VKC Dog Owner's Manual

Release 3-Oct-2008

This manual will help you make the most of your new dog in SL. I do my best to make my dogs act as much like a real dog as possible. They obey direct commands (most of the time anyway) and also act on their own. They are curious and interact with things and people around them. As you train and condition them, they develop their own unique personality. Every dog is different.


When you're ready to play with your dog, just rez him in world (drag him from inventory onto the ground in front of you). Once your dog appears, he is ready to go. DO NOT open his contents like you would a box of clothing or you'll break him. As soon as you see him, he's ready to go.


When you first get your dog, his name starts with "Pup" followed by his breed name and number, like "Pup Australian Shepherd (#37)". His short name is just "Pup" and it appears above his head. To rename your dog, say "pup name" then his new name.  For example:



  pup name Fido the Magnificent


You should name your dog with proper capitalization, but you can use all lower-case when you command him. Your dog is "no-mod/no-copy/transfer", which means you can give a dog as a gift or sell your dog. And if you ever lose your dog, you can come to the Dog Clinic at the VKC Dog Park to claim him.


So play with your dog, teach him new tricks, and watch him grow and change as he learns. Mainly, HAVE FUN!


TABLE OF CONTENTS:


  1. Introduction
  2. Direct Commands
  3. Advanced Commands
  4. Training
  5. Active Behavior and Conditioning
  6. Troubleshooting and Support
  7. What's New
  8. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  9. Command Reference


Come visit us at one of our Virtual Kennel Club Dog Parks



1.0 Introduction

VKC dogs are "physical" in Second Life, which means they obey the laws of physics in-world.  They jump and run along the ground.  You'll feel it if they run into you! (Your Avatar will anyway.) When you get your dog, you can name it anything you like. But to make this manual easier to understand, we'll name him "Fido" (and he's a boy). Fido listens to any chat that begins with his name or part of his name. Say 'Fido come' and he will come to you! You can also just say 'fi come' and he will respond to that too. For the remainder of the manual, I will use Fido's full name in commands, but remember you can shorten it in any command.

If you want to pet your dog, right-click on it and select 'Pet me'. Try it! Your friends can pet your dog too.


If you want to give your dog to someone else, it's important to remember that you can only transfer a dog after it has been rezzed and has picked up its name. After you have rezzed the dog, take it back to your inventory. Then, simply drag it from your inventory onto the avatar or the avatar's Profile. (REMEMBER: If your dog still has only its breed name in your inventory, you must rez it first so that it picks up its name.) If you mistakenly transfer an unrezzed dog, it will disappear. You'll have to claim him at the Dog Clinic, rez him to pick up his name, take him back to inventory, then transfer him to your friend.


There are two basic ways that Fido works:



And there are two ways that Fido learns to do new things:

2.0 Direct Commands

You tell Fido what to do by saying his name and the command you want him to do, like 'fido sit'. Fido starts off knowing some commands (instincts), and you can teach him new ones (tricks). Anyone can give Fido most commands, but some commands are reserved for the owner only.  For example, the "heel" command is reserved for you as Fido's owner.  When you say 'fido heel', he will stay by your side until you give him some other command. Heeling across sim borders works pretty well. When the dog is near a border and loses track of you, he assumes you crossed the border. So he goes non-physical, pops across the border and tries to relocate you. The only problem is crossing near a sim corner because he may have trouble finding you if he jumps to a different sim than you did.

These are the simple one-word commands Fido knows to start with:



Rather than explain what these commands do, I'll let you discover them for yourself. (They're pretty self-explanatory really.) For example, say:


fido sit


and Fido sits down. If you want to give Fido a command without anyone else hearing, start your command with '/1', for example:



/1fi sniff


Normally, anyone can give your dog these commands and he will obey. But we've all run into those annoying people who keep commanding your dog when you have something else in mind. You can use the command mute to make your dog ignore other people. Follow the command by at least the first few letters of the first name of the person you want to mute, and your dog will ignore that person (along with any others whose first names start with those letters.) For example, to mute me you would say:



fido mute enrico


You can only mute one name at a time. To clear a name, say:



fido mute none


To mute everybody but yourself, say:



fido mute all


(Actually, if you have given the 'friend' command, your dog will still obey both you and the friend.)


