v0.34 Talk:Pet

The first part of the article says: "...being fed by their owners if they are grazers...", but there is also the statement: "...and the fact that owners will not specifically feed their pets...". Does the owner of a grazing pet feed it, or does it have to be pastured?

If a pet becomes hungry then a job is definitely generated for their owner to feed them. This job is only assigned to the pet's owner, not to any idle dwarf. I assume that the job is only generated once the pet is hungry (similar to "give water" jobs being generated when dwarves are thirsty) but am not confident enough on the details to edit the article. Pushy 12:20, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I have a fortress that has had no pasture for going on a year now. My dwarves have several grazer pets (a couple rabbits and a billy goat) who all seem perfectly fine without being pastured. In the same timeframe, my other grazers have all starved. Clearly, the owners take care of their pets. --LackofCertainty 18:39, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

My current best guess is that pets follow owners outside where grass is, non-assigned stay in the meeting areas where no gras grows and die. --Old Ancient 18:28, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Fights

I found in reports that various animals attacked my dwarves (a broken ear, really?) or other animals. It appears that these animals perceive(d) the dining room as crowded, even though no pasture was placed there. Might also be the mix of animals (ducks, rooster, dogs...) Is this known/covered in a different article? It appears no serious injuries happened so far but the thought of my dwarves being attacked by war dogs while dining - not funny. --Old Ancient 04:12, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

According to the Quickstart guide, animals will fight if they are in meeting areas as well, which is probably what happened in your case. If they aren't forced to stay in a specific area, they would probably just drift away from each other. --Lethosor (talk) 20:25, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Now, why did I post this to "pets"?? --Old Ancient 19:40, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Feeding

"Pasture pets" do get hungry. Contact with the owner does not per se feed them. They don't seek out a pasture on their own. They might be feeding on grass whenever they follow their owner outside. No "feed" job observed so far. Cats appear to cause 'give water' jobs occasionally that are executed by a random dwarf, not the owner. Research ongoing. --Old Ancient 19:40, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I was curious about this as well, and recently observed something relevant. A migrant dwarf arrived with a pet ram. There has never been a pasture in the fort and there is little available grass within the walls of my mountainside fort. Cave moss is similarly walled off. The ram continues to live after years without any pasture. Recently, I noticed that this ram was flashing 'hungry' while watching its owner spar. The wounds screen described the ram as "starving". I then watched the ram exit the training room, at which point I used the 'follow' command to observe it. The ram wandered randomly through the fort, up and down z-levels, with no obvious destination, even walking through a food stockpile, all while continuing to flash 'hungry'. After roughly 30 seconds, I observed the presumed owner of the pet following after the ram with a plump helmet in hand. The dwarf had to chase after the ram for several tiles until he caught up to the ram. Immediately the ram was no longer hungry. The random motions of the ram reminded me of poor starving dwarves of long ago forts that would randomly search for vermin to eat.Coaldiamond (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I've modded my game to allow gremlins as standard pets, and what I'm seeing with them is that while stray adults and children will feed and water themselves, baby gremlins will not, and will dehydrate to death if they're not adopted. If they are adopted, though, they grow up just fine, which suggests that they're being taken care of by their dwarf. My bet is that the code for caring for pets already exists, and the problem is actually that there's nothing recognized as suitable food for grazers besides grass, which the dwarves can't gather. (Perhaps try modding elephants to explicitly eat plump helmets, like how pandas eat bamboo, and see what happens?) 75.168.18.21 03:48, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Chains/Cages

I removed the mention of assigning migrant pets to chains, as I believe it is not possible to assign pets to chains in DF2012. If this is incorrect, this should of course be reverted, but it also might be good to add a discussion of how to assign pets to chains, as this is not obvious. Only stray animals show up when I try to assign an animal to a chain. Also, it might not hurt to mention somewhere that pets cannot be caged. – unsigned comment by Pirate Bob

BUG: When a dwarf adopts vermin currently residing in a cage, it may be perpetually trying to retrieve its pet, never succeeding. Constantly fills announcements with job cancellations unless job cancellation announcements are turned off. -comment by Kawanaka