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Farm Pets

The pet barn

In Sunshine Islands, you can have four different pets. Three of the pets will live on the pre-built pet stable in the northwest corner of your farm, and the fourth pet lives on Mushroom Island. The pet stable is not for chickens or cows. If you want chickens, cows, and sheep, you will have to hire Gannon to build a Poultry Barn and a Livestock Barn.

  • The cat, dog, and horse farm pets do not produce anything for you to sell. These pets are used for the pet festivals - the Horse Festival is on Spring 19, the Cat Festival is on Summer 18, and the Dog Festival is on Fall 16. If your pets win the festivals, then you will earn a nice Wonderful Stone.
  • The pig pet that lives on Mushroom Island is used to find the ultra-rare Truffle mushroom. The higher your friendship is with the pig, the better the chance of it finding a Truffle.

You will start your game without any pets. As you work on your farm and friendships, you will earn the right to own pets and trigger the event "A New Pet" or "Gannon's Secret".

When you unlock a pet, you are given a choice of colors. There is no benefit to picking one color over the other, so just chose the color you like the best. You can't swap your pet later if you like the other color.

All of the pets need to be fed every day. You can buy Pet Food from Mirabelle's shop for 10 G each. The pets will eat from the feed bins even if they are outside. If you don't feed your pets, then you won't raise your friendship with them and you won't ever win the festivals or receive Truffles. You can hand-feed the pig for faster affection.

Unlocking The Horse

Brown Horse White Horse

The horse is the first pet most players unlock. To earn the horse, raise Mirabelle's friendship to 5000 points (almost 2 hearts). The morning after you meet this requirement, Mirabelle will stop by your house and give you a choice of horse colors: brown or white. The horse you don't choose will go back to Mirabelle's animal supplier.

You can't ride the horse. If you could, the horse could only take you to Sprout and Verdure Islands, and it's too big to fit into Kirk's boat. Instead, the horse is used for the Horse Festival, where you need to motivate your horse to pull its sled to the finish line. You can practice this by pressing A at the red sled in the pet stable.

Practicing For The Horse Festival

The horse pulling the sled

The goal of the horse sled mini game is to encourage your horse to reach the goal line in the fastest time possible. As your horse pulls the sled, it will get tired. You then have to talk (or simply blow) into the DS microphone to "cheer" for your horse. If you cheer at the right time, then your horse will feel energized and pull the sled even faster.

  • As your horse is pulling the sled, and it doesn't indicate any problems, don't blow or talk into your microphone.
  • When you see the stress bubble appear, that is when you can talk or blow into your DS microphone.
  • After your horse hears your cheering, it will be happier and start pulling the sled at a faster rate.

If you cheer for your horse when it is not looking for encouragement, it will slow down your horse's pace. Make sure you only use your microphone when you see the sweat drops appear above its head, and then stop when you see the music note.

The more hearts your horse has, the more of a speed increase you'll get when you cheer for your horse.

Unlocking The Cat

White Cat Black Cat

The cat is another pet you will unlock, but this one will cost you money. You need to spend 30,000 G at Mirabelle's shop to unlock the cat. Mirabelle's shop is open from 6:00 am until midnight, and is closed on Saturdays and festival days.

Everything you buy from Mirabelle counts for the 30,000 G requirement. Besides just purchasing animals, that you might not have room for on your farm, you could buy Animal Medicine. Each bottle of Animal Medicine is 1000 G each, and you may eventually need medicine for your animals at some point in time anyway.

The color of cat that you don't choose will go to Sprout Island and live with Martin. Each time you increase your friendship with Martin by 1 heart, a new cat will appear inside of his house. These cats belong to Martin and you can't take them out of his house.

Practicing For The Cat Festival

The cat stalking the foxtail

The cat luring game can be accessed by pressing A in front of the container of cat toys in your pet stable. In the game, entice your cat towards you by waving a toy foxtail to lure it in. You want to get your cat to your location as fast as possible.

Getting your cat's attention is accomplished by waving the foxtail. This is done by sliding the DS stylus back and forth horizontally across the touch screen. There's no advantage to sliding fast or slow; just move your stylus back and forth until you see a "!" thought bubble appear above your cat's head.

  • A lack of interest in your foxtail will return with a "..." emotion. When you see this, do not use your stylus! If you do, your cat will walk away from you instead of towards you.
  • As long as you continue to see a "!", you can slide your stylus horizontally to lure it towards you. The more hearts your cat has, the longer you can hold its attention before it flips back to "..." mode.
  • When your cat gets close, you may see a music note appear above its head. If you tap on the cat at this point, it will leap the rest of the way and quickly ends the game. The tricky thing is you only have a split second (literally!) to tap on the cat when you see the music note. When you cat has 9 or 10 hearts, you will have a half a second to tap on the cat. If you miss the music note leap shortcut, then you must continue through "!" and "..." until the cat walks to your location, which will increase your overall time.

Basically, you are playing "Red light, Green light" with your cat; move the stylus when you have its attention, and stop when it has lost interest.

Unlocking The Dog

Light Brown Dog Dark Brown Dog

The dog takes a little longer to unlock because you need to earn 500 Animal Degree points before Mirabelle gives you one. You can earn Animal Degree points by doing a variety of animal-related tasks, ranging from +1 point up to +1000 points per task.