There are two commands to make Fido stay in an area, and one to release him:



You can make Fido stay within a square area, by saying stay followed by a number. That number is the length of a side of a square area, with Fido placed in the center. For example, you're visiting a friend's house and you want Fido to stay in the front yard. Put Fido in the center of the area where you want him to stay and say:



fido stay 10


Then he'll stay in that 10x10 area. Alternatively, you can say settle. Fido will stay on the Parcel he is on when you give the command. This is particularly good if you want to keep your dog on your own property. To release your dog from the "stay" or "settle" command, say:


fido roam


There are four movement commands that cause Fido to move to a person, place or thing. The commands are:



Each command is followed by the person, place or thing you want Fido to go to. Similar to Fido's name, you only have to type the first few characters of the name of the person, place or thing for Fido to understand. For example, if you want Fido to go to me, Enrico Genosse, you can say:



fido go enrico


or even:


fi go enr


As long as Fido can see me, he'll come.


Fido can go to certain objects around him too. He senses objects that are active (like vehicles, doors, anything with a running script) but he can't sense passive objects (like trees or walls). For example, if you have an object named Rocking Chair, say:


fido go roc


Fido can remember locations you show him and go to those when you say so. To teach Fido a location, use the command mark. If you have taught him a mark called 'bed', then you can say:


fido on bed


and off he goes.


Let me explain further.  Let's say, for example, that you have a dog bed that you want Fido to sleep in. First, put him in the bed (right-mouse click on him and select "Edit", then use the colored arrows to move him onto the bed) then say:



fido mark bed


From then on, Fido knows where to find his bed. Anytime you want him to go to his bed, say:


fido on bed


(Fido keeps track of marks by region, so you can have a bed in two different regions and Fido will go to the one in his region.) But just going to his bed is not everything. You'll want him to lie down when he gets there, right? You can chain together commands in a sequence to make this happen by saying:


fido on bed down


The ability to chain together commands is where Fido really gets interesting. Here's even a better example:


fido on bed sniff wait 1 down


That makes a pretty realistic sequence of actions! I've already explained all those actions except wait, which causes Fido to wait whatever number of seconds you say before going on to the next action. There is another command for enhancing the tricks -- repeat -- which causes Fido to repeat the next command he is given. For example, say:



fido repeat 3 speak


This command will make Fido bark 6 times (speak makes him bark twice).


Many commands are protected, so only the owner or a selected friend can give those commands. (The command list in Section 9.0 indicates which commands are protected.) You can give a friend full control of you dog by using the friend command. With your friend nearby, say 'friend' and the full name of the person. For example:


fido friend Enrico Genosse


When the friend command works, the dog will walk over to the person whose name you gave him and beg, then lie down. If the command does not work, the dog will go into the rest pose. To clear the friend command, say:


friend no


After that, your friend will no longer have special privileges. Only one person can be a friend at a time.

3.0 Advanced Commands

You can have a lot of fun just using the Direct Commands I described in the last section. Fido has other commands which are either more complicated or especially used in training your dog (see the Training section). For example, there are five "special" people-names you can use with the movement commands which are especially useful in training:


If you want finer control over how Fido moves, you can use the moveto command instead of go, run or on. You follow the moveto command with a name and two numbers.  These numbers define the range and speed of the movement of the dog. For example, 'fido moveto enrico 3 6' means that Fido will move to within 3 meters of a person, place or thing called 'enrico' at a speed of 6 meters per second. In fact, the commands go, run and on are just tricks that use the moveto command.  More on that later.


