Companion Dogs: Features Manual

A complete guide to what your dog does, how to command it and how to look after it.

This manual covers everything the mod does. If you want to know about the breeds (which one to pick, what makes each one special, moodles and traits), see the other manual: Breeds.

About the names: every quoted text in this manual is exactly how it appears in the game in English. If your game is set to another language the names change, but the position in the menu is the same.

1. In 5 minutes: from stray to companion

If you just want to start playing, here it is:

1. Find a dog. Caramelo strays roam loose around cities and residential neighbourhoods. You will run into one sooner or later just by exploring.
2. Have food in your inventory. Any food works, as long as it is not rotten and actually fills hunger.
3. Right click the dog and pick Give food (befriend).
4. Repeat until it trusts you. Every helping raises trust. A big bag of dog food almost does it in one go; small treats take about four helpings.
5. Give it a name. That is it, the dog is yours. From then on it follows you on its own.

After that, three things not to forget:

• Feed it and give it water every day. A dog dies of neglect, and it does not come back.
• Pet it. That keeps loyalty up and it also eases your own boredom and sadness.
• Open its window with the paw button, below your hands panel. Everything is in there.

2. Finding and taming a dog

Where each breed shows up

The mod decides once per building whether that building has a dog, and the decision is saved. You will not go back to a place you already explored and find a new dog out of nowhere.

The dog usually spawns on a free tile outside the building: street, yard, empty lot. Only when there is no free outdoor tile left does it end up spawning inside the building. Look on the street and in the yard first.

The sandbox option Dog spawn rate multiplier scales all of those chances at once, keeping the relative rarity. Setting it to 0 turns spawning off.

Addon breeds come in separate Steam mods and have their own spawn spots: CD: Rottweiler, CD: Doberman and CD: Labrador. What each one does is in the breeds manual.

How to tame

Right click the wild dog. The only option it offers is Give food (befriend).

• You need nothing but food. No minimum skill, no trait, no collar, no tool.
• The food can be inside a bag, the mod finds it on its own.
• If you carry more than one kind of food, it becomes a submenu with the icon and amount of each.
• With no food at all the option is greyed out: You need a food item in your inventory.

How much food it takes

Every helping gives trust in proportion to how much hunger that food would fill. An item that takes away 60 hunger points gives 60 trust. The default is 100 trust to tame (configurable in the sandbox under Trust needed to tame).

In practice:

• A big bag of dog food almost does it by itself.
• Small snacks take about four helpings.

The mod only uses up the bite it needs and gives the rest of the item back to your inventory, so you do not waste half a can of food just to hand over the last trust point.

There is no luck involved. Reach 100 trust and the dog is yours. That is all.

While the bar is filling you see: The Caramelo warms up to you... When it fills: The Caramelo is now your companion! and the naming box opens.

Food that is bad for dogs

Some foods are poisonous to dogs, and the mod warns you: they show up in red in the menu, with the warning Bad for dogs. Eating this makes it sick and breaks its trust.

They are:

• By type: candy, sugar, coffee, tea, cocoa, chocolate, pepper, nuts.
• By name: onion, garlic, leek, chives, shallot, grape, raisin, chocolate, cocoa, coffee, peanut. (Grapefruit is explicitly allowed.)

Giving bad food to a wild dog takes 15 trust away and never adds any. On a companion it takes 20 loyalty, raises stress and leaves it intoxicated for 120 in-game minutes.

What happens the moment it becomes yours

• It goes into Follow mode and turns Auto-protect on.
• Hunger, thirst and stress reset to zero.
• Its genetic traits are rolled now and stay fixed for life.
• It becomes invincible: zombies, cars, bullets and fire will not kill it. Only neglect does.
• It joins the My Dogs registry, and starts showing up on the map.

Taming a new dog does not abandon the old one. The new one becomes the active dog, and the old one goes passive in Stay mode. See Multiple dogs at once.

Dog limit

The sandbox option Max dogs per player ships at 0, which means no limit. If the server sets a cap, reaching it turns the befriend option red and blocks it: Companion limit reached (5). (the number is the configured cap) Releasing or losing a dog frees the slot.

3. Giving orders: the four ways

There are four ways to command the dog. They all do the same thing, so use whichever feels most comfortable.

a) Context menu (right-click the dog)

Everything sits inside a submenu named after the dog. The order is always the same:

Guard is not here. That command only exists in the radial menu, on the keybinding and on the button in the Commands tab.

b) Radial menu (hold Q)

The mod hangs off the game's emote menu. Hold Q and a new category shows up, named after your dog's breed and marked with a paw icon. The category only appears if you have an active dog nearby.

The slices are: Come here, Follow, Stay, Guard, Alert, Quiet, Silent, Attack nearest, Hunt / Stop hunting, Tricks ▸ and Open saddlebags (if it is wearing one).

Picking Tricks opens a third radial level with the four tricks and a Back. A trick you have not unlocked yet shows up with a red icon and the required level in its name, like Distract (Obedience 3).

