The Cat, Dog, and Horse Pets
Pets in Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar help you to make managing your farm a little bit easier. The pets don't produce anything for sale, but they help you save time so you can work on other chores.
At the beginning of the game, you won't have any pets on your farm. You can unlock pets as you proceed through the years. Once you obtain a pet, you can not sell it and it will never die of sickness. Detailed information about your pets (friendship, training, etc.) can be found on the blackboard inside of your animal barn. Pets come in a variety of different colors and there is no advantage to choosing a specific color.
You can own five cats, five dogs, and one horse.
Cats and Dogs
Cats are unlocked once you own four or more chickens. You can buy the cats at Enrique's Animal booth at the bazaar for 10,000 G each. The black and white cats are available once you unlock the ability to own cats. The orange and peach cats are available starting in year 3.
Dogs are unlocked once you own a combination of four or more cows and/or sheep. There are two different styles of dogs; a pointy-ear dog and a floppy-ear dog. The pointy-ear black and light brown dogs are available once you unlock the ability to own dogs. The floppy-ear brown dogs appear starting in year 2. After you reach your 3rd year in the game, the remaining 3 colors of dogs are unlocked. A pointy-ear dog costs 8000 G and a floppy-ear dog costs 10,000 G.
Cats and Dogs eat Pet Food from Raul's Zephyr Town shop. Each can of food can feed 5 cats and dogs, and the feed trough in your house can hold up to 3 cans of food. If you do not feed your pets then they will lose Friendship Points.
Working on the farm
Cats and dogs automatically herd animals from your barn to the outside areas. Cats will manage the chickens while dogs will take care of the cows and sheep. The pets will start working around 8:00 am and bring the animals back inside starting around 4:00 pm.
Dogs will not take your cows or sheep outside when it is raining outside, but they will take them outside if it is snowing. The snow won't decrease your cow or sheep friendship points, so don't panic when you see your dogs taking your cows outside in winter. They won't take animals outside during a snowstorm.
Cats will take chickens outside on sunny or cloudy days, but they keep them indoors on rainy and snowy days.
Cat and Dog Training
| T.P. | Animals |
|---|---|
| 0 | 1 |
| 50 | 2 |
| 100 | 3 |
| 300 | 4 |
| 600 | 5 |
| 1000 | 6 |
The more your pets are trained, the more animals each one can handle. You can see your pets' training stars on the blackboard inside of your farm. Each training star is worth 100 points, with a maximum of 1000 points (10 stars). When a pet has 1000 Training Points, it can herd six animals.
To train your dogs and cats, you will need to buy the Dog Bone and Cat Bell from Felix' bazaar booth. The two items will not appear until after you own a dog and cat, and then they have a chance of randomly being available for purchase at the bazaar. The Dog Bone and Cat Bell cost 2500 G each. If you lose the bone or bell, you can buy another at Felix's booth.
The Bell is not the same thing as the Cat Bell. The Bell is an item you can use to gather your sheep and cows together if you were pushing them in and out of the barn. Once you own dogs to herd your animals for you, the Bell is useless and can be stored in your storage house.
You will earn the maximum amount of training points if you use the bone and bell once per day. You can train with your pet more than once, but it will take more effort to earn the same amount of TP.
The Cat Bell
Using the Cat Bell works best if your cats are together in the same area. Then simply take the Cat Bell out of your rucksack and throw it at them.
- When the cat(s) notice the bell ( ) then you will earn 1 Training Point.
- The first time a cat touches the Cat Bell in a day, then you will earn 3 Training Points.
- If the cat continues to hit the bell around, it takes 5 hits before it will earn an additional 1 Training Point.
The problem with the Cat Bell is that it can be lost fairly easily. I've had cats who have hit the bell into the kitchen area, only to have it vanish and never return. It helps to follow the bell around as your cats hit it and keep it on your screen. The other option is to simply toss the Cat Bell into your Basket, where it is automatically placed into your storage house. The cats will get 1 Training Point for noticing you throwing it, and if you take the Cat Bell back out of the house and throw it back into the Basket, you'll continue to rack up Training Points.
The Dog Bone
Training the dogs is the same method as training the cats, but by using the Dog Bone instead. Throw the bone when standing near a dog to start training.
- When the dog(s) notice the bone ( ) then you will earn 1 Training Point.
- When the dog fetches the bone the first time in a day, and brings it back to you, it will earn 3 Training Points.
- If you continue to throw the bone and the dog brings it back, it will take 5 returns before you will earn an additional TP for the day.
The easiest way to train your dogs is to go into your house and throw the Dog Bone up against a wall. It will bounce back towards you. When the dog picks it up, the distance it needs to run to return the bone is greatly reduced. This means you can throw the Dog Bone more often indoors compared to trowing it outdoors in the same amount of time.
Horse
The horse is a free pet you receive on Summer 2 of your second year. When you awake in the morning, Enrique will walk you outside and give you an option to choose one of four horse colors. It doesn't matter what color you pick, and you can't change your choice afterward.
You can use the horse to move around Zephyr Town faster than you can run. The horse can only move along the town paths and can't take short-cuts by jumping on the barrels like you can. You can take the horse everywhere except into the Waterfall or into the bazaar grounds.
The horse eats the carrot-shaped Horse Treats from Raul's town shop; just toss the biscuit on the ground near the horse to feed it. Each treat costs 150 G and you can start buying them from his shop the day after you get the horse (Summer 3). If you don't feed the horse, then it will lose friendship points.
Horse Training
The horse's Friendship Points (hearts) determine its maximum top speed when running and its Training Points help to increase the amount of FP you can earn when riding the horse at the race track. Basically, "training" the horse speeds up the time it takes to reach 10 hearts. The horse doesn't herd anything like the dog or cat does.
Each heart the horse has is 100 FP. To increase its friendship, you can do the normal tasks like riding it each day (+3 FP), feeding it (+1), brushing it (+3), and talking to it with the Stethoscope tool (+3). It will take a long time to increase its friendship if you just do the basic things. With a low FP level, the horse won't be very fast.
To unlock the race track, walk to the pile of boulders to the west of Lloyd's house after you own a horse. You'll meet up with Felix and Wilbur, who will destroy the boulders so you can use the track.
After the boulders are gone, you can ride your horse to the track. When you arrive, you can choose to Practice or view the scores of your previous Practice Records. When you are in Practice mode, you have 3 laps around the track to jump over the track hurdles. The game will record how many times you jump over the hurdles without bumping into an object. The highest number of successful jumps you make will be the amount of Training Points you earn for that day.
Only your first Practice run of each day will give you the maximum number of TP. If you try to practice a second time in the same day, you'll only earn 1 TP no matter how many times you jump over the hurdles.
(You can race backwards if you're really trying to earn a large TP combination.)
After you have passed your three laps, your horse will earn Friendship Points depending on the number of training stars it has; 0 stars is +5 FP, 1 star is +6 FP, 2 stars is +7 FP, and so on. The maximum Friendship Points you can earn for finishing a practice run is 15 FP (10 stars).