Companion Dogs: Breed Manual

A guide to every breed: what each one does best, the moodles, the traits, and how to pick the right one for your game.

To learn how the mod works (taming, commands, food, saddlebags, tricks, hunting), see the other manual: Features.

The numbers in this manual assume the default options. If the server turns off Skills & training, breeds stop improving: skills stay locked at zero, the damage-per-level curve becomes generic, and all four tricks unlock at once (the mod starts treating every dog as Obedience 10). What a breed gives a dog at birth still counts: base bite power, knockdown, nerve in a fight, exclusive moodle, saddlebag and litter size. Hiding the tricks is a separate option, Obedience tricks.

1. What a breed actually changes

A breed touches seven things, and nothing beyond that:

And what does NOT change with the breed, whatever a lot of people assume:

• Running speed. There is no faster breed. They all run the same.
• Sentinel, scent and hunting range. These depend only on the skill level. The breed changes how fast you get there, not the ceiling.
• The tricks. All four unlock by Obedience level, the same for every dog.
• Hunger and thirst. The rate is the same for every breed (even the Husky, see its entry).
• Saddlebag capacity, except for the Husky, the only one with a breed bonus.
• Body size is not Strength. They are two separate things, and they are easy to mix up because they travel together. See below.

Size and Strength are not the same thing

Strength is a gene and it makes a real difference: it raises bite damage by up to 30% and it is what sets saddlebag capacity.

Body size is something else. It comes from a gene of the game's own, which the mod neither rolls nor touches, plus the puppy's natural growth up to the breed's adult size. Two dogs of the same breed can end up different sizes with no difference in Strength at all, and a dog that is bigger than another one of the same breed does not bite harder for it.

What confuses people is that the breed sets both things at once, each on its own track: a German Shepherd is big and born strong, a Caramelo is small and born weak. So, comparing breed with breed, the bigger dog usually does hit harder. Only the cause is the breed, not the size: looking at how big a dog is tells you nothing about that individual dog's Strength. That is what the Strength bar on the Genetics tab of the dog window is for.

One breed, one look

There is no colour variation inside a breed. Each breed has exactly one texture, and male and female use the same one. A Husky always looks like the same Husky.

A puppy of any breed is born at the same reduced size, and grows into the adult size of its breed.

2. Quick pick

One line each

3. The five breeds in the base mod

These come with the main mod, nothing else to install.

Caramelo

The Brazilian street mutt. This is the first dog you will run into, and probably your first companion.

"The caramelo is a basic, everyday breed, the mongrel you find all over the cities. It has no special skills and is weak by nature: it can't kill a zombie on its own, only knock one down to buy you time."

Where to find it: residential houses, in towns and neighbourhoods. 20% per house, the most common breed in the game.

Learns: everything at normal speed. Nothing it stands out at, and nothing it is bad at.

In a fight: it is the only dog that cannot finish a zombie off. Its bite pins the zombie just short of dead and stops there. That is deliberate and no sandbox setting changes it. What it does do is knock them down, and a zombie on the ground is exactly what buys you the time to run or swing.

It is also the most nervous dog in the mod: it builds combat stress five times faster than a German Shepherd, and it is the first one to panic.

Traits: the weakest of all. In the dog window it will show Low in Strength, Aggressiveness and Resistance, always, on every Caramelo you tame. There is no point hunting for a good Caramelo.

Litter: 2 to 4 puppies, the biggest in the mod. If your goal is to build up a kennel, this is the breed that produces the most.

Saddlebag: 4 to 5 cargo. The smallest.

Moodle: Good Company

"The Caramelo is a wonderfully affectionate, charismatic mutt. Its loyal company lifts your spirits, so sadness and boredom fade faster while it's near."

It reduces Unhappiness and Boredom continuously while it stays close. It is one of the most useful moodles in the mod day to day, because boredom and sadness are constant problems in Zomboid and expensive to fix any other way.

Who it is for: everyone, early on. And it stays good later, because its moodle solves a problem no other breed solves. Just don't count on it to kill anything.