Some commands also make your character gesture: calling raises a hand, telling it to stay does the stop gesture, ordering an attack points.

c) Keybindings

There are 14 bindable actions, and all of them come with no key set on purpose, so nothing conflicts. You set them up on the Settings tab of the dog window, not in the game options menu.

If you pick a key that is already taken, the mod warns you: F already used by: Stay. With no key set, the button shows Unbound.

d) Buttons in the dog window

The Commands tab has all of it as buttons: the mode row, the sentinel row, the auto-protect and hunting toggles, the four tricks, the saddlebag and the actions row (Bring | Rename | Release).

4. The three modes: Follow, Stay and Guard

The dog is always in one of these three. Everything else (sentinel, hunting, auto-protect) is a setting layered on top of the mode.

Follow

The default. It walks behind you: it starts moving when you are 2 tiles away and breaks into a run past 5 tiles.

• Fights zombies within 5 tiles of YOU (not of itself). It drops the target at 8.
• Jumps low fences, climbs stairs and changes floors to keep up with you.
• It is the only mode that gets into the car with you.
• If you get too far away (24 tiles), it is snapped in behind you automatically, so it does not end up stuck on the other side of a building.

"The Caramelo paths along behind you and fights zombies that get close. Its sentinel keeps watch. The default, your companion on the move."

Stay

It stops where it is and does not leave. After about a minute standing still, it lies down.

• It keeps sniffing and warning about zombies.
• It will not chase and will not fight, even with a zombie in its face.
• It stays behind when you get into a car. Only a dog in Follow mode rides along.

"The Caramelo holds its position and won't follow. It still senses and warns about zombies, but it won't chase or fight: it just sits and watches. Good for parking it somewhere safe."

Guard

It records the exact spot where it is standing as its post and defends that post.

• It takes on zombies in a radius of 10 tiles from the post, chases, then comes back.
• If it gets in trouble, it falls back behind you.
• Important limitation: for now it only works while you are nearby. There is no point leaving a dog guarding your base and walking off the map.

"The Caramelo anchors to this exact spot and defends it, engaging zombies in a wider radius, alerting, then returning to its post after a chase. It backs off behind you if surrounded."

The two recall commands

Use Bring when the dog is stuck behind a fence, trapped inside a building or too far away to walk back. It is the emergency exit, not the everyday command.

5. Sentinel: the dog as an alarm

In practice this is the most useful thing the mod does: the dog senses zombies you cannot see.

The sentinel works in all three modes (Follow, Stay and Guard). It does not work during fast forward, nor while you sleep.

The dog goes from sensed something to alarm when the zombie is 6 tiles away or less, or when there are 3 or more zombies, or when there is clear line of sight up to 12 tiles.

The messages float above its head:

• Your Caramelo senses something nearby... (something is out there, far away or few)
• Your Caramelo detects zombies! (close or in numbers, time to react)

That is the trade-off: Alert gives you the longest warning range but gives your position away. Quiet warns you with no noise, but only up close. Silent is for when you want the dog quiet at any cost.

A stressed dog does NOT bark on its own. There used to be a stress barking system, but it is turned off in the mod. If your dog is pulling zombies in, the source is one of these four, all of them under your control: the sentinel on Alert, the Distract trick, the chase during a hunt, or combat.

6. Combat

When it fights on its own

The dog does not go around attacking by itself. It waits for a trigger:

• In Follow: only with Auto-protect on, and only if the zombie targets you or the dog, or you are already fighting. And the zombie has to be 5 tiles or less from you.
• In Guard: always, within 10 tiles of its post.
• The Attack nearest command: it searches within 12 tiles and chases for 2 in-game minutes.

It only attacks hostile zombies. Friendly NPCs from other mods (Bandits, A-Life) are spared.

It won't bite through walls

The dog only engages a zombie it can actually reach on foot. A zombie on the other side of a fence, or inside a closed room, is ignored, because going around would cost far too much. If it does try and gets stuck for two and a half seconds with no progress, it drops that target and ignores it for 12 seconds.

This is on purpose: it keeps the dog from banging into a wall trying to reach something impossible.

How hard it hits

Damage comes from four things multiplied together: the breed's natural power, the Combat level, the Strength gene and the sandbox multiplier.

What matters for you as a player:

• The Caramelo cannot kill a zombie on its own. It pins the zombie at 10% health and stops there. That is on purpose and no sandbox setting changes it. Its job is to knock the zombie down and buy you time.
• Every other breed can finish the job.

The damage table per breed is in the breed manual.

Knocking zombies down: every strike has a chance to knock one down, starting at 10% and reaching 50% with Combat maxed out.

Auto-protect

Toggled per dog. When it is on, the dog automatically stands guard while you are defenseless:

• sleeping
• reading
• sitting on the ground
• eating
• fishing

It anchors at your side and takes on whatever comes. If you walk, the anchor follows. When you finish the action, it goes back to following you on its own.

