Pet

Pets are your companions in the dungeon. By default, each character starts with a pet.

Pros and cons of pets

Advantages of pets:

• They can be used to determine whether items are cursed.
• They are useful for stealing from shops without angering the shopkeeper.
• They can be a great help in combat.
• They can kill peaceful monsters for you (you are never penalised for your pets' actions).
• Some pets can be ridden, which is handy if the pet is faster than you or can fly.

Disadvantages of pets:

• Carnivorous pets often eat corpses that you want to eat.
• Herbivorous pets are tricky to keep fed and may attack you if they are confused from hunger.
• Pets may kill peaceful monsters that you want to keep alive. This is a particular problem if they are strong enough to kill priests and shopkeepers.
• The more pets you have, the more tedious it becomes to keep them with you. This problem is greatly reduced if you have a magic whistle.

Acquiring pets

Every pet is a tame monster and every tame monster is a pet.

Every hacker enters with a pet unless they have specifically set pettype:none in their configuration file. This is a kitten, a little dog, or a pony. The pet may or may not have a name, depending on whether certain environment variables (catname, dogname, horsename) in the configuration file are set; in addition, certain roles have built-in default pet names (for instance, a Samurai will, by default, start with a little dog named Hachi). Names of pets (and other critters) can be set/changed using the Call command, e.g. to baptize your dog.

Critters can be tamed (i.e. domesticated, adopted as pets) with a scroll of taming or spell of charm monster. Critters of the three species named above (dog (white d), cat (white f), horse (brown u)) can be won over with food; just throw the food at the critter in question. Dogs and cats will readily devour tripe rations, and most fresh meats that are non-poisonous. Horses will eat most things vegetable, yellow mold being one exception. All three of these species will eat food rations if they are hungry, and all non-tame ones are hungry.

Another way to obtain pets, if one is a weremonster, is to call one's #monster brethren (which arrive tame). This tactic can be combined with a polytrap to produce armies of high-quality pets.

Carrying an egg of a monster (e.g. Dragon, Naga, or Snake) may cause it to hatch and become your pet, with an appropriate message:

You see a guardian naga hatchling slither out of your pack!
Its cries sound like "daddy"?

In real life, it would be considered irresponsible to adopt more pets than you can afford to feed and otherwise look out for the welfare of, but Nethack will not penalise you for abandoning pets.

Protect your pet

It is in very bad form to attack your pet. If you are hallucinating, try using the #chat command to figure out which of the strange beings around you is your pet. You should also be very careful when blinded, confused, stunned, or when wielding Stormbringer.

Pets are vulnerable, especially when young. In the first few dungeon levels it is incumbent on you to lead, not follow your pet into unexplored rooms, where pits and other traps are far more dangerous to your pet than to you; the humble falling rock trap is probably one of the most well-known culprits, hence its nickname of "kitty killer". If your pet does get trapped, try #untrapping it. A wand or spell of undead turning can be used to resurrect your pet, but only if the manner of its demise leaves a corpse.

They say discretion is the better part of valor. Pets don't always possess such discretion, and often find themselves overpowered by opponents they take on. Be especially careful about bringing dogs in the Gnomish Mines, or horses into shops, especially in the deeper levels. Horses seem especially vulnerable to mimics, and have also been known to attack shopkeepers, perhaps due to confusion from hunger or perhaps some kind of alignment incompatibility.

Speed

Your pets follow you along stairways and portals if they are adjacent to you when you climb/descend/enter.

Life can be frustrating if you are considerably faster than your pet. A wand of speed monster can be helpful, as can a whistle, especially a magic whistle.

Removal of items which may be cursed from corridors can't hurt, unless of course one of the items is a load stone. See junk.

Feeding pets

For the three cardinal domesticable species, appropriate foods for routine feeding are as for taming. Eggs are appropriate for feeding dogs and cats, but they should be dropped with the d command, not thrown.

Generally your pets (especially the carnivorous ones) will feed themselves. Sometimes they will feed you.

It is advisable to #chat with your pet frequently. Their vocalizations change noticeably when they are hungry.

Preferred Pets

Dragons can fly and have very good attacks.

Gargoyles can fly and also have decent AC and attacks; in addition, they are resistant to stoning and starvation. Note that pet dragons and winged gargoyles can be obtained by polymorphing yourself and laying eggs.

Aleaxes, angels, and ki-rin don't eat, can fly, and have superb attacks. The ki-rin can take a saddle as well, making it an excellent mount.

Vampires and vampire lords don't breathe or eat, can fly, and will regenerate. They are also immune to death rays.

Cursed items

Pets will not pick up cursed items (but you should remember that some objects like the dunce cap and helm of opposite alignment become cursed when worn; also there is the loadstone, which curses when picked up). Except when there is food on the same spot, pets do not like to step on cursed items and will move reluctantly when they do. This is why cursed items in corridors can stand between you and your pet (see speed, above).

Learning from pets

Anthropomorphic pets can be sources of "transferrable (between sessions) knowledge" in that observation of their weapon-wielding and armor-wearing preferences can yield information about the relative merits of such items, in general and in specific situations.

Observation of various pet species in combat (as well as of combat situations your pets seem to avoid) can also be very instructional. They say discretion is the better part of valor. As with BUC, pets seem to understand this instinctively.

Generally speaking, if a corpse is safe for your pet to eat, it is also safe for you. The exceptions to this rule are that it is not a good idea for you to eat your own species, dogs, cats, bats (which will stun you) or violet fungi (which will make you hallucinate).