German Shepherd

The war dog. The combat breed of the base mod.

"A powerful, intelligent working dog. Born far stronger and tougher than the caramelo, it learns Combat and Obedience quickly, barely frays in a fight, holds the line against a swarm without panicking, and can bring a zombie down on its own."

Where to find it: police stations, prisons, jails, military bases, barracks, gun stores and ammo rooms. 20% per building. It never shows up in houses. You have to go looking.

Learns: Combat at double speed, and Obedience 50% faster. Hunting a bit faster too. It is the breed that gets strong the quickest.

In a fight: the hardest bite in the base mod, and it kills a zombie on its own. But what sets it apart is not the damage, it is the nerve. It builds stress five times more slowly than the Caramelo, and its panic threshold is the highest in the mod. In practice: it keeps fighting in situations where any other breed would already have frozen up.

Traits: mid range across the board, well above the Caramelo. A German Shepherd will show Average in all three traits.

Litter: 1 to 2.

Saddlebag: 6 to 8.

Moodle: Courage

A bold German Shepherd at your side steadies your nerves: its fearless presence eases your panic while it stays close.

It drives Panic down continuously. It is the strongest moodle by the numbers in the base mod, and it solves a serious problem: panic wrecks your aim and your melee efficiency. With a Shepherd close by, you fight with a steadier hand.

Who it is for: people who fight. If you play up close and in the middle of town, this is the breed.

Note: the in-game description says a third of the stress, but the real number is a fifth. The text is too conservative, the dog is even better than it promises.

Golden Retriever

The gun dog with the fine nose. The breed that improves your foraging.

"A friendly, keen-nosed gun dog and a natural hunter: it learns Hunting twice as fast and can bring a zombie down on its own (though it frays more easily than the German Shepherd). Its nose helps you forage and track game from farther away."

Where to find it: residential houses, on a roll separate from the Caramelo. 5% per house. Four times rarer than the mutt, but in the same houses: one house can have both.

Learns: Hunting at double speed, and Scent 50% faster. It is the breed that reaches Hunting level 6 earliest, which is when a dog starts taking on deer.

In a fight: average damage, kills on its own. It frays more than the Shepherd, less than the Caramelo.

Traits: a bit above the Caramelo, below the Shepherd. This is not a fighting dog.

Litter: 1 to 2.

Saddlebag: 6 to 7.

Moodle: Keen Nose

"Your Golden Retriever works the ground with you. While it stays close, fed and loyal, you spot forage from farther away and learn Foraging, Trapping and Aiming faster."

Two effects:

• +20% XP in Foraging, Trapping and Aiming.
• +4 tiles on your Search Mode vision radius, on top of the bonus any dog already gives.

This is the moodle that changes the pace of a countryside character the most. Foraging and Trapping are slow skills to level, and Aiming is expensive.

Who it is for: anyone living off hunting, foraging and trapping. It fits a rural base.

Note: the in-game description says it learns Combat a little faster than the caramelo. That is not true: it learns Combat at the same speed as the mutt.

Husky

The pack mule. The strongest dog in the mod, and the only one that keeps you warm.

"A hardy northern sled dog: by far the strongest breed, built to haul cargo (its saddlebag carries the most) and to survive the cold. Stubborn (slower to learn Obedience), friendly (a poor guard) and a big eater."

Where to find it: two sources.

• Residential houses, in winter only. 2.5% per house. The rarest breed in the game out of season.
• Pet shops and vet clinics. 10% per building, all year round. This is the reliable way to get one.

Learns: Scent at double speed (the best sentinel in the mod), Hunting 50% faster, and Combat a little above average. But it learns Obedience 20% more slowly, and that is the only breed penalty in the whole mod. It is deliberate: the dog is stubborn.

The practical consequence of slow Obedience: it takes longer to unlock the tricks, it stays disobedient for longer, and its disobey threshold comes down more slowly. A Husky asks for more patience.

In a fight: above average damage, kills on its own, but it is no warrior. It frays a lot more than a Shepherd.