• A dog on a real Guard post never leaves it because of this.
• Fighting like this stresses the dog and earns no loyalty. It is work, not affection.

It comes on when you tame the dog.

Your bullets never hit it

You can shoot right over the dog without worrying. A companion dog never loses health to a bullet in any situation, yours or another player's.

Two things make sure of that:

• It stays out of auto-aim, so your aim does not stick to it when you raise the gun.
• In single player, at the moment of the shot, the mod takes the dog out of the shot: the bullet goes straight to the zombie behind it.

The dog does not move out of the way for this to happen, and it never turns on you.

In multiplayer, if you shoot from far away, another player's dog may even look like it reacts on your screen, but it loses no health.

Wounds, retreat and panic

• Fighting does not wound the dog. It only stresses it.
• Its health drops from neglect (hunger or thirst above 0.8), from toxic food and from a deer fighting back during a hunt. Only neglect can kill it.
• Wound states: Hurt below 30% health, Badly wounded below 10%. A badly wounded dog only follows you, it does not fight.
• Retreat: it runs behind you when its health drops to 10% or less.
• Panic: with high stress it won't fight, won't keep watch and won't do tricks. But it still runs to you when you call it.

Healing

The dog heals on its own, and fast: a full health bar in about 8 in-game hours, so it goes from nearly dead to healthy in one night. But only if it is fed and watered: past the halfway mark on the hunger bar or the thirst bar, healing stops completely.

So, to heal a wounded dog: feed it, give it water and let time pass.

Kill count

Each dog has its own counter, shown in its window: Kills: 14 zombies, 3 prey.

With the sandbox option Dog kills count toward you on (the default), the zombies it kills also add to your own counter on the character screen.

7. Needs and care

A companion dog is invincible, and that freezes the game's normal hunger systems. So the mod runs all of it by hand.

There are four bars, plus loyalty.

There is no sleep and no hygiene. The dog never needs to sleep and never gets dirty.

The sandbox option Hunger & thirst rate scales both together. At 0 they freeze for good and the dog never needs to eat or drink again (loyalty still decays, so it still wants your attention).

Where stress comes from

Stress is not a bar you fill, it is the result of the others. It rises with hunger, with thirst, with low health, with low loyalty and with every blow traded in a fight.

Levels:

A panicking dog stops fighting, keeping watch and doing tricks. It still runs to you when you call it.

The good news: combat stress fades fast out of a fight. A full bar empties in about 2 in-game hours. Petting, food and water make it even faster.

Feeding by hand

Right click the dog → Feed.

• Any food works, as long as it is not rotten and actually fills hunger. There is no restriction to meat or dog food, only the toxic food list.
• Effect: lowers hunger, hydrates if the item is juicy, +0.10 health, stress relief and a loyalty gain proportional to how much hunger the portion took away.
• Only the bite it needs is consumed.
• Message: The Caramelo is satisfied.

Giving water

Right click → Give water. You need any water container in your inventory (the mod looks inside bags too).

It drops half the thirst bar, gives +2 loyalty and relieves stress. The Caramelo drinks.

Petting

Right click → Pet.

• 90 in-game minute cooldown. Before that: Your Caramelo has had enough affection for now.
• Effect on the dog: relieves stress and gives +2 loyalty.
• Effect on you: it eases Bored and Unhappy. Worth doing every time you can.

The neglect ladder

If you let the dog go, this is what happens, in this order:

1. Hunger and thirst go past 0.6. The Hungry / Thirsty moodle shows up on your screen.
2. Loyalty starts falling three times faster.
3. Past the halfway mark, natural healing stops.
4. Past 0.8, health starts draining fast: a dog at full health reaches zero in about 8 in-game hours.
5. Loyalty falls through the floor, the dog turns Disobedient and stops obeying.
6. Stress climbs and it panics: it stops fighting, keeping watch and doing tricks.
7. Health reaches zero and it dies.

Death is permanent. There is no respawn. Your Caramelo has died. The saddlebags and everything inside them drop on the ground. If you have another dog, it is promoted to active automatically.

Zombies don't kill your dog. Forgetting to feed it does.

8. Loyalty

Loyalty runs from 0 to 100 and measures how much the dog trusts you.

• It drops on its own, about 12 points per day, and three times faster if the dog is hungry or thirsty.
• It only goes up by human hand: feeding, giving water (+2) and petting (+2).
• Feeding is by far the fastest way, but the gain is proportional to how much hunger the portion actually killed. Giving food to a dog that is already full does almost nothing; feeding a starving dog can give back dozens of points at once. If loyalty has dropped, let the dog get hungry before you feed it.
• Eating from the bowl NEVER gives loyalty. That is on purpose: a dog that feeds itself from a bowl builds no bond with you. If you want a loyal dog, you have to show up.

The disobedience floor

Below a certain point the dog turns Disobedient and refuses to follow, to fight and to do tricks: Your Caramelo no longer trusts you...

