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[Telok]

The invention of the dog-soldier revolutionized the defense of early era fortresses. By having a two or three marksdwarves train large numbers of war dogs the early settlers were able to maximize thier defensive capabilities with a minumim of dwarfpower. A single well trained dog-soldier with a cadre of twenty to thirty war dogs was both more effective and less costly than a squad of ten novice axedwarves.

However the reign of the dog-soldier was short lived. After having trained, cared for, lived with, and even loved so many dogs, these dwarves began to consider those dogs as though they were fellow dwarves. When the dogs started reaching the ends of thier livespans the psychic toll on the dog-soldiers was terrible. In several documented cases when a number of dogs died from old age in rapid succession the dog-soldiers went insane.

Still, the dog-soldier had been proven as a useful short-term military tool.

[karnot]

As a matter of fact i, personally, find this idea not really good.
In the beginning its easier to just train a few dogs, and leash them to key locations, as a measure against ant/bat/rat/lizard/fishmen.
After you successfully repel 2 or 3 goblin sieges - dogs become mostly useless. After all they cant wear armour, and when you face 10-15 goblins with ranged weaponry which are protected by 20 more close combat oriented goblins - its the same as sending those poor doggies to the slaughter.

[Quiller]

I might want to leash some around my wells, but one thing I wound up doing was assigning a few of them to miners and farmers, who weren't that well defended but were always going by the river.

One thing to be careful of is making many dogs available for adoption when you have dog lovers.  My fisherdwarf snatched up large quantities of them, and she's gone nuts now that they are dying of old age.  Whereas if I'd just trained them, and assigned her a few, she'd likely be happier, and I might have some available to assign her after her dog died to cheer her up a bit.

[Satyr]

The day I was cured from war-dogs-solve-it-all was when I sent my 40+ dogs against one dragon... though I have to admit 40+ axedwarves probably wouldn't have done a better job.

I'm now chaining them to key locations, too. A pair of wardogs at each magma forge are enough to keep those annoying magma men at bay.

[ September 14, 2006: Message edited by: Satyr ]

[Aquillion]

Dogs are great; at the moment they're completely free of cost (aside from slowing things down if you let them wander your corridors.)

But do not assign them to any dwarves.  Ever.  Why on earth would you want your dwarves becoming attached to your cannon fodder?  Leave them as strays, and use chains to attach them to the places where they're needed.  Of course they won't stop dragons or drive off whole full-scale invasions on their own, but they're great for the occasional ambush.

[RPB]

Dogs/dog soldiers are great against those huge goblin sieges. Take someone expendable, assign them 20 dogs, and send him ahead of your real military. Goblins don't have infinite ammo, so every arrow they waste on the suicide dogs is an arrow that they're not shooting at your valuable dwarves.

[Aquillion]

Hmm, that's a point.  It doesn't matter that the dwarf in question will be upset when their dogs die, because you're using them as cannon fodder anyway...

[ September 14, 2006: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[bbb]

i thought someone said the trained dogs will follow the trainer even if they are strays?

..... why would that make the trainer go nuts when the strays die? (aside from.. i suppose.. "witnessed death")

[karnot]

quote: i thought someone said the trained dogs will follow the trainer even if they are strays?

They will, but still those dogs are not the same as pets.

[Skyrage]

Pets shouldn't have that kind of massive mental effect on dwarves if they die IMO. Sure, dwarves should grieve and all that but never go insane or something extreme like that and if a large number of pets die in short succession the effects could be more severe but never so devestating that dwarves go nuts.

That pretty much just discourages anyone to focus extra much on pets and animals at all.

[bbb]

that's my point.. they are not pets, yet they follow trainers around. so why bother assigning  if all you want is a protective escort? get each dwarf to train one themselves (time consuming and all that)

..ps it would be nice if dwarves profile will tell you how many of each pet.. or simply hunting/war dogs they've each got... preferably on the same screen as hunting/war dog assigning screen