Breed dogs for "sheep herder" ability

[Muunkey 39]

so the dogs will move the animals to where the grass is greener so compacted tiles stay empty

its that characteristic that makes sheep and cows run away from you

Edited August 6, 2022 by Muunkey

[Aleck 316]

+1000000000000000000 to this.

 

A new use for animal husbandry. A new use for dogs. A solution for the whole "Why does every animal want to stand in the corner and die of disease and starvation together when there's grass three tiles away" problem.

[magdegreen 43]

+1, would love to see dogs be useful.

[Vorticella 958]

That would be great! Enchanted grass is ugly. I prefer large pens with enough natural grass that animals can graze without packing tiles, but they don't move around enough on their own for this to work currently. I always have to replant tiles in my natural pens, even with very few animals in them. Anything that can help even out the grazing and give the grass a chance to recover would be fantastic, and it's a nice way to give dogs a purpose too

[Sheffie 1,120]

Right but only if the dogs can be border collies

[DaletheGood 1,073]

Yeah, I think this is a great idea. Not sure how it'd be implemented, what with the limit of 1 tamed animal at a time, but would be a nice solution to the clustering of animals onto 1 tile and repeatedly packing it.

[Vorticella 958]

57 minutes ago, DaletheGood said:

Yeah, I think this is a great idea. Not sure how it'd be implemented, what with the limit of 1 tamed animal at a time, but would be a nice solution to the clustering of animals onto 1 tile and repeatedly packing it.

 

The dogs wouldn't necessarily be tamed, it could just work automatically if they have the trait and are put in an enclosure with grazing animals.

[DaletheGood 1,073]

2 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

The dogs wouldn't necessarily be tamed, it could just work automatically if they have the trait and are put in an enclosure with grazing animals.

Oh, I was under the impression that you couldn't lead a dog without it being tamed, and that one of the breeding pair needed to be lead. Been a long time since I messed with AH tho, and even longer since I tried to tame a dog, so I don't know. But would be cool if they figured out how we could get herder dogs in the game.

[Vorticella 958]

37 minutes ago, DaletheGood said:

Oh, I was under the impression that you couldn't lead a dog without it being tamed, and that one of the breeding pair needed to be lead. Been a long time since I messed with AH tho, and even longer since I tried to tame a dog, so I don't know. But would be cool if they figured out how we could get herder dogs in the game.

 

For breeding you just tame one so you can lead and then untame after. To use in the animal pens I imagine you'd just need to tame to lead it there and then untame in the pen so it can roam freely and herd the animals.

[DaletheGood 1,073]

14 minutes ago, Vorticella said:

For breeding you just tame one so you can lead and then untame after. To use in the animal pens I imagine you'd just need to tame to lead it there and then untame in the pen so it can roam freely and herd the animals.

Oh, well there ya go

[Muunkey 39]

On 8/6/2022 at 4:00 PM, Muunkey said:

its that characteristic that makes sheep and cows run away from you

so for clarification, the characteristic that humans have that makes the cows and sheep walk away would be the skill that you breed for. so the dog can also be border collie like @sheffie suggested, lol even maybe an activation whistle to boot.

so its what ever code makes the animals move away from you that would be attributed to the dogs...

and BTW i think buffaloes have a dig up unidentified frags so this could actually be very complementary to that existent feature

[Lovelie 420]

4 minutes ago, Muunkey said:

and BTW i think buffaloes have a dig up unidentified frags so this could actually be very complementary to that existent feature

 

That's an Output trait, "It seems to pick stuff up", that you can breed onto any animal (not only bison). They can dig up fragments, seeds, sprouts...

 

That would be interesting if dogs made cows/sheep constantly walk around, and maybe could help prevent a billion of them gathering on the same damn tile, giving eachother diseases.

[Katrat 2,296]

+10 Taming absolutely needs better uses and this is a great one. I'm loving this idea! And +1 for Border Collies.