That floor goes down as Obedience goes up: it starts at 30 and drops 1.5 per level, never below 10. So a dog with Obedience 10 only turns disobedient below 15 loyalty, while an untrained dog already gives you trouble below 30.

Training Obedience is how you buy yourself slack on loyalty.

When the dog refuses an order

There are four reasons, in this priority order:

9. The bowl: food and water without you

The bowl is how your active dog takes care of itself while you are busy with something else.

Only the active dog feels hunger and thirst, and only it uses the bowl. Your other bonded dogs are on pause: no hunger, no thirst, no looking for a bowl and no loyalty loss. You do not need to set up a bowl for them, and they do not starve while they wait. See Multiple dogs at once.

How to use it

1. Get a bowl (crafted or looted, see Mod items).
2. In your inventory, right click → Place feeding dish. That opens a free placement cursor, with R to rotate.
3. With the bowl on the ground, right click it → Add food to dish or Add water to dish.

The bowl holds food OR water, never both at the same time. To switch, use Empty the bowl.

It shows what is inside: grey when empty, brown with kibble, blue with water.

What counts as bowl food

Just about any food that kills hunger and is not rotten: meat, canned goods, cooked meals, vegetables, fruit, eggs, dog food, and also grass and hay.

The only things left out are rotten food, anything that does not feed, and the list of what is bad for dogs, which shows up in red in the menu.

An unopened can of dog food does not show up in the list. Open the can first.

The bowl holds up to 100 points. Each item is worth an amount that follows its size:

If the item is bigger than the free space, the bowl fills to the top and hands the rest back to you. On a bowl sitting at 80 points, a bag of dog food takes it to 100 and returns to your inventory worth 40. The message The bowl doesn't have room for all of that. only shows up when the bowl is completely full.

How the dog uses it

• It goes on its own when hunger or thirst reaches 0.5 (adjustable per character with the Eats when hunger/thirst reaches slider, in the Settings tab).
• It looks for a bowl within 16 tiles. Both the mod's bowl and the game's vanilla feeding trough work.
• Each visit clears half the bar. It spends about 3 in-game minutes eating.
• While it is committed to the bowl it ignores zombies and ignores everything else. Only an order from you interrupts it. That is a good thing: a dog panicking from hunger can break its own panic by eating.

Above its head you see Going to eat, Eating, Going to drink, Drinking.

Remember: eating from the bowl gives no loyalty at all. The bowl keeps the dog alive, petting keeps the dog yours.

The bowl never works as a source of drinking water for you, and rain does not fill it.

10. Skills: the dog's five skills

Every dog has five skills, from 0 to 10, and they go up by doing, not by deliberate training.

About the XP curve

Level 1 comes fast, level 10 is a long term project. The sandbox option Skill XP rate controls how fast all of it goes.

Heads up: the default for that option in the file is 0.5, that is, half speed, even though the help text says that 1.0 is normal. If you feel your dog learns way too slowly, that is why. Raise it to 1.0 or more.

Disobedience

With the Dogs can disobey option on (that is the default), an untrained dog sometimes just ignores you: Caramelo Rex gets distracted and ignores you.

• The chance starts at 30% at Obedience 0 and reaches 0% at Obedience 10.
• Repeating the order right away always works. It never ignores you twice in a row.
• The ignored order trains it all the same, so it is not wasted XP.
• It only applies to direct orders: follow, stay, guard, come, attack and tricks. It never affects feeding, giving water, petting, the saddlebag, Bring, or the behaviour toggles (sentinel, auto-protect, hunting, farm care).

If you do not like the mechanic, turn that option off in the sandbox.

A skill is not the same thing as a trait

The dog window has two lists that look alike, and it is worth not mixing them up:

• Skills (Scent, Combat, Obedience, Hunting, Herding) go up with use, for life. They are what this chapter is about.
• Traits (Strength, Aggressiveness, Resistance) are rolled when you tame the dog and never change. Training does not touch them.

The traits, what each one does and the ranges for each breed are in the Breed Manual.

11. Obedience tricks

Four tricks, unlocked by the Obedience level. All of them show up in the menu from the start, the locked ones in red, so you can see what is coming: Unlocked at Obedience level 3 (currently 1).

Go to a spot (Obedience 1)

Opens a cursor on the ground: green where it works, red where it does not. Left click picks the spot, right click cancels.

• Maximum range: 30 tiles from YOU, not from the dog.
• It walks over there and holds the spot (it switches to Stay mode on arrival).
• Any new order cancels the trip.

Use it to place the dog somewhere without going along: send it across the street, to a corner, into a room.

Distract (Obedience 3)

The dog barks on purpose, good and loud, in a radius of 24 tiles, and the horde goes for it. Then it falls back to you.

• It deliberately ignores the Dog noise attracts zombies option: the whole point of the trick is making noise, so it always does.
• It costs stress.
• Red tag over its head: Luring zombies.
• Cooldown of 10 in-game minutes.

This is the tool for opening a way through: pull the group to one side while you go in from the other. Remember the dog is left with the horde behind it, so have a plan.