I made a variation of the moveto command mainly for dog accessories designers and professional trainers. Most people will never have need for it. But, if you're interested, you can add a fourth numeric parameter called "flags". Here are the basic values "flags" can contain:



You can add these values up to get various combinations of behavior. For example, 14 means the dog will move non-physically, without animation, and without turning. I also supported vectors in the first parameter. So for example, let's say you want to move Fido to a specific point non-physically and without turning or walking. Say:


fido moveto <182,98,23> 0 0 14


First, notice there are no spaces in the vector. You cannot have spaces within the vector or the dog will interpret them as separate parameters. Since you are moving the dog non-physically, you can use zeroes for the range and speed parameters. The fourth parameter is the sum of 2 + 4 + 8, which means no turning, no animation and move non-physically.  See? No? :)


Fido also has some simple movement commands that are mostly used in training:



You can make Fido turn to any of 8 compass points -- n, ne, e, se, s, sw, w, nw. In addition, you can have Fido turn 45 degrees right or left with turn r and turn l, or turn 180 degrees with turn back.


To have your dog face you, say turn toward and to have your dog face away from you, say turn away.


You can tell Fido to move forward a set distance. Say:


fido fwd 10


and he'll walk forward 10 meters. You can also make Fido turn relative to his current rotation by saying


fido turn l


or


fido turn r


With these commands, Fido will turn left or right by 45 degrees.


You can also tell Fido to heel to a different position than on your left side with the command position. Two numbers must follow the position command.  One number is for direction and the other is for distance. Direction is given in degrees, so 0 would place your dog directly in front of you, 90 would place him to your right, 180 would place him directly behind you, and 270 would place your dog your left. Distance is given in meters. The default command to keep your dog on your left is: position 270 1. If you want Fido on your right instead, say:

fido position 90 1

(You may want to do this if you have more than one dog, for instance). You could also say:

fido position 0 4

to have Fido out in front of you.

You can also choose how you want Fido to handle water with the command water. Another word must follow the command:



If you spend any time near the water, you'll really enjoy this new feature. My favorite is swim. Let's say you want Fido to swim behind you while you sail. Give him a command like this:


fido position 180 2

fido water swim

fido heel


and he'll swim along the surface of the water behind you!


Fido can pick up items and carry them in his mouth. You can use these commands to teach him to play fetch, or get your slippers. The commands are:



Use those commands followed by the special item you want Fido to take or drop. For example, say:


fido go redball take redball come drop redball


The redball is in the folder that Fido was in when you first got him.  If you want Fido to carry other things, you'll find a script called "toy" inside the redball. Put that script in any other object to allow Fido to carry it. You can also find other toys for Fido at the VKC Dog Park.


As of this release, there are two dogs who will leap into your arms and you can TP with them and carry them with you wherever you go.  The Chihuahua and the Bichon currently have this trick.  The command for the trick is here.


Before you can give your Chihuahua or Bichon the here command, you have to give them permission to animate your avatar. So, assuming in this example that Fido is a Chihuahua or a Bichon, you would first say:


Fido attach


A dialog box will pop up and ask you for permission to attach and animate your avatar. After you click yes, you can then say:


Fido here


and he will coming running over to you and leap into your arms.  If you decide you no longer want your dog to leap into your arms, say:


Fido attach no


and he will no longer perform the here trick.  You can, of course, say "Fido attach" again and he will then be able to leap into your arms once more when you give him the here command. Remember, the only way to let go of your dog after he is in your arms is to right-click on him and select 'Drop'. Some parcels do not allow this command, in which case select 'Detach' to return your dog to your inventory.

4.0 Training

Now that you understand how commands work and how to chain them together in sequences, you are most of the way to teaching Fido new commands. You can give a sequence of commands its own name and fido will do the whole sequence whenever you give that name as a command. Use learn to teach Fido new commands. IMPORTANT!!! The FIRST word after 'learn' is the name of the trick and the rest of the words on that line of chat make up the sequence of commands for that trick. For example, say:

fido learn sleep on bed sniff wait 1 down

Now Fido knows the new command sleep, and whenever you say, 'fido sleep', off to bed he goes!