Traits: the widest Strength range in the mod, by a mile. A Husky will show Average or High in Strength, where the other breeds sit at Average or Low.

Litter: 1 to 2.

Saddlebag: 13 to 16 cargo. It is the only breed with a saddlebag bonus (+50%), and the gap is huge: it carries two to three times more than any other dog.

Moodle: Warmed

"Your husky pulls its weight at your side. While it stays close, fed and loyal, it shoulders a little of your load so you can carry more and helps you keep your wind, so you tire more slowly; and when the cold sets in, its thick coat keeps you warm."

Three effects:

• +2 to your maximum carry weight (that is on top of whatever goes in its saddlebag).
• Endurance recovers continuously, you tire more slowly.
• A walking heat source that switches on by itself once you start getting cold and off when you warm up. In winter you walk around with a campfire at your side.

Who it is for: anyone who does long loot runs and comes back loaded, and anyone playing a heavy winter. This is the logistics dog.

Note: the description says a big eater (gets hungry fast). That does not apply to a dog you have already tamed. The hunger rate of companions is the same for every breed. The bigger appetite only exists while it is still a wild dog.

Border Collie

The farm dog. The herding breed.

A bright, tireless herding dog and the classic farm companion, prized above all for its intelligence.

Where to find it: barns, stables, silos, chicken coops and pens, out in the countryside. 15% per building, and that roll ignores the urban filter, so a farm lost in the middle of nowhere counts.

Learns: Herding at double speed, Obedience 50% faster, and Scent a little above average.

In a fight: average damage, same as the Golden. Kills on its own. It frays less than the Caramelo, but a lot more than a Shepherd. It is not a fighting dog, it is a working dog.

Traits: mid ranges, a little above the Golden.

Litter: 1 to 3, the second biggest in the base mod.

Saddlebag: 6 to 8.

The real specialty: it is 50% more efficient in the calming aura per level than any other breed. That counts in both places where the aura exists:

• in the Care for livestock here mode, where it stands watch in the pen;
• in its moodle, which calms the livestock around you.

Since a stressed animal gives no milk or wool, miscarries and scatters, a trained Border Collie is literally the difference between a farm that produces and one that does not.

Moodle: Herding Instinct

"Your border collie works the herd with you. While it stays close, fed and loyal, the animals around you settle down, and you learn Animal Care and Farming faster."

Two effects:

• +20% XP in Animal Care and Farming.
• Calms the livestock in a radius around you, automatically, while you work.

Who it is for: anyone building a farm. If you keep cows, sheep or chickens, this is the breed that protects your output.

Note: the in-game description still says it is a balanced all-rounder with no standout specialty. That is out of date: the doubled Herding and the stronger aura are already in.

4. The three addon breeds

These come as separate mods on Steam that depend on the base Companion Dogs. The link for each one is in its entry below, and all of them together in Installing the addons.

Rottweiler

(mod CD: Rottweiler, separate addon)

The warrior that saves your endurance.

"A powerful guard dog bred for protection work, a true warrior on par with the German Shepherd: it learns Combat twice as fast, hits hard at high skill, knocks zombies down and keeps fighting where most breeds panic."

Where to find it:

• Industrial building (warehouse, shed, factory, junkyard, workshop, loading dock): 10% per building.
• Residential house: 5% per house, a rare chance.

Learns: Combat at double speed, and Scent 50% faster (the only fighting dog with a good nose). It gets no Obedience bonus.

In a fight: it ties with the German Shepherd on bite, and ties on nerve: it builds stress five times slower than the mutt and its panic point sits at the maximum. It knocks down and it kills.

Traits: the same as the German Shepherd's.

Litter: 1 to 2. Saddlebag: 6 to 8.

Moodle: Front Line

"Your Rottweiler is fighting at your side. While it is engaged in combat close to you, fed and loyal, your melee swings drain less endurance."

Gives back 35% of the endurance spent on each melee swing.

This is the most conditional moodle in the mod: the icon shows up whenever the Rottweiler is nearby, but the effect only counts while it is actually fighting. And it works for melee only, firearms get nothing.

