vaccine and at least one outing a year, and learns through two short minigames. Look after it and it makes every year happier; neglect it and it runs away. When you die it stays in the family and passes to your heir. It is all optional — nobody loses anything by not having one.
Adopting a puppy
Go to Social › 🐕 My Dog. Without a dog, the page shows the kennel of the nation you are currently in, where a puppy is always waiting.
- Price: $1,000, paid to the treasury of the nation you are in. It appears in that nation's Treasury Ledger as 🐕 Dog Adoptions.
- Free puppy: if your previous dog died of old age, the next puppy is free. The right stays in the family, so an heir keeps it too.
- You need: a home (rented, owned or State Housing), to be out of jail, and the money.
- How many: one dog per player.
- Vaccine: the puppy arrives already vaccinated for the year you adopt it and the next one.
- Starting stats: Health 100, Happiness 70, Training 0.
The free puppy is a thank-you for looking after a dog until the very end. It does not apply if your dog died of illness or at zero health, was taken away, ran away, was lost because you had no home, or was taken back to the kennel.
The name
You choose it when you adopt, and it cannot be changed later. It must be 2 to 20 characters long and can use letters (accented letters and other alphabets too), numbers, spaces, apostrophes, hyphens and dots. It must start with a letter or a number, and emoji are not allowed. Names containing a banned word are refused, the same rule as for party and religion names.
There are only puppies in the kennel. A dog that leaves its owner, for whatever reason, goes to a new family outside the game.
Age and old age
A puppy is born the year you adopt it, and one game year passes every real day.
- 🐶 Puppy, 0–1: learns twice as fast from training.
- 🐕 Adult, 2–9.
- 🐕 Senior, 10 and over: loses Health twice as fast, can die of old age, and gives you twice the joy.
From the age of 10, every year change can be the last. The chance depends on the age the dog had during the year that is ending:
| Age | Chance of dying of old age |
|---|---|
| 10 | 5% |
| 11 | 10% |
| 12 | 20% |
| 13 | 35% |
| 14 | 50% |
| 15 | 100% |
A happy dog lives longer: if its Happiness is 70 or more, the chance is halved (at 13, from 35% to 17.5%). At 15 it stays certain, so no dog lives past 15.
A dog whose Health reaches 0 dies at once, at any age. Losing a dog to old age or to zero Health costs you −15 Happiness.
The three stats
Each goes from 0 to 100 and falls a little at every year change:
| Stat | Starts at | Yearly fall |
|---|---|---|
| ❤️ Health | 100 | −5 (senior −10) |
| 😊 Happiness | 70 | −10 |
| 🎓 Training | 0 | −3 |
Health goes up with HQ Food and Vet Visits, Happiness with walks, the park and HQ Food, and Training with training.
The profile also shows whether the dog is vaccinated and until which year, whether it has been out this year, its bowl, and what it will give you at the next year change.
What happens at the year change
Everything below happens automatically, in this order:
- No home: if you are homeless, the dog goes to a new family (see Heirs, jail, travel and home for the one-year grace).
- Happiness at 0: the dog runs away.
- Old age: from 10, the roll in the table above.
- Food: the dog eats 1 food from your backpack, or you pay the fine.
- No outing all year: −10 Happiness.
- The yearly fall of the three stats.
- Illness: an unvaccinated dog has a 25% chance to lose 30 Health.
- Health at 0: the dog dies.
- Your share: the Happiness the dog gives you, or costs you.
The dog is judged on the year it had. Running away, the old-age discount and the Happiness it gives you all use the Happiness the dog had during the year, before steps 4–7 change it. Food, outings, the yearly fall and illness count towards the year that begins, so there is always a year to put things right. Only Health at 0 takes effect at once.
Food and the bowl
The dog eats 1 food a year from your backpack, and it eats last: after you and after your children, so it never takes your meal. The 🥣 bowl on its profile decides what it eats (Normal Food when you adopt). You can change it at any time.
| Food | Effect on the dog |
|---|---|
| LQ Food | −3 Health |
| Normal Food | none |
| HQ Food | +3 Health, +5 Happiness |
If the bowl's kind has run out, the dog takes another one, cheapest first. Within one kind it eats the units with the most stars first, and what it eats moves your Lifestyle exactly like your children's food does.
No food
With no food left for it, the dog loses 20 Health and 20 Happiness, you pay a $1,000 fine, and your Lifestyle is pulled down as if a child had gone hungry. A second year in a row without food costs the fine again, and the dog is taken to a new family.
Count the food in your backpack. You eat first, then each of your children, and the dog only gets what is left. If there is nothing left for it, Home › Things To Do tells you before the year changes.
At least one outing a year
A dog needs to go out at least once a year: a Walk or a walk in the park is enough. A dog that never went out loses 10 more Happiness at the year change.
What your dog gives you
At every year change, the Happiness your dog had during the year changes yours:
| Dog's Happiness | You | Senior dog |
|---|---|---|
| 80–100 | +10 | +20 |
| 50–79 | +5 | +10 |
| 20–49 | nothing | nothing |
| 1–19 | −5 | −5 |
| 0 | the dog runs away | |
The bond grows with the years: a senior dog gives twice the joy of a young one, so an old dog is worth more than a puppy, and it pays to keep it happy for as long as it lives.
Your own Happiness falls by 15 a year, and it affects your pay: above 70 your wages rise by 5%, above 85 by 10%, while below 30 they drop by 10% and below 15 by 20% (see Character Stats). A very happy dog wins back most of that yearly fall.
