🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <105@bbnccv.UUCP> ptraynor@bbnccv.UUCP (Patrick Traynor) writes:
>I've seen the message 'You feel worried about your dog' on occasion, 

This means that doggie is REALLY hungry, but you only get this message
when doggie is not in sight.
>
>Is there some control character that I don't know about to check on your
>dog's present state of hunger?  If not, does someone have any handy
>rule of thumb to feed him?  Does he like food rations?  Is he getting
>enough vitamin B12 in his tripe ration?
>
I don't know of any such commands, nor do I think one exists.
Generally, I try to feed it some of the dead monsters that's acceptable
to a dog's palate but not a human's, e.g. bats, orcs etc.  If I got
more than, say, 3 tripe rations I'll give one as a treat.  Also I let it
munch on edible corpses when I am "Satiated".  Note that if a dog is tame
it will not eat food rations.

>Perhaps even more important, after I've past the first few levels and
>have 30-40 hit points to play with, do I really need him?  (Sorry if
>that sounds heartless...)  

As doggie eats, it grows.  When it is a large it does help when you
are fronted with say a flock of orcs.  But don't let it fight a swarm
of bees because the poison can kill it quite quickly.

>I've heard rumors about taming a dog to rip
>off a shop, but in all the games I've played, I've found a grand total
>of ONE scroll of taming (and that was long after my dog starved).
>
The dog you start out with is ALWAYS tame.  What the rumor means is that
if you treat it nicely (i.e. keep it well fed) it will follow you into
a shop and take something out of it (one thing at a time).
A scroll of taming works on MONSTERS.  If you read one, all monsters in the
room will be tamed.  *THEN*, if you throw some <food> at it, you will see
"The <monster> devours the <food>." and it will fight FOR you.
If you go up/down a level without your dog, if you go back to the level
the dog will become confused and will perhaps bite you, and you have to
feed it to regain its 'respect'.

-- 
Henry Chai 
Faculty of Library and Information Science, U of Toronto
{watmath,ihnp4,allegra}!utzoo!utflis!chai