How To Adopt A Pet

The Sims 1 and 2 have just been re-released in a new bundle to celebrate their 25th anniversary, which includes almost every expansion pack ever made for each game, including the pet-focused expansion pack, Unleashed. The pack introduced dogs, cats, gardening, and more to the series. While adding a pet to the family has become almost an expectation for current titles, having the option to add a furry friend to the household was very novel in the early days of The Sims.

Unlike later games in the Sims series, pet adoption is slightly complicated. In The Sims 4, you can simply go on your phone or computer to pick out a pet if you haven’t already designed a pet from the outset when creating your household. To pick up a pooch or kitty in The Sims 1, you will need to either head out to a community lot to find your companion or build up a relationship with stray animals that occasionally visit the home lot.

How To Get To The Pet Shop In Old Town

Available Pets Include Cats, Dogs, Birds, Fish, And Reptiles

You need to head to the pet shop Pet Paradise, which sits in McArthur Square in Old Town, to pick out a pet. Take the shuttle to Old Town by calling a cab on the phone and choose to go to 70 Elm Street, where the pet shop is located. Once you arrive at the pet store, you can browse a few small pet options, like lovebirds, fish, turtles, budgies, and iguanas.

Buying a small pet is easy; you can click on the cage or enclosure holding the pet of your choice and choose “Buy.”

You will place your new pet in the inventory until you return home; at this point, you will need to buy a cage for your small pet in Buy Mode. You will need to direct your Sim to the building in the middle of the community lot to purchase a large pet, like a cat or dog. You can choose between a cat or a dog, though each cost 399 Simoleons.

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By clicking “Adopt a Cat/Dog,” you can choose which breed you want and pick a name after checking out at the register. After that, the new pet will follow you, so there’s no need to worry about accidentally leaving it behind. Before leaving Old Town to head home, I always take advantage of the pet trainer on the community lot. He can teach pets some tricks and give advice on how to train your pet in obedience and housebreaking, making building a relationship between you and your pet easier.

Adopting A Stray Pet Requires Building A Relationship

Strays Will Appear Randomly All Over Town

If you would rather let the dog or cat distribution system work on them rather than give money to a pet store, you can try to adopt a stray animal from around town. There are only eight stray animals since The Sims 1 doesn’t autogenerate new ones like later games. The four stray cats are Spork, Cali, Fluffy, and Aristotle, while the four dogs are Fifi, Buzz, Spike, and Cher.

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This option is much more time-consuming and doesn’t have any cheats available in The Sims 1 to make it easier, but it can feel much more rewarding. To take a stray animal home, you will need to build a relationship with the animal first. That means you will need to start by just petting the animal until you can choose interaction options like hug, wrestle, praise, and fetch. It might take a few days of interacting with a stray animal to unlock the adoption option, and it’s important not to take too much time between interactions since relationships decay quickly in The Sims 1.

Once the relationship is strong enough, the adopt option will appear, adding the animal to the household. Once the pet has become part of the family, you can buy supplies for your pet in Buy Mode, like a food bowl, but you may want to return to the Old Town pet store to pick out a collar for a more personal touch. It’s a good idea to purchase toys for a new pet since animals also have a fun meter that needs to be taken care of.