Raising 20 Puppies or Kittens

Hello everyone. I bring you this quick guide on raising puppies and kittens in response to comments on my Rose Island Prosperity blog, specifically on the update for Round 11: Aiden and Sharon Cipriani in which Sharon has a LTW of raising 20 puppies or kittens. I thought I would invite her over here to my tutorial section to give you a quick run down on how she is handling reaching her LTW. Take it away Sharon!

Thanks Shaunna.

Well, I'm Sharon Cipriani. As you may know I am a busy wife, and mother with a lofty Lifetime Want to raise 20 puppies or kittens. In my case, I chose to focus on puppies, but that doesn't really matter. I will guide you through what I have done to make life a bit easier.

My first order of business was to build a kennel for my dogs. The gates have a convenient locking mechanism that lets you choose to allow or disallow pets. Once I got my two pomeranians into their kennel I simply chose to disallow pets. Now you might think that it is inhumane to not allow them the run of the house, but I have built their area plently large enough to play fetch and for them to strech their legs. Besides, I spend so much time in there with them and they have all of the comforts of home. The kennel contains: 1 dog house, 3 pet beds, 2 chewy bones, 3 food dishes, 1 bathtub, and a couple of shrubs for decoration.

once your two animals have a good enough relaionship with you and eachother (I suggest getting two pets with similar personalities) you can have them "try for puppies with...". The process fo getting them aquainted takes a couple of days together in the kennel, as well as a little time with me to correct them when they were hostile to eachother, and praise them when they were playful.

Before you know it (approx 3 sim days later) you have your puppies! You dogs will have anywhere from 1 to four babies as I believe the maximum number of animals you can have on a lot is six (**players note: I am not 100% sure that this is correct, but in my experience I have not been able to have more than 8 sims and 6 pets per lot**)

It takes about four days for a puppy or kitten to become an adult. And since my LTW is to raise 20 puppies or kittens, I have to see them through to adult hood before I can find suitable homes for them (though all of the techniques I will describe for selling and giving away pets can also apply to puppies). Here are the ways you can send your pups, or full grown dogs out into the world...

Selling and giving away to friends and neighbors:

You can invite someone over or stop a passerby that you might want to sell or give a puppy to. Just start a conversation with them and the option for "Sales..." (to give away choose the option to "give pet...") becomes available. Click on it and pick the name of the pet you wish to sell or give away. If you choose to sell, the sim you are selling to will pay you for the pet. The ammount that you recieve for a pet can be anywhere from a couple hundred to over one thousand simoleans depending on how well the pet is trained. The more they know, the more they are worth! Since my goal is to raise 20 of them, I sell them as soon as they transition to adult dogs so they have not had the chance to gain many skills. I have recieved an averge of 500 simoleans per pet.

Once you have exchanged the money (or not in the case of giving away a pet) the pet is no longer a part of the family and will go home with it's new owner. One thing to be careful about is that when selling your pets to townies (or any other non controlled sim) they get put into the stray pets pool. If you move in a townie that you have sold a pet to, the pet will not come with the owner, instead will remain a stray that will drop by on occasion.

Giving up for Adoption:

This can be hard on both the pet and the sim, but it is a way to add pets to the adoption pool. To give a pet up for adoption, simply use the phone to "call...", "service...", and choose "Pet Adoption Service - Give up Pet".

After a couple of hours a police officer will come to pick up the pet you have choosen to give up for adoption. The pet will now be available by calling the adoption service.

And that concludes my tutorial on raising 20 puppies or kittens. I hope that it has been helpful to you. All you need to do after accomplishing these steps is just rinse and repeat! Good luck, and be sure to let me know if you have any questions.