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[Stromko]

If you could enable medicine (suturing, casts, etc) to be performed on animals, this would allow a means to train your dwarves in medicine. Pretty much all animals have bones, organs, and blood, therefore all animals need the same treatments that your dwarves do, from diagnosis to plaster casts.

Treatment of animals could be turned on and off in the orders menu, in the zone sub-menu.

This is especially useful because animals can be thrown into pits, thus providing lots of fodder for medical dwarves to practice. Abusive, yes, but totally legitimate, as animals are a perfectly legitimate way to learn how to better practice medicine on any creature that has blood, bones, and organs.

Also, once the possibility of non-hostile prisoners or slaves is added to the game, we could have the option to turn on/off medical treatment for prisoners. This is another way to practice medicine, not to mention an interesting story mechanic. Additionally, prisoners can also be tossed off pits, so it's another great way to practice medicine.

I realize it's already possible to arrange for accidents and have your own dwarves artificially injured, but story-wise that isn't always appropriate. Yes, it's very 'dwarfy', but not very Dwarven / sane.

[thatkid]

Dwarven and Sane aren't the same thing

But I thought this was what Animal Care was for, and it just isn't doing anything right now?

[Stromko]

Yes, animals receive no medical care right now. The animal care job wouldn't be a very good fit for this since you might have animal caretakers that don't do medicine.

I think animal care is supposed to mean feeding animals, but they don't do that right now since there is no haul-able feed for grazing animals and only grazing animals feed.

I wonder, actually, what part of the raws differentiates friendly dwarves from friendly animals insofar as whether or not they receive medical care, or if that's in the raws at all? If it wasn't hardcoded (which it might be), perhaps someone could mod domestic animals so that they receive medical care. Problem is, then you wouldn't be able to turn it off after a world was generated, and if your hospitals get full of injured animals your injured dwarves will be waiting in line.

So, I don't see a way to work around this without Toady coding it in.

[thatkid]

Yes, animals receive no medical care right now. The animal care job wouldn't be a very good fit for this since you might have animal caretakers that don't do medicine.

I think animal care is supposed to mean feeding animals, but they don't do that right now since there is no haul-able feed for grazing animals and only grazing animals feed.

I wonder, actually, what part of the raws differentiates friendly dwarves from friendly animals insofar as whether or not they receive medical care, or if that's in the raws at all? If it wasn't hardcoded (which it might be), perhaps someone could mod domestic animals so that they receive medical care. Problem is, then you wouldn't be able to turn it off after a world was generated, and if your hospitals get full of injured animals your injured dwarves will be waiting in line.

So, I don't see a way to work around this without Toady coding it in.

It's hardcoded.

You could make a domestic-animal caste of dwarves, but then you'd have regular dwarves giving birth to pets and the like. That would be kind of weird.

[sockless]

Funnily enough, this coincides with the suggestion about a 2d matrix of subskills of which skills are made from. A lot of the skills in animal care are the same with dwarf care, but there are some key differences.

[Malecus]

There is supposed to be a way to treat the injuries of your animals (the Animal Care skill), but it's nonfunctional right now.

But I'd like to second the inclusion of this.  I know they're just animals, and not even real animals, but there are some dogs that have been the savior of my fortresses from untold kobolds, and have taken so much abuse/daggers from them, that I'd like for them to be more than another animal on the butcher's list.

[Monk321654]

My support to this. I absolutely hate it when one of my Hunting Dogs gets a busted gut from a wild Elk and ends up kicking the -Oak Bucket-. Then again, you can't heal a busted gut, right? You get the point.

[Nikov]

There is supposed to be a way to treat the injuries of your animals (the Animal Care skill), but it's nonfunctional right now.

But I'd like to second the inclusion of this.  I know they're just animals, and not even real animals, but there are some dogs that have been the savior of my fortresses from untold kobolds, and have taken so much abuse/daggers from them, that I'd like for them to be more than another animal on the butcher's list.

Butcher them, then place the remains in forbidden stockpiles to only be used in artifact manufacture, thus creating holy relics.

[Stromko]

Being able to actually save an animal if you want to would be cool, I'm sure some players would enjoy that, but my main reason for posting this remains that I wish my medical workers would get some training before they start hacking away at my dwarves. The idea that you'd let someone start, possibly from scratch, by practicing on dying patients is pretty absurd.

I think in terms of battlefield medicine, there would be no difference in skill between treating a dog or treating a dwarf. Diseases, parasites and other syndromes may require different treatment, but broken bones and bleeding call for diagnosis, surgery, casts, sutures, etc.

Getting a bit tired of my military dwarves walking around with busted-open and broken limbs because my docs gave them a clean bill of health when they're oozing and crawling everywhere. That may be the intended consequence of not having perfect diagnosis skill, or perhaps my six idle medical dwarves (including an idle founder who started with as much diagnosis skill as I could get) are just a bit lazy / bugged. Medicine is cool when it works; having veterans hobbling around with crutches, casts and a hide of scars certainly makes the place more alive, I just wish the docs would be more thorough.

There was a mod that added a surgical theater workshop that let your doctors practice, but they couldn't practice diagnosis for some reason and I didn't like using a modded item that made things easier for me. Though the incessant werewolf attacks certainly added some difficulty ...

[Neonivek]

It really depends on the time period and animal.

Medicine for animals tended to be much less then that for people. To the extent that dying animals tended to be killed.

Do dwarves really care about their animals?

[Blade Master Model 42]

Seems to me that dwarves are ahead of the curve for medicine, and I could totally see them treating animals, even if just as practice runs. You'd want to reduce experience gains when treating animals though, and especially non-mammals, because medical dwarves are trained to treat injured dwarves. There are enough similarities in humans (and presumably dwarves) and animals that practicing surgery on a sheep or chicken will make you a better doctor. Not as fast as treating a patient of the intended species though.

[Dsarker]

It really depends on the time period and animal.

Medicine for animals tended to be much less then that for people. To the extent that dying animals tended to be killed.

Do dwarves really care about their animals?

That's the point, he's suggesting using them for practice.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Do dwarves really care about their animals?

What part of "Drop animals off of tall cliffs to train doctors" do you not understand?
Or, possibly, "Urist McNoble has mandated that we save his 35th kitten! Hurry before he kills our best doctor!"

[Blade Master Model 42]

Or, possibly, "Urist McNoble has mandated that we save his 35th kitten! Hurry before he kills our best doctor!"

Me likey.

[astaldaran]

Davinci dissected dead humans and that is how doctors learned a lot about the body (and ofcourse we still do this today) could that also be an option for dwarves? Hmm, I'm not sure--might be far to modern.