Randomly around 6:00 pm, a wild dog may appear on your farm. The wild dog will bark and scare any unfenced animals that you may have outside at the time. The wild dog's bark will increase an animal's stress if it becomes startled. Your own dog can chase away the wild dog, which keeps your animals happy.

The color of dog you don't choose will be sent to live with Slater on Verdure Island. Each heart of friendship you earn with the miner will increase the number of dogs he has by one.

Practicing For The Dog Festival

Chasing the disc

You will be throwing a disc and your dog will chase after it, similar to the disc game in the Gameboy Advance game. Throwing the disc is done by quickly sliding your stylus in one stroke, from the left-side of the touch screen to the right-side. Your dog will then chase after the disc and try to catch it. There isn't a time limit and your score is based on how far your disc flies before your dog catches it.

Before you can throw, your dog will give you a hint about the farthest it will be able to run and successfully catch the flying disc:

  • 20 meters or less
  • 20 to 30 meters
  • 30 to 40 meters
  • 40 to 50 meters
  • 50 meters or more

If you throw farther than you dog has the motivation to run, it won't be able to catch the disc. The distance thrown is best done by experience, and it takes some practice to know how far your stylus movements will throw the disc. If you start from the left side and swipe about half way across your touch screen, you'll go about 25 meters or so. The shortest distance you can throw is 5 meters, and the farthest is about 62 meters.

The more hearts your dog has, the more often you'll see the music note or heart thought bubbles. If you're trying for the high score at the Dog Festival, save your game before entering the contest. Since you can't control what distance indicator the dog will give, you will be able to reload your save game if you don't get a heart bubble.

Unlocking The Pig

Pink Pig Black Pig

To get a pig, you need to ship 100 mushrooms from Mushroom Island. To raise Mushroom Island, collect 12 Sun Stones and take them to Agete on Meadow Island. After the island has been raised, collect the Mushrooms, Poisonous Mushrooms, and Mushroom Clusters that appear each day. Once you have shipped 100 total, return to Mushroom Island between 6:00 am and 5:00 pm to unlock the event, "Gannon's Secret." You may also need to have met Shea and seen his introduction event.

You and Chen discover that Gannon has been forced to take care of two pigs by one of his relatives. He has to keep them on this island because Eliza doesn't want pigs in the house. Since Gannon doesn't have enough time to properly take care of both pigs, you are given one of the pigs and Chen offers to find a home for the other one.

The pig shed

Gannon will build a Pig Pen for your pet on Mushroom Island. Since the pig can not leave the island, you have to travel here every day to feed it. The pig will eat Pet Food, which you can place in its feed bin inside of the Pig Pen. The pig prefers to be hand fed though, since doing so will earn bonus friendship points. To hand feed the pig, simply give it an edible item as though you were handing over a present.

(Remember, each animal heart is worth 100 friendship points. One heart is 1 to 100 FP, the second heart is 101 to 200, etc.)

The pig's favorite foods are berries and fruit, so you will earn +3 FP for: Banana, Blueberry, Grape, Orange, Peach, Pineapple, and Strawberries. Everything else is worth +1 FP except for fish, which it is not fond of and won't earn you any bonus points.

If you hand feed the pig, it will not eat out of the food bin inside the Pig Pen for that day. This means you can feed the pig for two days if you wanted to; put Pet Food in its feed bin, and then hand feed it. The next day when you don't visit, it will eat out of the feed bin instead.

If you happen to take a piece of food out of your rucksack within the pig's personal space, it will run towards you because it thinks you are going to hand feed it, if it hasn't been fed that day. If you then put the food back into your rucksack, throw it onto the ground, or eat it yourself, you will make your pig very grouchy! Since you have wasted food the pig felt it was entitled to, you will loose 10 friendship points! Be careful when taking edible objects out of your rucksack in the vicinity of the pig.

The pig likes to stay outside on sunny days, just like the other animals you have.

Using The Pig To Find Mushrooms

Searching for fungus

To use the pig to locate mushrooms, pick it up when you are outside and then toss it back onto the ground. Your pig will run off into the brush around the edges of the island and search for mushrooms. When it finds a mushroom, it will sprint out of the bushes! Now you must chase after your pig and catch it, by pressing A, in order to collect what its found.

There is no benefit to having the pig search one area of the underbrush or another area. It will find the same types of mushrooms no matter what corner of the island it sniffs around in.

When you do catch your pig, you will be told what type of mushroom it has located for you. The mushroom is automatically placed into your rucksack. When you put the pig back down, you may see a "grumpy" thought bubble appear; you don't loose any friendship with the pig by taking its mushroom though. When you get a high level of friendship, the "grumpy" turns into a pleasant "heart" anyway.

If you take longer than 30 seconds to catch your pig, it will eat the mushroom that it found. The faster you catch it, the higher the mushroom's Size ranking will be. The more hearts the pet has, the higher the Quality ranking will be.

You can use the pig to find mushrooms once a day.

The pig doesn't need to be at a certain heart level to locate mushrooms for you, but the more hearts it has, the better the chance of finding the ultra-rare Truffle:

  • 0 to 250 FP (0 to 3.5 hearts) = 3% chance of finding a Truffle
  • 251 to 500 FP (3.5 to 5 hearts) = 5% chance of finding a Truffle
  • 501 to 750 FP (6 to 8.5 hearts) = 10% chance of finding a Truffle
  • 750 to 1000 FP (8.5 to 10 hearts) = 20% chance of finding a Truffle

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