Sniff out an item (Obedience 5)

Hold an item in your hands and use the trick. The dog memorizes the smell of that item type: Caramelo memorized the scent of Hammer.

From then on, in the background, it sweeps the area around it (12 tiles, reaching 20 with Scent maxed) looking for that item inside cupboards and on the ground. When it finds one:

1. It barks.
2. It goes there and points.
3. The item gets a green highlight out in the world.

Messages: Caramelo smells Hammer nearby. and Caramelo points at Hammer.

The dog keeps one smell only. Sniffing something else replaces it. To cancel, use Stop tracking Hammer (with the name of the item it memorized) (cancelling is never blocked).

With nothing in your hands: Hold the item you want the dog to smell.

Fetch an item while you sleep (Obedience 10)

The final trick. The dog needs saddlebags.

Hold an item and arm it: Caramelo will look for Hammer while you sleep. A permanent tag stays over its head: Looking for: Hammer.

How it works:

• Once per in-game day. It fires right after you wake up, with the dog nearby.
• The chance of success depends on how rare the item is, and nothing is guaranteed. Even the most ordinary item in the game caps at 50% per night (about 2 days of waiting, on average). An uncommon item like an axe sits near 15%, and something truly rare like a katana lands around 2%, which means weeks of trying.
• If it works: Caramelo brought back Hammer while you slept., the item shows up inside the saddlebags, and a green tag Brought: Hammer.
• If not: Caramelo came back without Hammer. and a red tag Came back empty.

Two blocks when you arm it:

• Item too heavy: Caramelo could not carry Anvil.
• Item that does not exist in the game's loot tables: Caramelo would not know where to look for that.

12. Hunting

Hunt mode comes turned off and you switch it on per dog: radial menu, key, or the button in the Commands tab. Caramelo Rex will hunt nearby game.

What it hunts

Other wild animals it only points at, it does not hunt them.

How it works in practice

Levels 0, 1 and 2: it points, and that is all. The dog never touches the prey at this stage. It barks once, trots up close to the animal, stops, strikes the pointing pose and holds there for a few minutes, so you can see where the animal is. Then it gives up and comes back. Warning: Your dog has found game nearby...

That is worth something: this is how it trains Hunting early on. Point it out, let it point, and the level goes up.

Level 3: it starts killing small game.

• If it is hungry, it eats the prey. You get nothing out of it, but the dog is fed.
• If it is not, it kills and credits you, leaving the skinnable carcass on the ground where the chase ended. It tells you: Your dog brought down game!, but you are the one who fetches it.

Level 6: it starts bringing the kill to you. Tag Bringing the kill and the message Your dog dragged its kill to you. This applies to small game only.

Level 6 also unlocks deer, and there the rule is different: it never drags a deer, at any level and in any breed. It wears the deer down to near death and holds the prey waiting for you to land the finishing blow: Your dog wounded a deer, finish it off!, with the tag Holding the prey. If you do not show up within 20 in-game minutes, it finishes the job itself (and you still get the credit). If the deer runs, it tracks it: Your dog is tracking the wounded game...

The Labrador is the exception: it delivers the kill from level 3 on, that is, from the very first prey it can kill, and it keeps at it longer before dropping it on the way. Details in the Breed Manual.

Deer fight back. Roughly one charge in four hurts the dog and stresses it. It is never lethal.

Limits

• Hunting is a rural activity. Game lives in the forest and the countryside, not in town.
• It only works in Follow mode.
• A leash of 32 tiles. If it strays too far it gives up, comes back and rests for 20 in-game minutes (tag Hunting: resting).
• It does not hunt during fast forward, while you sleep, inside a vehicle, or in the 5 minutes after an order from you.
• If it is already fighting a zombie, it will not consider hunting. But the reverse does not hold on its own: a zombie walking past does not pull the dog off the hunt. It drops the prey if you get into a fight, if auto-protect kicks in, or if you tell it to. Any order from you cancels the hunt on the spot.

The costs

• Hunting makes it hungry.
• The barking of the chase draws zombies, and that one is fixed, there is no turning it off.
• It leaves your side and is exposed.

Foraging bonuses

These are two different things, and both only show up with the game's Search Mode on.

a) It finds the forage spot (Hunt mode only). When there is no prey around, the dog looks for an animal forage spot, walks over, barks and points the place out: Your dog found something! Turn on Search Mode to see it. Tag: Sniffing for forage.

The dog never picks the item up for you. It shows you where to look; you do the harvesting, by turning Search Mode on and foraging at that spot.

b) It widens your search range (any breed, always). All you need is a dog of yours nearby, loyal and not too hungry or thirsty:

• +6 tiles of range at Hunting 0, reaching +12 tiles at Hunting 10.
• The animal, insect, tracks and carcass categories get much easier to find.

This is exclusive to no breed at all: it works even with a Caramelo. The Golden Retriever just adds another 4 tiles on top of that.

13. Caring for livestock

This mode turns the dog into a farmhand: it stays in the pen and looks after the herd on its own, even with you far away.

