Dog

d dog
Difficulty	5
Attacks	Bite 1d6 physical

d dog
Difficulty	5
Attacks	Bite 1d6 physical
Base level	4
Base experience	44
Speed	16
Base AC	5
Base MR	0
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	400
Nutritional value	200
Size	Medium
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	grants aggravate monster
A dog: has no hands. is an animal. is carnivorous. can be tamed by feeding. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 242

A dog, d, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The dog is a medium-sized and carnivorous canine animal that can be seen via infravision. Dogs are domestic monsters that the hero can tame by throwing any type of meat or rations they are capable of eating at them, and the hero can also pacify them by throwing veggy food. During a full moon, dogs have a ⁵⁄₆ chance of becoming peaceful instead of tame when throwing acceptable food to them, and they will not become hostile from thrown food while the full moon is active.

A dog has a single bite attack.

A hero eating a dog corpse or tin will gain the aggravate monster intrinsic upon finishing the meal, unless they are an orc or a Cave Dweller.

Chatting to a dog will give various responses, depending on its tameness and condition.

Generation

Randomly-generated dogs may be created as peaceful towards neutral heroes. A little dog can grow up into a dog, and a dog can grow up into a large dog.

Dogs can appear among the random d that are part of the first quest monster class for Samurai and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Samurai quest.

Strategy

Hostile dogs can actually be slightly less annoying than little dogs due to having slightly less movement speed (at 16 versus the little dog's 18), but they will also usually have more HP, which is especially likely if they are found on a bones level. A former hero's dog can be tamed to help deal with their ghost, sort through bones items and ideally help against whatever monster killed off the previous owner.

As with little dogs, using spare food to pacify dogs can avert a fight if necessary—remember that thrown cream pies, eggs, and melons will splatter on the dog's face, and that meaty food and rations can be repeatedly thrown to try and tame dogs during a full moon without a risk of angering them. Similarly, those with an interest in exotic pets may want to tame and then polymorph any dogs they encounter, e.g. by zapping a wand of polymorph or applying a magic whistle near a polymorph trap.

As pets

Chatting with a tamed dog {{sa|Messages|can provide an idea}] of how it is feeling.

Below is a table describing how much weight in objects a domestic carnivore at a particular stage of growth can carry, which is generally applicable for credit cloning and otherwise ripping off shopkeepers—remember that cats and dogs can only pick up a single object at a time:

Pet type	Corpse wt	Can carry unassisted	in uncursed bag of holding	in blessed bag of holding
kitten/little dog	150	51	72	144
housecat/dog	200 / 400	68 / 137	106 / 244	212 / 488
large cat/large dog	250 / 800	1000	1970	3940

History

The dog first appears in Hack for PDP-11, which is based on Jay Fenlason's Hack—pets are not present in Hack 1.21, suggesting that they were an early addition by Andries Brouwer. The dog is part of the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0.

In NetHack 3.4.3 and earlier versions, including some variants based on those versions, dogs are capable of picking up part or all of an item stack, so long as that stack does not exceed their carrying capacity.

Origin

The dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated descendant of a now-extinct species of gray wolves, with the living gray wolves being their closest living relative. The dog was the first species to be domesticated by humans, with archeological evidence of pre-agricultural hunter-gatherers keeping dogs dated as far back as 15,000 years ago. Dogs have been selectively bred over millennia for various behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes, with breeds varying widely in shape, size, and color, and they thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids—they are omnivorous rather than solely carnivorous as in NetHack, but can use nutrients from a variety of sources and survive on a properly balanced vegetarian diet.

A pet dog performs many roles for humans, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and the military, companionship, therapy, and aiding disabled people. Over the millennia, dogs became uniquely adapted to human behavior, and the human–canine bond has been a topic of frequent study: this influence on human society has given them the sobriquet of "man's best friend", and they are naturally iconic video game pets as well, with the Nintendogs games being a well-regarded example. The little dog from NetHack was ranked number 6 on Gamespy's top 10 list of video game sidekicks—another dog, Dogmeat from the first Fallout game, occupies the number 2 spot.

In the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons, dogs appear in two forms: war dogs are simply loyal large dogs that are trained to fight by their masters and display ferocity in battle, and are typically protected by light studded leather armor and a spiked collar; wild dogs inhabit most regions, with their pack habitats sometimes overlapping with those of wolves, and well-fed wild dogs will simply avoid contact rather than attacking. A wild dog can only be tamed if separated from their pack. Dungeons & Dragons also incorporates various dog breeds, both mundane and fantastic, over its several editions.

Messages

<The dog> howls.

You chatted to a little dog while it is night during a full moon, regardless of other circumstances.

<The dog> whines.

Your tame little dog is hungry, caught in a trap, confused, scared, or at low tameness. A leashed little dog that is near a square with a trap will also whine on its own.

<The dog> barks.

A tame little dog will become hungry in 1000 turns or less, or you chatted to a peaceful little dog.

<The dog> yips.

You chatted to a tame little dog, and none of the above conditions apply.

<The dog> growls.

You chatted to a hostile little dog.

Variants

SLASH'EM

In SLASH'EM, dogs and their other growth stages have their frequency raised to 7. They also do not randomly generate in Gehennom.

Dogs can appear among the random d that are part of the second quest monster class for Yeomen and make up ⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Yeoman quest.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, dogs are lawful and can track targets via normal vision and scent, and they have a slightly stronger bite attack (1d8 versus 1d6 in NetHack).

Dogs can be warded by a Toustefna stave that is carved into a wooden weapon and placed on the hero's square, and that weapon will also warn of dogs and other canines while wielded.

Dogs can appear among the d that make up ¹⁄₁₀ of monsters randomly generated in the Windowless Tower branch.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, dogs can appear among the random d that are part of the first quest monster class for Infidels and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Infidel quest.

SlashTHEM

In SlashTHEM, in addition to SLASH'EM details, dogs can appear among the random d that are part of the first quest monster class for Ninjas and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Ninja quest.

Hack'EM

In Hack'EM, dogs and their other growth stages that can generate randomly (i.e. excluding the guard dog) have their frequency raised to 3, rather than 7 as in SLASH'EM, and can randomly generate in Gehennom.

As in SLASH'EM, dogs can appear among the random d that are part of the second quest monster class for Yeomen and make up ⁶⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Yeoman quest. Dogs can also appear among the random d that are part of the first quest monster class for Infidels and make up ²⁴⁄₁₇₅ of the monsters randomly generated on the Infidel quest, as in EvilHack.

Encyclopedia entry

A domestic animal, the _tame dog_ (_Canis familiaris_), of
which numerous breeds exist. The male is called a dog,
while the female is called a bitch. Because of its known
loyalty to man and gentleness with children, it is the
world's most popular domestic animal. It can easily be
trained to perform various tasks.