By Glenn Song - October 19, 2005

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The breeds of Nintendogs

Do you remember asking your parents for a puppy as a kid? You promised everything: you would feed it, bathe it, play with it, and take care of it no matter what. Or maybe you're just plain allergic to dog hair and just can't own one. Maybe you live in an apartment complex that doesn't allow pets. What's a kid to do? He can ask his parents to get him Nintendogs (and a DS, because there's an incredible library of games for it, but I digress). Nintendogs is the next best thing: your very own virtual puppy simulator. It's currently the ultimate tamagotchi in Japan, and from the first week's sales of Nintendogs in America, it looks like 1 out of 7 DS owners are happy cyberpup owners, and that's a pretty high adoption rate.

True to life, you can bathe, walk, feed, and play with your virtual pup but all in the confines of your Nintendo DS. Nintendogs starts out in the kennel where you can buy yourself one of man's best friends. There are three versions of the game each with six breeds you can initially choose from. Here's the list:

Dachshund & Friends: Golden Retriever, Siberian Husky, Pug, Shih Tzu, Miniature Dachshund, Beagle

Chihuahua & Friends: Shetland Sheepdog, Boxer, Chihuahua, Cavalier K C Spaniel, Yorkshire Terrier, German Shepherd Dog

Labrador & Friends: Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Labroador Retriever, Miniature Pinscher, Toy Poodle, Shiba Inu, Miniature Schanuzer

After you've taken your new pup home you can name him by saying his name into the DS microphone. After a few times your puppy will recognize his name and you can call him or whistle to him to get his attention ' tapping the stylus on the screen works as well.

So, What Can You Do With Your Dog?

You might be thinking that this is like the Sims but with dogs instead of people, but Nintendogs isn't about virtual babysitting. There are only three "motives" that you need to satisfy: hunger, thirst, and cleanliness. Unlike the Sims there is no menu of meters on the interface of Nintendogs. You go to a separate status page and check on how the dogs are doing and then do the thing. Go to your supplies menu and pick dog food or bottled water and your dogs will gladly chow down and be satisfied for a couple of hours. In Nintendogs you keep your puppies happy by playing with them and not by satisfying a network of constraints over and over again.

Bathing your pup is nifty since it uses the stylus. You grab a sponge and scrub it over your mutt until the soap lathers. Once he's covered in soap suds you can grab the shower head and wash it off. When he sparkles he's all clean.

Once these chores are handled, and it's pretty fast, you can get to the meat of the game: teaching your dog tricks, taking them on walks, and playing catch, are just to name a few.

Tricks

There are two levels to teaching your puppy tricks. There are basic commands where you use the stylus to guide your dog into sitting and laying positions. After you've guided your pup into a sitting position (for instance) you will see a light bulb appear in the top right hand corner of the screen. Tap it and a thought bubble will appear over your canine and you can speak the name of the trick and your dog will learn it. With a couple repetitions of the same trick eventually sparkles will emit from your pup as a sign of recognition. You then get to write the trick down for your own sake and teach your pup something new.

The advanced level of teaching your dog tricks comes in the form of simply using voice commands. You use your basic commands as building blocks for these advanced tricks. For instance two basic commands are "sit down" and "jump." Combine them together after you've taught them to your pup and you can have him do a "backflip." Realistic? Probably not, but fun? Hell, yes.

There are some things to keep in mind when teaching tricks though. Mainly what you name your tricks and how you use your microphone. The microphone on the DS is finicky, so you want to maintain a good distance from the mic - like maybe at half an arm's length from your face. Say the name of your trick with a clear voice making sure to enunciate the words properly. Giving different tricks unique names is also important since your pup can get confused easily if you have two tricks that sound similar (i.e. "handstand" and "stand up" may cause conflicts). The beauty of the voice recognition is to allow you to name tricks whatever you would like.

Other Activities

It's all well and nice to teach your dog new tricks, but there are other activities you can pursue. You can teach your dog to catch Frisbees and later on you can teach him to run an obstacle course. But, you ask, to what end? There are competitions that you can enter your puppy into such as a disc catching competition, an agility trial, and an obedience one. The disc competition has your puppy trying to catch discs for points - longer the throw equals more points. The agility competition is an obstacle course including a slalom, seesaws, tunnels, and hurdles to jump, but before you enter into this competition you might want to train your pet at a local gym. The obedience trials give you a list of basic tricks (sitting, rolling over, shaking) and you try to get your pup to do them.

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1: The breeds of Nintendogs 2: Activities