How to assign it

1. Make a designated animal zone (the base game's pen).
2. Take the dog inside it.
3. Right click → Care for livestock here.
4. Confirm. The mod warns you that the dog will be deselected and will no longer follow you.

Without a pen: Caramelo Rex needs a designated animal pen here to care for livestock.

What it does in there

• Patrols the pen.
• Calms the herd. This is the main thing: a stressed animal gives no milk and no wool, miscarries and scatters when a zombie shows up. The dog holds the herd's stress below the critical point.
• Drives off zombies silently in a radius of 12 tiles.
• Works even with you on the other side of the map.

Warnings: Caramelo Rex senses a zombie near the pen! and Caramelo Rex's herd is getting stressed! Tag over its head: Tending the livestock.

Important rules

• While on duty, hunger, thirst and loyalty decay are frozen. It takes care of itself.
• It is out of everything else: it does not fight for you, does not hunt, does not keep watch, does not use the bowl.
• An untrained, disloyal or panicking dog STRESSES the herd instead of calming it. Do not put an untrained puppy in charge of the cows.
• Selecting the dog again cancels the mode automatically.

The Border Collie learns Herding twice as fast as the other breeds, but any breed can do the job.

14. Saddlebags: the dog as a pack mule

How to equip them

1. Have the Companion Dogs Saddlebags in your inventory.
2. Right click the dog → Equip saddlebags. Saddlebags strapped on.
3. To open them: Open saddlebags (or the radial slice, or the button on the Commands tab).
4. To take them off: Take off saddlebags. The saddlebags with the cargo still inside drop on the ground.

How much it carries

Capacity comes from a fixed base plus the dog's Strength gene. With the default values:

The Husky is the only dog with a breed bonus on the saddlebag (50% more). All the others depend only on the Strength gene, so two dogs of the same breed can carry different amounts.

The server can change this with Saddlebag base capacity and Saddlebag strength bonus.

What you can put in

Almost anything, and the limit is weight, not item count. The exceptions:

• Another saddlebag.
• Equipped items (clothes you are wearing, a weapon in your hands).
• Backpacks and bags. Store the items inside them, not the bag.

Map annotations are not preserved. If you store an annotated map, the markings are lost: Map markings aren't kept in the saddlebag.

The window

Two lists side by side: Your inventory on the left (click to deposit) and the saddlebags on the right (click to take out). At the bottom: Cargo: 7/12.

Where to get them

Craft: 2x Leather Strips + Needle + Thread (the needle and thread are not consumed). Tailoring category, requires Tailoring level 1. Gives 15 Tailoring XP.

Loot: pet shops, pet supply crates, camping stores, hunting lockers, survival kits, garage tools and farm crates.

If the dog dies or is released, the saddlebags and all the cargo drop on the ground where it was.

15. Breeding and puppies

There is no "breed" button

Breeding is 100% passive. You do not order two dogs to mate. You set up the conditions and you wait.

Every in-game hour, each eligible female with an eligible male nearby has a chance to conceive on her own. The default is 5% per day (sandbox option Breeding chance per day).

The conditions

All of them required, on both dogs:

1. Both are companions of the same owner.
2. One adult male and one adult female. A puppy never breeds.
3. Neither one has Block breeding turned on.
4. Same floor and 40 tiles or less from each other.
5. Neither one badly hurt or intoxicated.
6. Loyalty of 60 or more on both.
7. Well fed: hunger and thirst below half on both.
8. The female is not pregnant and not on the 7 day cooldown after a birth.
9. There is a free slot in the dog limit.
10. The area has to be loaded near you.

In short: two well cared for dogs, together, with you nearby. If it is not happening, it is almost always hunger, thirst or loyalty.

The courtship and the pregnancy

The female walks over to the male (Caramelo Rex is heading to the mate) and conceives once she gets close. Caramelo Rex is pregnant.

• Gestation: 4 in-game days by default.
• The clock runs even with the female far away or you offline.
• Indicators above the head and in the menu: Pregnant and, near the end, Due soon. They show in pink and they show always, even with the status texts turned off.

The birth

Litter size depends on the breed of the mother:

Caramelo Rex had a litter. After that, 7 in-game days of rest before she can get pregnant again.

If the server has set a dog limit and there is no free slot, the litter is trimmed to fit (and the pregnancy ends all the same). With the factory default, which is no limit, this never happens.

What the puppy inherits

• The lineage is the average of the parents. A Caramelo with a German Shepherd gives 50/50. That mixed dog with a pure Shepherd gives 25/75.
• The looks are rolled with the lineage as the weight. A puppy that is 75% Shepherd will probably look like a Shepherd.
• The genes land between the parents, with a variation of plus or minus 6%. That is how you improve a bloodline: breed the two strongest dogs you have, over and over.
• A dog with more than one breed is tagged Mixed, and the window shows the breakdown (50% Husky, 50% German Shepherd).
• The pedigree is recorded: generation, name and breed of the father and the mother.