To find out what tricks Fido knows, say:

fido help

and he'll list them out for you.

If you want to change how a trick works (or just erase a trick), use forget; then you can replace it if you want. Say you want Fido to wag his tail before he lays down to sleep, first say:


fido forget sleep


to erase the old trick.  Then say:


fido learn sleep on bed sniff wag down


and he'll follow the new sequence for sleep. You also use forget to have fido forget a mark. For example, say:


fido forget bed


and he will forget where the bed is.


Since marks are relative to the sim, if you are not in the same sim as the mark you want Fido to forget, you also have to say the name of the region, then a dot, then the name of the mark. For example:


fido forget Caledon.bed



Here's another example. You can have Fido greet someone at the door. First, put Fido by the door and say:


fido mark door


Then say:


fido learn greet on door sniff wag go owner sit


That's a good example of using the special person-name owner.



Once you teach your dog a trick, you can use the name of that trick as part of another more complex trick. That makes it possible to design very complex tricks by building them up a bit at a time.  If you find yourself making several similar tricks with just one word different, you're ready to use a placeholder. Placeholders are signified by a single underscore character (_) and are replaced later when the trick is used. I can explain it best with an example. Let's say you have two tricks -- learn meetmary go mary beg -- and -- learn meetharry go harry beg. You can replace those with just one trick:


learn meet go _ beg


When you use the trick, say 'meet mary' and the word 'mary' will replace the underscore, so your dog will go to mary and beg! Then of course you can use anyone's name and your dog will do the trick for that person. Placeholders can be used for avatars or objects.


By combining the things I've talked about here, there is no limit to what you can teach Fido to do. So have Fido mark a few key places where you hang out and teach him some new commands  Your friends won't believe how smart your dog is!


One more thing for advanced users. If you want to change how a preset instinct works, such as follow or here, you can make a trick that overrides the instinct. It works just like teaching a trick except you use the word 'override' instead of 'learn' and of course the name of the trick should be an instinct. Most people won't need to do this, but some more advanced users may want full control over how their dog acts.

5.0 Active Behavior and Conditioning

In addition to having Fido follow your commands, he can also choose his own commands! So if you're not bossing him around, he'll find something to do on his own. There are four commands related to this:


To start Fido acting on his own, say:


fido active


and when you want him to follow your direct commands, say:


  fido passive


The first thing Fido does when he's active is greet any person or thing near him that he hasn't met before. Fido remembers anyone or anything he greets, and they affect what he decides to do. After he's greeted everyone and everything new to him, he starts choosing tricks to perform. When someone or something he knows shows up, he notices that and reacts to it. That means you can condition your dog to fetch a toy when you come home, for example, or bark at the neighbor. :)


If Fido chooses a command you don't like, you can say:


fido bad


When Fido hears that, he knows you don't like him to do that trick or instinct in the current situation so he's more likely to pick another one. Sometimes you have to reprimand him more than once to get him to stop the behavior.


If he does a trick you do like, say:


fido good


That makes him more likely to repeat that trick in the same situation. Alternatively, you can give him a command, then immediately say 'fido good' and he learns that you like him to perform that trick in the given situation. That's how you condition Fido.


As people and things move closer or further away (or he does), Fido will pick other commands and you can continue to condition him with good and bad. He applies that conditioning to new situations, so after you've had him a while, he'll generally start to behave the way you want. Whenever you teach him a new command, he'll occassionally try that one out, so you can condition him to use the new command the way you like.

