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[Doctor Zero]

Seems to be that the animals list isn't updated when a cat adopts a dwarf. I had queued up a bunch of cats to be butchered (which really depresses me   ) but then had a couple dwarves throw tantrum because their pets had been killed. In fact I can't see any cats that are listed with owners in the list at all.

It would be good if those are listed properly. Also, if a cat that adopts someone is removed from the butcher's queue. We don't have any control over when it happens, so it's quite hard to keep from killing pets.

[Toady One]

I've done the first part, and I'll note down to stop butchery on adopts as well.

[TrevorGood]

I've also noticed that the act of butchering cats OR dogs, brings about the unhappy thought of "Witnessed Death" which sends the Butcher into a quick spiral of unhappiness, intended? No self respecting Butcher should be bothered by his profession, and he should be more then happy to get rid of some of those 80+ dogs I have infesting my cave.   :p

[UncleSporky]

YES.  I have trouble with that all the time, and while it may not be a bug (what person wouldn't be disturbed by slaughtering potential pets?) I find it detrimental to the game overall.  Dog and cat breeding gets way out of hand very quickly, and if there isn't some leeway for slaughtering them then it just gets annoying.  At any rate I think dogs and cats ought to breed slower or something, since as it is you never have to worry about food ever once you get up to ~70 animals, that's pretty self-sustaining.  Food should be a problem to solve, not a case of bringing along two cats and two dogs.

[ August 29, 2006: Message edited by: UncleSporky ]

[TrevorGood]

Or just allow us to neuter pets!   :eek:

[Toady One]

Yeah, the witness death was an oversight on my part.  I'll also think about the breed rate and the population caps and so on -- you used to have to feed the animals, which was a nightmare of a different kind, but I wanted to allow grazing and so on later.  Then this situation would be different.

Neutering sounds fun.  Should it require an axe like the wood cutter?

[Stonefish]

I'm not sure breeding should be slowed down, as when you first start a fortress in a dangerous area, you might lose all of your dogs of one gender to monsters, as I did.

Neutering makes sense, but if you have to neuter all but a small amount of males (to allow for breeding again, if you need to), you could then forget about it, and have animal population become rampant again.  Or losing all your non-sterile males, and not being able to breed further.  I'm no expert on female animal spaying, but wouldn't it be a bit too complex for a medieval level of technology?  Someone else may know more about this.

It's not very realistic, but the most desirable manner of limiting population (for the player, at least) would be to allow the player to set themselves a population limit for each animal type.  Perhaps even by gender, to avoid setting your cat population to a max of 50, and eventually ending up with 50 female cats and no males?

[Toady One]

As you get more options with the manager, perhaps when you get the House noble for the beasts, you should have some more controls -- maybe even advanced dwarven spaying technologies.  Whatever it ends up being might be most reasonable through this noble anyway, since the nobles should mostly have value of some kind.

[UncleSporky]

Running out of animals shouldn't be much of a problem, providing the bookkeeper does his job well.  In your trade agreement, just rank dogs highly and they should bring some in cages next time. Theoretically.

[dav]

No way on spaying, unless you're going to irradiate them or something.  Neutering is totally within technology, though.  Then again, if my dwarves can regenerate mangled kidneys, I guess anything is possible.

Perhaps displaying the gender of animals to be potentially butchered would be a quick (easy?) patch?  That way you could cull out all but a certain level of females.

Personally, I love the pet breeding, and since I'm playing maps with beak dogs and harpies, rarely have too many war dogs or feral rat-munchers around.

[Captain_Action]

Horses have too many foals. It should be 1 or the rare twins. Not litters like in my current fortress.