In practice it is huge. Endurance is what limits how many zombies you can swing at in a row. With a Rottweiler fighting at your side, you swing almost a third more before you run out of breath.

Who it is for: anyone who clears hordes in melee. It is the breed that fits an aggressive playstyle best.

Doberman

(mod CD: Doberman, separate addon)

The shooter's dog.

"A lean, watchful guard dog and the quickest study of any breed. In a fight it is all edge and no armour: weak while untrained, but at full Combat skill it bites hard, though it soaks up less punishment than a Rottweiler."

Where to find it:

• Police station: 18% per building.
• Military building (ammo store, barracks, bunker, guard post, checkpoint): 22% per building.

Practical warning: military buildings are extremely rare on the game's base map (there are only about five rooms like that in the whole of Kentucky). In practice, look in police stations.

Learns: Combat at double speed and Obedience 50% faster, exactly the same package as the German Shepherd. What separates the two is not training speed, it is the damage curve.

In a fight: it has the steepest curve in the mod. Untrained it hits a lot softer than a Rottweiler, but at Combat 10 it reaches the top. It is an investment: the Doberman you have just tamed is weak, the trained Doberman is front rank.

Strong nerve (panic point at the maximum), but it soaks up less punishment: its Resistance is the lowest among the fighting dogs.

Traits: the highest Aggressiveness range in the mod, which means it earns combat XP faster still. Strength and Resistance a little below the Rottweiler.

Litter: 1 to 2. Saddlebag: 6 to 8.

Moodle: Steady Aim

"Your Doberman is watching your back. While it is nearby, fed and loyal, your stress drains away, your aim recovers faster after each shot and you reload more quickly."

Three effects, all for firearms:

• Your stress drains continuously (high stress makes you aim worse in Zomboid).
• Recoil recovers 45% faster after each shot. You are back on target sooner.
• Reloading is 15% faster.

Who it is for: anyone who plays with a gun. The three effects stack onto the same problem, which is how much time do I lose between one shot and the next.

Note: the in-game description says it trains Obedience faster than even the German Shepherd and that at full Combat it bites harder than any other dog in the pack. Both are a tie, not an advantage: it matches the German Shepherd on Obedience and matches the Rottweiler on level 10 damage.

Labrador

(mod CD: Labrador, separate addon)

The retriever. The best hunting dog and, by design, the worst fighter in the mod.

"A hunting dog built to bring it back: it trains Hunting twice as fast, with Obedience close behind. By design it is the worst fighter in the family: the weakest bite, no knockdown, and a brawl leaves it badly rattled. Its gift is its mouth."

Where to find it:

• Residential house: 10% per house. It is the easiest addon to find, double the Golden's chance.
• Out in the wild: hunting cabin, campsite, boathouse, fishing spot, ranger station. 20% per building.

Learns: Hunting at double speed and Obedience 50% faster. It is the hunter package with discipline.

In a fight: the worst in the mod, on purpose.

• The weakest bite of them all.
• It does not knock zombies down. It is the only breed without that.
• It builds stress three and a half times faster than a Rottweiler, and panics at the same low point as the mutt.

It does kill a zombie if you insist, but do not send this dog into a fight.

Traits: the lowest Aggressiveness range in the mod. It is the gentlest dog here, and that is why it takes longer to learn to fight.

Litter: 1 to 3, the only addon that goes above 2. Saddlebag: 6 to 8.

Moodle: Soft Mouth

"Your Labrador brings back every kill from its first hunt on, and often something extra. While it is nearby, fed and loyal, you also learn Butchering and Short Blade faster."

Four effects, and this is the most complete moodle in the mod:

• It brings the kill back from Hunting 3 on, which means as soon as it can hunt at all. Every other breed only starts bringing them back at Hunting 6. That is half a playthrough of difference.
• It keeps at the delivery three times longer before dropping the carcass on the way.
• 60% of deliveries come with an extra item dropped on the ground beside you: a small animal bone, a chicken feather, twigs or a wild egg. Your Labrador brought you something else: ...
• +20% XP in Butchering and Short Blade, exactly the skills for processing what it brings you.