Raising the puppy

• It is born passive (in Stay mode), with 50 loyalty (not zero), no skills at all, and visibly smaller.
• It counts toward the dog limit from birth.
• It takes 90 in-game days to become an adult. The clock always runs, even with the puppy far away and out of range. If the deadline passes while it is unloaded, it turns adult as soon as you come near again.
• Growing up, it keeps its name, bond, genes and skills: Caramelo Rex grew up into an adult.
• If you liked the puppy small, the Pause growth toggle freezes it forever. Dogs that never grow up? Wish real life had that toggle :D

16. Several dogs at the same time

You can have several dogs, but only one goes out with you at a time: that is the active dog. The others are on standby.

This is planned to change in a future version. For now, plan around one dog at a time.

A passive dog is completely paused. That is a good thing: it is not dead weight you have to keep maintaining.

The point that matters most day to day: you do not have to feed the dogs on standby. They do not go hungry, do not lose loyalty and will not die of neglect while they wait. When you select one of them, its hunger picks up where it left off, with no nasty surprise piled up.

To switch, right click the dog → Select.

The menu of a passive dog is cut down on purpose: no feeding, no water, no movement orders, because none of that does anything to it.

The "My Dogs" tab: the registry

This is your dog registry. It lists every bonded dog with a portrait, name, breed, sex, skills and the current state:

Three buttons per dog: Bring | Status | Select.

Bring on a nearby dog is a simple teleport. On a dog that is away, it asks for confirmation: Call Caramelo Rex back from afar? Your loud whistle will draw zombies. and makes the dog reappear, keeping its skills, genes, name and saddlebags.

Cooldown of 2 in-game hours per dog. Try it sooner and you get: Caramelo Rex was called recently, wait a while before calling again.

This is how you recover a lost dog. If a dog goes missing, the mod warns you: Caramelo Rex has gone missing! Open My Dogs (paw button) to call it back.

17. The dog window

You can open it four ways: the paw button right below your hands panel, the Status key, the Status option in the context menu, or the button in the My Dogs tab.

The window is resizable and remembers where you left it. At the top there is a live 3D avatar of the dog with its name. Inside a car, the In vehicle banner shows up.

The "Skills and Status" tab

• Loyalty with a bar and an explanation on hover.
• Needs: Hunger, Thirst, Health, Stress.
• Skills: Scent, Combat, Obedience, Hunting, Herding, each with a progress bar and Lv X.
• Traits: Strength, Aggressiveness, Resistance, shown as Low / Average / High.
• Breed: name, age (Adult or Puppy), (Mixed) when it applies, with the breed description on hover.
• Kills: how many zombies and how much game that dog has taken down.

Everything has an explanation on hover. If you don't know what a bar does, hover over it.

The "Commands" tab

• Mode: Follow | Stay | Guard
• Sentinel: Alert | Quiet | Silent
• Auto-protect (on/off)
• Hunting (on/off)
• Care for livestock here
• Tricks: four buttons (locked ones are greyed out, with the reason on hover)
• Open saddlebags
• Actions: Bring | Rename | Release

Inside a vehicle, everything that needs the dog out in the world is disabled (Not available while driving, your companion is riding with you.) and the actions row becomes Feed | Rename | Give water.

The "My Dogs" tab

See Multiple dogs at once.

The "Settings" tab

These options are yours, per player, and don't affect anyone else on the server:

• Interface: Status texts: on/off (the floating warnings above the dog's head) and Mood image: on/off (the dog moodles).
• Sound: master volume, mute, and separate sliders for Barking, Effects and Ambient.
• Auto-feed: the Eats when hunger/thirst reaches slider.
• Keybindings: the 14 actions, with Rebind and Clear.

If the barking is getting on your nerves, the Barking slider here solves it without turning off any mechanic.

18. What shows up on screen

Dog moodles

A column of their own, to the left of the game's normal moodle column. Each breed has its own. Full detail in the breed manual.

The ones any dog can give:

A rule that holds for every breed moodle: a dog that is disloyal, sick, or very hungry or thirsty gives no bonus at all. The moodle simply switches off. A well cared for dog is a dog that delivers.

Text above the head

The dog stacks several status lines above its head, visible from 14 tiles and only on the same floor. From top to bottom: the sentinel alert, its state (Terrified, Panicking, Badly wounded, Disobedient, Hurt, Nervous), what it is doing (eating, hunting, sniffing, tending the livestock), pregnancy, and the name, always last and closest to the head.

The Status texts: off option (Settings tab) hides everything except the name. The sandbox option Show dog name tags turns off even the name.

Another player's dog shows only Owner: so-and-so, the pregnancy and the name.

Map marker

One paw per bonded dog, on the world map and on the minimap.

• Brown paw = active dog. Grey paw = passive dogs.
• On the world map the paw comes with the dog's name next to it. On the minimap it doesn't, and it sticks to the edge pointing in its direction when the dog is out of view.
• While the dog is loaded, the marker follows it live. When it unloads, the marker stays at the last seen position.