Vaccines and vet visits
- 💉 Dog Vaccine: protects from illness for 2 years, the year you give it and the next. You can renew it in the last year it covers, not before. Without it, a dog has a 25% chance a year of falling ill and losing 30 Health.
- 🩺 Vet Visit: +20 Health, up to 100. It can be given at any time the dog is below 100.
Both are used from the Vaccinate and Vet Visit buttons on the dog's profile, not from the backpack. One unit is used each time, the one with the most stars first, and it moves your Lifestyle like a voucher. Both also work from jail and while you are busy with another activity.
Example: a dog vaccinated in year 100 is covered in years 100 and 101. In year 101 the profile and Things To Do remind you to renew. Left unvaccinated, from the end of year 102 it has a 25% chance of falling ill at every year change.
Only player vets make them
Dog Vaccines and Vet Visits are made only by players with a Veterinary Clinic, which needs the Degree in Veterinary Medicine (see Companies & Production). The State never sells them. You find them at the Market › 🐾 Vet; if your nation has no vet, only under 🌍 Imports, with import and export taxes on top. The vet sets the price.
Train: Repeat the Commands
- Cost: 5 Energy, then 30 minutes busy. 2 a year.
- Reward: +1 Training for every round you pass, at least +2 and at most +6.
- Skip: +2 Training.
Your dog shows a series of commands, one after the other: 🪑 Sit, 🐾 Paw, ⬇️ Down and 🔄 Spin. You tap them back in the same order. The first round has 3 commands and each round adds one, up to 8, so there are 6 rounds; one mistake ends the game. You can also press Stop here and keep the rounds you have passed.
- A puppy (0–1) learns twice as much. A sad dog (Happiness under 40) learns half as much, rounded, but always at least +1. Both rules apply to Skip too.
- You pay when you press Play or Skip: the Energy, one of the year's two trainings and the time. A game that went badly cannot be thrown away and played again.
- You see the result at once. Then you are busy until the timer ends, and press CLAIM as usual.
Walk: Sniff Out the Ball
- Cost: 5 Energy, then 15 minutes busy. 2 a year.
- Reward (the dog's Happiness): +15 / +12 / +10 / +8 if the ball is found at the 1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th try, +5 if not.
- Skip: +5 Happiness.
A ball is hidden under one of 25 trees, in a 5×5 grid. Tap a tree and your dog sniffs it:
- 🔥 hot: the ball is under one of the trees right next to it, diagonals included;
- 🌤️ warm: it is two trees away;
- ❄️ cold: it is further away.
You have 4 tries. If you think each one through, you can always find the ball in time. A Walk counts as the dog's outing for the year, even if you skip the game. There is no puppy or sad-dog rule here.
Rules for both games
- Each game takes about 30 seconds at most, works with taps only and is built for a phone.
- Skip always gives the basic reward. Playing can only do better, never worse.
- The server picks the commands and hides the ball, and it checks every answer itself. The ball's place only reaches your screen when the game is over.
- A game left open for more than 3 minutes, or answered faster than anyone could, counts as a Skip. So does a game left unfinished, for example if you close the app halfway.
- The full reward is within reach of any careful player, so there is nothing to gain by cheating.
- Neither can be played from jail, or while you are busy with another activity (a shift, a trip…).
Your dog in the park
If you have a dog, it comes along on every walk in the park (Social › Social Activities › Parks) by itself — there is no extra button.
- The dog: +10 Happiness, and the walk counts as its outing for the year.
- You: +5 more Happiness (+10 in total) and +5 more points on your chance of meeting someone (+15 in total), because a dog gets people talking.
- Cost and limit: the same as without a dog — 20 Energy, 2 walks a year, free if you live near the park.
The walk in the park does not use up either of the dog's two Walks. It is only possible in a nation with a Park, voted and built by its Parliament.
Heirs, jail, travel and home
- You die and have an heir: the dog stays in the family and passes to the heir with everything — age, stats and bowl.
- You move to the rest home: the same, it passes to your heir.
- You die without an heir, or delete your account: it goes to a new family outside the game.
- You go to jail: it stays yours and still eats at the year change. You can vaccinate it, give it a Vet Visit and change its bowl, but you cannot Train it, Walk it or take it to the park.
- You travel abroad: it comes with you. Train and Walk work anywhere; the park only in the nation you are in.
- You divorce: it stays with whoever adopted it.
- Your backpack is full: no problem, the dog takes no backpack slot.
Without a home
The dog follows the same rule as children: if you are homeless at the year change, it goes to a new family. If you lost your home through no fault of your own — your landlord's property was seized, or the landlord died with no heir or left the game — you get one year of grace: the yearly report warns you, and the dog stays with you if you find a home before the next year ends.
Taking a dog back to the kennel
At the bottom of the profile, 🏠 Take [name] back to the kennel gives the dog up. It costs you −10 Happiness, the dog goes to a new family, and it does not earn you a free puppy. The game asks you to confirm first.
Where to find it all
- Social › 🐕 My Dog: the kennel, the profile with the three stats, the vaccine and the bowl, the four actions, and the i guide next to the title with every number.
- Home › Things To Do: a reminder when there is no food left for the dog, when its vaccine has run out or runs out this year, and when it has not been out yet this year.
- Market › 🐾 Vet: Dog Vaccines and Vet Visits.
- Your yearly report and diary: what the dog ate, a fine, an illness, birthdays at 2 and 10, and how a dog left.
See also: Marriage, Children & Child Care, Inheritance & Dynasty, Social Life, Nightclubs & Parks, Food, Health & Death.