Who it is for: a life built around hunting. The Golden learns to hunt just as fast, but the Labrador delivers from day one, and the difference shows in the first weeks of a run.

5. Comparison tables

Learning speed

The higher the number, the faster it learns. 1.0 is normal speed.

The Husky's 0.8 is the only breed penalty in the whole mod.

Combat

The Doberman reaches the top, but it starts from much lower: it begins with about two thirds of a Rottweiler's bite and only catches up at level 10.

Nerve in a fight

The lower the number, the cooler the dog stays in a fight.

A dog that panics stops fighting, stops keeping watch and stops doing tricks. That is why this table matters as much as the damage: a hard bite is worth little if the dog freezes first.

Traits (birth ranges)

The higher the range, the better the dog can be born. A value below 0.34 shows up as Low in the window, above 0.66 as High, and anything in between as Average.

The short version:

• The Caramelo always shows Low in all three. There is no such thing as a good Caramelo.
• The Husky is the only one that usually shows High in Strength.
• Aggressiveness always comes out Low on the Golden, the Husky and the Labrador. That is how they are, not bad luck.
• The Golden and the Doberman also land on Low quite often in Strength and Resistance.
• German Shepherd and Rottweiler are the only ones that show Average in all three nearly always.

Saddlebag

Litter size

Litter size follows the mother's breed, not the father's.

Where to find each breed

All of them scale with the sandbox option Dog spawn rate multiplier.

Remember: the decision is made once per building and it stays saved. Going back to a place you already explored will not produce a new dog.

6. Moodles: the complete list

Dog moodles show up in a column of their own, to the left of your normal moodles.

The rule that applies to every breed moodle

The bonus only exists if all of these are true:

Fail any one of them and the moodle switches off. A mistreated dog gives you no bonus at all. This is the core mechanic of the mod: you get nothing for free from a dog you don't look after.

With several dogs nearby, only the closest one counts. The mod picks a single dog and shows that breed's moodle. You can't stack the Shepherd's Courage with the Husky's Warmed at once.

The moodle keeps working while the dog travels in your arms or in the car with you.

The breed moodles

The moodles any breed gives

Well Rested is the only one that doesn't depend on the dog staying close. It is a timer: once it is on, it lasts the full two hours even if you walk away. And it doesn't go through the care filter, so it works even with a mistreated dog. It is always worth sleeping next to your dog.

The three warnings (hungry, thirsty, intoxicated) also ignore the care filter, which makes sense: they exist precisely to tell you the dog is not doing well.

7. Traits (the genes)

Beyond the breed, every dog has three traits shown in its window, in the Traits section. They are rolled the moment you tame the dog, within the breed's range, and they never change.

"Inborn genes, fixed for life, rolled when the dog is tamed and varying from one to the next. Unlike skills they never change with training; they are the raw nature this dog was born with."

There is also a fourth gene, for general stress, that never shows up in the window. It multiplies all the stress the dog picks up from fighting. The Caramelo has the worst one of all, the German Shepherd and the Husky the best.

Reading the labels

Careful: the labels sit on an absolute scale, not one relative to the breed. That is why a Caramelo shows Low on all three every single time, and why there is no such thing as an exceptional Caramelo. It is also why the Husky is pretty much the only dog you will ever see with High Strength.

How much this really matters

The genes move damage and combat XP by up to 15% either way, and stress resistance by up to 10 percentage points. The breed counts for far more than the gene.

The exception is the saddlebag: there the Strength gene is the main factor, and the difference between a weak dog and a strong one of the same breed is real.

There is no way to train a gene. The only way to improve them is to cross dogs.

8. Mixed breeds: crossing different breeds

When a male and a female of different breeds have puppies, you get a mixed breed.

What happens to the puppy

The lineage is the average of the parents. Caramelo with German Shepherd gives a 50/50 puppy. Crossing that puppy with a pure German Shepherd gives 25% Caramelo, 75% German Shepherd. And so on, generation after generation.