This is how you find a dog that got left behind, or your dog after you die. The marker is pure overlay, it never becomes a saved map symbol.

Turn it off with the sandbox option Show dog on map.

19. Mod items

The mod adds two items you actually use and nothing else.

Companion Dogs Bowl

The feeding station. Weight 1.5.

Two recipes, both requiring no skill at all and made by hand:

• 1 cooking utensil (pot, frying pan, baking tray, kettle, bucket, mug, bottle...), which is destroyed.
• 1 base game pet bowl, destroyed.

Loot: pet shop shelf, pet supply crate, grocery utility section, garden store, farm and gardening crates, grocery stockroom, kitchen.

Companion Dogs Saddlebags

See Saddlebags: the dog as a pack mule. Weight 1.0, with a good weight reduction inside.

What the mod does NOT have

To save you a pointless search: the bowl and the saddlebags are the only two items in the mod. There is no collar, no special treat, no toy, no doghouse and no buildable kennel. The base game's regular dog food is recognized by the mod, but it is a game item, not a mod item.

20. Multiplayer

The mod was built for multiplayer from the start, and works the same in co-op and on a dedicated server.

Your dog is yours

Ownership is tied to your account, not to the character or to the connection slot. Restarting the server does not hand your dog over to someone else.

Other players can: see the dog, with its name and Owner: so-and-so above its head.

Other players cannot:

When you disconnect

With the Stash dogs while owner is offline option on (that is the default):

• Your dogs are stored out of the world, with state and needs frozen.
• When you come back, the dog in Follow reappears at your side; the ones in Stay and Guard and the passive ones reappear where you left them, as soon as the area loads.
• You don't come back to a starving dog. Offline time does not count.

Turned off, the dogs stay in the world, invincible and idle.

For administrators

There is a Dog registry (admin): search by player, Online/Offline status, dog count and a Refresh button. There is also a live server performance tuning panel. Both are admin only.

Co-op installation warning

If the dog shows up with no texture or squashed: enable Companion Dogs in the Mods list on the main menu (not just in the co-op selection) and close the game completely before loading the save. The co-op host has to do the same and restart the server.

21. Sandbox options

The Companion Dogs page in your world settings. There are 33 options.

Remember: in multiplayer, the one that counts is the server's setting. And in Project Zomboid sandbox options are baked into the save, so changing them later means editing the save or starting a new world.

Taming and spawning

Combat

Care and bonding

Behaviour

Skills and activities

Saddlebag

Puppies

Interface and multiplayer

22. Common problems

The dog showed up with no texture, all mangled. Enable the mod in the Mods list on the main menu and close the game completely before loading the save. It is the number one problem in co-op.

I added the mod and nothing shows up in my save. Project Zomboid enables mods per save. A mod added later does not get into a world that already exists, and the game gives you no error at all. On the load-save screen, check that the mod is ticked for that world.

My dog won't obey. Look at the message. If it says doesn't trust you enough to obey, it is loyalty: feed it, give it water and pet it. If it says gets distracted and ignores you, it is a lack of training: repeat the order, the second one always goes through. If it is panic or a wound, take care of that first.

My dog doesn't kill zombies, it only knocks them down. If it is a Caramelo, that is exactly how it works, on purpose, and no setting changes it. Get another breed or accept its job of knocking them down for you to finish.

The dog barks all the time and brings zombies over. There are four possible sources, all of them under your control: the sentinel on Alert (switch it to Quiet, which never barks), the Distract trick (the noise is the whole point of it), hunting (turn Hunting mode off) and combat. A stressed dog does not bark on its own.

My dog is gone. Open the window on the paw button, go to the My Dogs tab and use Bring. If it is far away, the mod asks for confirmation and brings it back with everything it carried. Cooldown of 2 in-game hours per dog. The map marker also shows the last position seen.

The dog gets stuck on the other side of the fence. Use Bring (the whistle). That is exactly what it is for, at the cost of drawing zombies.

My dog won't get pregnant. Check the list of breeding conditions. Almost always it is hunger, thirst or loyalty below 60 on one of the two. Also check that Block breeding is not turned on.

My puppy won't grow. Check that Pause growth is not turned on for it. Other than that it is just time: the default is 90 in-game days, and the clock runs even with the puppy far away. If the deadline has passed and it is still a puppy, get close to it: the change happens when the puppy is loaded.

The dog won't get in the car with me. Only a dog on Follow gets in. On Stay or Guard, it stays put.

I left the dog guarding the base and it did nothing. Guard mode, for now, only works with you nearby. To leave a dog working on its own from far away, the only mode that does that is Care for livestock, and it needs a designated pen.

The dog learns way too slowly. The default of the Skill XP rate is 0.5, half speed. Raise it to 1.0 or more in a new world.

My dog died. There is no undo, and no respawn. The only cause is hunger or thirst taken to the extreme. The saddlebag and its cargo stay on the ground where it fell.