AL -- Pets not installed... but wants me to adopt!

[Doc Doofus]

I played it for the first time last night.  This kind of creeped me out.  Even without Pets installed, I can still buy the apartment pet pen.  When I click on it, it gives me the option, "Adopt pet."  I was too chicken to click on it, but this can't be good.

[rufio]

I remember hearing that was by design, actually.  So I guess it's guaranteed not to be any more broken than anything else EA makes.  Which is not much of a guarantee, I guess.

[kutto]

The tiny dog is not really considered a dog, at least in game terms. It functions more like the hamster from Pets than the dog. Working as intended.

[jsalemi]

Actually, I believe TwoJeffs said over in his forum that the parrot code was used for the toy dogs.  You need to get his 'Caged Pet Fixes' hack to keep the toy dog from starving to death even though it's constantly eating (the same bug the parrots still have).

[Zoltan]

Where is TwoJeff's forum?

[keirra]

Here.

[Zoltan]

thanks so much   

[Cappuccino]

Yeah, like others said the lapdog works as an object (not 100% sure, but you probably don't get relationship with it) so it's standalone. You do need Pets for the witches' feline familiars though.

[spaceface]

Thanks for the heads up about the fix, I let one of my sims get the hamsterdog because she rolled a want for it. I was then very puzzled when I got a warning popup about the dog starving although its bowl was full. I think I will have to load my "Test Subjects" lot before getting the fix, to see if all the real dogs and cats get taken away if the hamsterdog dies of starvation.

[maxon]

That's really odd.  I thought that fix had been fixed as I bought a parrot for the first time for an apartment dweller and the food thing worked fine.  Every day, if I clicked on the cage, I got a refill option which increased gradually - 'refill for $1,' ,'refill for $2,' 'refill for $4' etc. etc.  I didn't have the fix in my game until Wednesday when I finally updated my hacks and then I got Spore.  Is this what it does without the fix?  I must have misunderstood.

[jsalemi]

No, that's normal -- the bowl empties as the parrot eats, and it costs more to refill.  The bug is that even though the parrot is eating, its hunger isn't getting filled properly, so after a period of time it dies of starvation even though it's eating. TJ has never obsoleted his fix for that, so I'd have to say that bug is still there.

[maxon]

Ah - OK gotcha.  This was the first time since I installed Pets that I ever tried the parrots.  Don't know why.  I have plenty of cats and dogs.  Still I have the fix now so the parrot will not be featuring in a pet shop sketch.

[Millie]

Aaaah, so that's why my parrots all die within three or four days! I haven't played one for a while, due to this, and being the naive little thing I was when pets came out, it didn't occur to me that it was a bug.

[Gastfyr]

So THAT explains why parrots keep mysteriously dieing.  Happened to my husband once, and a dormie had just been playing with the brid, so he thought the dormie killed his bird.  Happened to me once, but for some reason reloading from last save and playing past that point the brid didn't die.  I thought maybe they were dying from lack of socail interaction!  lol

I'm getting that fix, since birds should go die of starvation with a full food dish.