Large dog

d large dog
Difficulty	7
Attacks	Bite 2d4 physical

d large dog
Difficulty	7
Attacks	Bite 2d4 physical
Base level	6
Base experience	76
Speed	15
Base AC	4
Base MR	0
Alignment	0 (neutral)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	800
Nutritional value	250
Size	Medium
Resistances	None
Resistances conveyed	grants aggravate monster
A large dog: has no hands. is an animal. is carnivorous. can be tamed by feeding. is strong. can be seen through infravision.
Reference	NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 249

A large dog, d, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The large dog is a medium-sized and carnivorous canine animal that is strong and can be seen via infravision. Large 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, large 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 large dog has a single bite attack.

A hero eating a large 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 large dog will give various responses, depending on its tameness and condition.

Generation

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

Large 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 large dogs can be problematic to fight early on: though their 15 speed is lower than their other growth stages, it is still fast enough to chase down an unhasted hero with, and large dogs will usually have more HP than regular dogs (which is especially likely if they are found in a bones level). A former hero's large 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 other dogs, using spare food to pacify large dogs can avert a fight if necessary—remember that thrown cream pies, eggs, and melons will splatter on their face, and that meaty food and rations can be repeatedly thrown to try and tame them during a full moon without a risk of making them hostile. Similarly, those interested in exotic pets may want to tame and then polymorph any large 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 large dog can provide an idea of how it is feeling.

Characters that are physically weak and/or playing as less combat-capable roles, such as Archeologists and Healers, may want to raise their current dog to a large dog for more of an edge in tough encounters. This is especially vital for conducts such as pacifist, where the starting pet is generally the best option until the hero can either safely polymorph them or else obtains a wish for a figurine of their choice.

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 large 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 large dog is also part of the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0. Of note is that the large dog appears in two separate structures in the code of these versions: one is used for wild dogs, and another is used for pets.

In NetHack 3.4.3 and earlier versions, including some variants based on those versions, large 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 large dog> howls.

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

<The large 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 large dog> barks.

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

<The large dog> yips.

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

<The large dog> growls.

You chatted to a hostile little dog.

Variants

SLASH'EM

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

Large 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. Some large dogs are generated on multiple floors of this quest branch during level creation: two hostile large dogs are placed at fixed positions on the home level, and three hostile large dogs each are placed randomly on the filler levels and goal level.

dNetHack

In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, large dogs are lawful and can track targets via normal vision and scent, and they have a slightly stronger bite attack (2d6 versus 2d4 in NetHack).

Large 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 large dogs and other canines while wielded.

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

A large dog has a ¹⁄₁₀ chance of being generated with worn armor, which is based on the war dogs of Dungeons & Dragons. Armored large dogs have a ¹⁄₁₀₀ chance of being given plate mail, an effective ⁴⁄₉₉ chance of being generated with scale mail, and an effective ⁶⁄₉₅ chance of being generated with leather armor. Large dogs that generate with non-leather armor (¹⁄₂₀ chance) will be given a helmet.

TNNT (the game)

In TNNT (the game), one of the achievements requires your starting pet to survive to its last growth stage, e.g. the starting little dog has to become a large dog.

SpliceHack

In SpliceHack, dogs are given a fourth growth stage: the guard dog, which a large dog can grow up into.

EvilHack

In EvilHack, large 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, large 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, large 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, large 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. The same number of hostile large dogs are generated on multiple floors of this quest branch during level creation as in SLASH'EM: two are placed at fixed positions on the home level, and three each are placed randomly on the filler levels and goal level. Large 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.