40d:Dog

A dwarf's best friend, dogs are the only animals that can be trained to assist your dwarves in combat as either war dogs or hunting dogs. Like all tame animals they can serve as an emergency food supply and provide you with bones, leather, and skulls. Note that dogs are the most point-efficient source of meat and fat available from the embark screen.

Using dogs

• Dogs left to their own devices will wander around, spending most of their time in meeting areas, and will attack any hostiles they see.
• As with any friendly creature, dogs can spot ambushers and thieves. You can assign dogs to cages or chains to act as guard dogs.
• You can assign a war dog or hunting dog to a dwarf via his dogs menu (v, select dwarf, p, e) to help him in combat. It will follow the dwarf like a pet.
  • Note: Once a dog is assigned to a dwarf it can not be unassigned nor placed in a cage^{v0.27.173.38a}.
  • A work-around for this is, when you train the dog, to use the dwarf you want the dog to be assigned to. Unassigned war dogs (and hunting dogs^[Verify]) follow the dwarf who trained them, while still allowing them to be caged.
  • In addition, it is currently^{v0.28.181.40d} impossible to assign war dogs to champions, as their preferences menu is blocked with the message "This hero need not work".

Differences between war and hunting dogs

War and hunting dogs are trained at the kennel. War dogs do double damage.

Toady One: "A hunting animal will target the creature its owner is targeting if the owner is hunting, and it will be sneaking without a movement penalty if it is reasonably close to its hunting owner. A hunting animal notices creatures from farther away, although this isn't exactly effective if it decides to target what its owner is targeting. It all needs a bit of work, but that is true of hunting in general."

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