Animals, Dogs & Mounts

This page covers working animals: taming and commanding dogs, riding horses, and hitching animals to carriages. For breeding livestock and collecting milk, wool, eggs and meat, see Ranching.

Naming an animal

Right-click an animal next to you and choose Name. You can name ordinary animals that still have their default name. Dogs can only be named by their owner or by members of the faction they belong to.

Dogs

Dogs appear on some maps, either wild or already belonging to a faction. Wild dogs and wolves show Wild in their name.

Taming

Get some fresh meat. Rotten meat makes the dog like you less.
Switch to Help intent and click the dog with the meat. It eats the meat and wags its tail.
Keep feeding it. After roughly twenty pieces of meat the game tells you that the dog sees you as its owner, and "Wild" in its name is replaced by yours.

A tamed dog joins your faction or civilization. Only fresh meat counts; other food is sniffed and ignored.

Commands

Dogs obey spoken commands. Say the command so the dog can see you (within seven tiles) and end it with an exclamation mark, for example follow! The message must start with the command word.

Command	Effect
`follow!`	Follows the person who gave the order.
`stop following!`	Stops following.
`guard!`	Attacks people who come into its area. This is the default.
`attack!`	Attacks armed enemies.
`kill!`	Attacks enemies whether or not they are armed.
`be passive!`	Only fights back in self-defense.
`patrol!`	Wanders around the area.
`stop patrolling!`	Stops patrolling.
`prioritize following!`	Keeps following you rather than breaking off to attack.
`prioritize attacking!`	Breaks off following to attack enemies.
`stop everything!`	Cancels all current orders.

The dog's owner and members of its faction can give orders. The owner's orders take priority: if the owner has given an order, other faction members cannot contradict it. Anyone else is ignored, and the dog "refuses to listen".

Riding horses

Horses can be ridden by anyone; they do not need to be tamed first.

Mount: Click and drag your own character onto the horse. It takes a few seconds, and you cannot mount while lying down or prone.
Ride: Move as normal. A ridden horse can trample people in its way.
Dismount: Click the horse with an empty hand.
Pull a rider off: Click someone else's horse with an empty hand. After a few seconds they are knocked to the ground.

If the horse dies, its rider falls off and is knocked down. Keep your horse fed and away from gunfire.

Carriages

A carriage carries a driver and up to five passengers or cargo items, pulled by horses or cattle.

Build: 50 softwood from the vehicle parts section once your people have researched Carts.
Hitch animals: Drag a horse, cow or bull onto the carriage. Up to four animals can be tied on, and a horse pulls as hard as two cattle. Drag a hitched animal off the carriage to untie it.
Drive: Drag yourself onto the carriage to take the driver's seat. You are handed the reins.
- Press Z (activate held object) with the reins to start moving, and again to go faster.
- Press C (secondary activation) to slow down and stop.
Passengers and cargo: Drag a person or object onto the carriage to load it. To get off, click the carriage with an empty hand.

The more animals you hitch, the faster the carriage can go. Pulling animals get hungry faster, and a carriage stops if one of its animals dies. Feed them before long journeys; see Ranching.