Little dog
d little dog 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 3 |
| Attacks | |
| Base level | 2 |
| Base experience | 20 |
| Speed | 18 |
| Base AC | 6 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 1 (Very rare) |
| Genocidable | Yes |
| Weight | 150 |
| Nutritional value | 150 |
| Size | Small |
| Resistances | None |
| Resistances conveyed | grants aggravate monster |
|
A little dog:
| |
| Reference | NetHack 5.0.0 - include/monsters.h, line 228 |
A little dog, d, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. The little dog is a small and carnivorous canine animal that can be seen via infravision. Little 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, little 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.[1]
A little dog has a single bite attack.
A hero eating a little dog corpse or tin will gain the aggravate monster intrinsic upon finishing the meal, unless they are an orc or a Cave Dweller.[2][3]
Chatting to a little dog will give various responses, depending on its tameness and condition.
Contents
Generation
Randomly-generated little dogs may be created as peaceful towards neutral heroes. A little dog can grow up into a dog.
The little dog is one of the most commonplace starting pets in NetHack:[4] every role can start with a little dog by default, with the exception of both the Knight (who always starts with a saddled pony[5][6]) and the Wizard (who always starts with a kitten[7]).
The following roles that can start with little dogs (or always do in some cases) will give them default names if the dogname option is not set:[8]
- A Barbarian's starting little dog will be named Idefix.[9][10]
- Cave Dwellers always start with a little dog named Slasher.[11][12]
- Rangers always start with a little dog named Sirius.[13][14]
- Samurai always start with a little dog named Hachi.[15][16]
A little dog is one of the pet monsters that can be created via the spell of create familiar, with a default 1⁄6 chance if no preferred pet type is set.[17][18]
Little 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
As hostile monsters, little dogs can be annoying or even threatening to early heroes that do not have a spare food item to throw in order to get the dog off their back—cream pies, eggs, and melons are not suitable choices, since they will splatter on the little dog's face. Veggy food such as lichen corpses will reliably pacify a hostile little dog without giving up a food source. Meaty food and rations can be repeatedly thrown to try and tame little dogs during a full moon without a risk of angering them. Running across a named little dog is one of many signs that you might be on a bones level—taming such pets can be helpful to sort through bones items and possibly even help against the ghost of their former owner and/or whatever monster killed them.
Once a hero finds their footing and establishes a basic kit, they may want to keep a veggy food item such as an apple or pear around to pacify little dogs and other domestic carnivores that they do not want to fight or keep as pets. Similarly, those with an interest in exotic pets may want to tame and then polymorph any little dogs they encounter, e.g. by zapping a wand of polymorph or applying a magic whistle near a polymorph trap.
As pets
The starting little dog can be invaluable to a hero in the early stages of the game: they move at 18 speed and have a bite attack that can make early hostile monsters into easy kills, and little dogs can survive through several fights if they avoid enough counterattacks. Conversely, they are not smart enough to avoid monsters with passive attacks, such as acid blobs or floating eyes, and little dogs that serve as starting pets are weaker than their wild counterparts within the dungeon. They also are extremely vulnerable to traps such as falling rock traps and rolling boulder traps, which are sometimes called "puppy pounders" since many of these traps can often kill the starting pet within the first hundred turns of a game.
Chatting with a tamed little dog 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 little 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 little dog is part of the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0.
The little dog serves as the default pet from Hack for PDP-11 and Hack 1.0 to NetHack 2.3e. In NetHack 3.0.0, the kitten is introduced and becomes an alternate starting pet option: the Caveman will always start with a little dog, the Wizard will always start with a kitten, and other roles will randomly receive one of either. NetHack 3.0.8 allows an option of either pet to be set for characters in other roles; the Samurai's default little dog is introduced in NetHack 3.1.0; and finally, NetHack 3.3.0 adds the default little dog for Rangers and establishes the saddled pony as the Knight's starting pet.
In NetHack 3.4.3 and earlier versions, including some variants based on those versions, little dogs are capable of picking up some 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 little dog> howls.
- You chatted to a little dog while it is night during a full moon, regardless of other circumstances.[19]
- <The little dog> whines.
- Your tame little dog is hungry, caught in a trap, confused, scared, or at low tameness.[20] A leashed little dog that is near a square with a trap will also whine on its own.[21]
- <The little dog> barks.
- A tame little dog will become hungry in 1000 turns or less, or you chatted to a peaceful little dog.[22]
- <The little dog> yips.
- You chatted to a tame little dog, and none of the above conditions apply.[23]
- <The little dog> growls.
- You chatted to a hostile little dog.[24]
Variants
SLASH'EM
In SLASH'EM, little dogs and their other growth stages have their frequency raised to 7. They also do not randomly generate in Gehennom. Undead Slayers have a 1⁄2 chance of a little dog serving as their starting pet.[25][26]
A little dog is generated on the second map of the Mall during level creation.
Little 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.
UnNetHack
In UnNetHack, a little dog is generated on the first map of the Town branch's shop-filled floor during level creation.
dNetHack
In dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack, little dogs are lawful and can track targets via normal vision and scent.
Little 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 little dogs and other canines while wielded.
Little dogs can appear among the d that make up 1⁄10 of monsters randomly generated in the Windowless Tower branch.
TNNT (the game)
In TNNT (the game), little dogs named Yermak, Rocky and Fudd each have a 1⁄5 chance of being generated within the DevTeam Office rooms behind secret doors during level creation.
One of the TNNT achievements requires the initial pet to survive to its last growth stage, e.g. the starting little dog has to become a large dog.
EvilHack
In EvilHack, little 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, little 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.
SlashTHEM also includes the Town branch and the map containing the little dog.
Hack'EM
In Hack'EM, little 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 also randomly generate in Gehennom.
As in SLASH'EM, little 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. Little 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.
Hack'EM also includes the Town branch, which uses both the map that appears in SlashTHEM and UnNetHack and the Mall maps from SLASH'EM.
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.
References
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 1176-L1178
- ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 51
- ↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 814-L826
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 97-L100
- ↑ src/role.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 209
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 264-L268
- ↑ src/role.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 548
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 238
- ↑ src/role.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 87
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 244
- ↑ src/role.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 128
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 240
- ↑ src/role.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 387
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 3.6.7, line 246
- ↑ src/role.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 428
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 242
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 99: pet_type() function
- ↑ src/dog.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 124: pick_familiar_pm() has 1⁄3 chance of calling pet_type()
- ↑ src/sounds.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 838-L839
- ↑ src/sounds.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 841-L844
- ↑ src/sounds.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 495-L497
- ↑ src/sounds.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 847-L849
- ↑ src/sounds.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 845-L846
- ↑ src/sounds.c in NetHack 5.0.0, line 851-L853
- ↑ role.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 464
- ↑ dog.c in SLASH'EM 0.0.7E7F2, line 46