The looks are ONE of the breeds, drawn with the lineage as the weight. A 50/50 puppy is born looking like a German Shepherd or like a Caramelo, never like a visual blend. The more the lineage leans one way, the bigger the chance it comes out looking like that side.

And here is the part that confuses everyone: the breed that came up in the draw is the dog's functional breed. A 50% Husky / 50% German Shepherd mix born looking like a Husky is a Husky for every purpose: Warmed moodle, Husky learning speed, Husky saddlebag. The mixing does not put it halfway on any of that.

The genes land midway between the parents, give or take 6% either way.

And this is where mixing really pays off: the puppy's gene range becomes the union of the ranges of the breeds in its lineage. A Caramelo + Husky mix can be born with any Strength between 0.00 and 0.80, meaning it can break through the Caramelo's ceiling. By crossing the strongest dogs of each litter, you raise the whole lineage over the generations.

What the puppy does NOT inherit: any skill at all. It is born at level 0 in all five, always. What it inherits from the breed is the learning speed, not the learning.

The "Mixed" label

A dog with more than one breed in its lineage gets (Mixed) next to the breed name, in its window and in the context menu.

The percentage breakdown (50% Husky, 50% German Shepherd) shows up when you hover the Breed line in the dog's window, along with the description of the dominant breed.

Is crossing different breeds worth it?

9. Installing the addons

Rottweiler, Doberman and Labrador are separate mods on Steam. Each one:

• Requires the base Companion Dogs installed and enabled.
• Adds one breed, with its own model, texture, moodle and spawn locations.
• Ships with the 13 translations, the same ones as the base.

And the base mod, if you don't have it yet: Companion Dogs.

If the base is too old, the addon simply does nothing: no error, no crash, the breed just does not exist. If you installed the Labrador and never find one, check the base version first.

Don't remove an addon from a save that still has live dogs of that breed. The dog loses the model and the texture it refers to.

Installing an addon changes nothing about the breeds you already have. The new breeds join the breeding and mixing draws automatically.

10. Breed FAQ

Which breed is the best? Depends on what you do. For combat, German Shepherd or Rottweiler. For hunting, Labrador. For cargo, Husky. For the farm, Border Collie. For firearms, Doberman. And the Caramelo is still excellent for its moodle, even being the weakest one.

Can my Caramelo get strong with training? No. It will never kill a zombie, no matter how much you train it, and its traits are the worst by definition. What training improves is Obedience, Scent and Hunting, and in those it goes just as far as any other dog.

I found two dogs of the same breed, which one do I take? You have no way of knowing beforehand: the roll happens at the moment of taming. Tame it and look at the Traits section in the window.

I got a dog with bad traits. Do I release it and tame it again? That won't help. The genes are rolled once only, on the first taming, and the dog keeps them forever, even after being released and tamed again (just like it keeps its skills). To try another roll you need to tame a different dog. To improve for real over time, the way is to cross them.

Can I have two breed moodles at the same time? No. Only the closest dog counts. Well Rested is the exception, because it doesn't depend on proximity.

Why did the moodle disappear? Almost always hunger or thirst above 75%, or loyalty having dropped below the floor. Feed it, give it water and pet it. Also check that the dog is 8 tiles or less away and on the same floor.

Is any breed faster? No. No breed runs faster than another.

Is there a Husky in another color? No. Each breed has a single texture, and males and females use the same one.

Do big dogs hit harder? No. Size is purely visual. The link between body size and Strength was turned off on purpose.

Where do I find a Doberman? Police stations. The chance in a military building is higher on paper, but there is almost no military building on the game's base map.

I installed the Labrador and can't find any. Check your Companion Dogs base version: the Labrador requires 0.6.6 or newer and stays invisible and silent on an old base. Also check whether you have already explored the houses around there: the spawn decision is one per building, forever.

My mixed dog doesn't have the moodle of both breeds. That is expected. A mixed dog is, mechanically, the breed it looks like. The mixing only changes the gene range of its descendants and the percentage label in the window.