6.0 Troubleshooting and Support

6.1 Getting Stuck:

If your dog gets stuck on your head, use the pop command to make him pop off. In periods of high lag, Fido can get stuck or twisted around on your head or in some other objects. To fix it, say:

fido pop

That makes him clear himself from being stuck and reorient himself to his proper position. That solves the problem 9 out of 10 times, but another thing to do is take him back to inventory and re-rez him. You might have to try this several times, or wait until the lag condition clears up before it works. You can also choose to 'edit' him, and orient him correctly using SL building controls. If none of that works, come to the Dog Clinic.

6.2 Dog Clinic:

Many problems you might have with your dog can be solved at the VKC Dog Clinic at one of the Dog Parks. These are the commands you can give at the Clinic:


I keep makng improvements to the VKC dogs, and you may want to get yours updated occasionally. I announce the updates on the Virtual Kennel Club group, and everyone who buys a dog gets an invitation to the group. If you're not a member and you want to be, please IM me (Enrico Genosse) (or us???) and ask for an invitation.

6.3 Restoring or Clearing Memory:

If your dog seems confused about his tricks, you can tell him to restore his memory from a backup copy kept at the VKC. Just say your dog's name and remember. If you just want to start all over and clear your dog's memory of all tricks and marks you taught him, say remember nothing nothing nothing.

6.4 Verbal and Quiet commands:

When you first get your dog, he tells you some things he's doing by chatting in the chat window. If you would rather have your dog completely quiet, say:

Fido greet-quiet

To have him say what he's thinking again, say:

Fido greet-verbal

7.0 What's New

7.1 Release Notes 11-Aug-2008

  1. Vastly improved "Pet Me" Animations

Master Animator Mr. solcar Amat graciously agreed to create new "Pet Me" Animations for the VKC Dogs. The new animations are longer, more detailed, and much more natural and realistic. You and your friends will really enjoy them!

    2   Improved Heel and the new Position command.

Rather than following behind you on heel, the dogs now come up and stay on your left side. As you turn and move, your dog will work to stay on your left. You can change the position where the dogs heel with the new command: position. As described in the Advanced Command section above, two numbers follow the command.  One number is for direction and the other is for distance. Direction is given in degrees, with 0 being directly in front of you, 90 being to your right, 180 directly behind you, and 270 to your left. Distance is given in meters. The default command to keep your dog on your left is: position 270 1. If you want Fido on your right instead, say fido position 90 1. (You may want to do this if you have more than one dog, for instance). You could also say, fido position 0 4 to have Fido out in front of you.

    3.  Different ways of dealing with water.

The current dogs simply ignore water, and will walk along the ground underwater when they encounter it. Now the dogs have a new command: water. Another word must follow the command. So, the command would be one of the following:

fido water swim
fido water avoid
fido water ignore

The last choice is the same as the dogs' current behavior. If you spend any time near the water, you'll really enjoy this new feature. My favorite is swim. Let's say you want Fido to swim behind you while you sail. Give him a command like:

fido position 180 2
fido water swim
fido heel

and he'll swim along the surface of the water behind you!

    4. Advanced Moveto command

This command is available mainly for dog accessories designers and professional trainers. Most people will never have need for it. Up to now, the 'moveto' command was followed by three parameters -- the person, object or mark to move to, the range to move within, and the speed. For example, the 'go' command is made up of 'moveto _ 3 6'. Now the command can be followed by a fourth numeric parameter called flags. Here are the basic values it can contain:


  • 1 = Lock onto target (like in heel)
  • 2 = Do not turn toward target
  • 4 = No animation while moving
  • 8 = Move non-physically (llSetPos)
  • 16 = Use position offset (see 'position' command)


You can add these values up to get various combinations of behavior. For example, 14 means the dog will move non-physically, without animation, and without turning.


    5.  A new Mute command


We've all run into those annoying people who keep commanding your dog when you have something else in mind. Now you can use the new command: mute. Follow the command by at least the first few letters of the first name of the person you want to mute, and your dog will ignore that person (along with any others whose first names start with those letters.) For example, to mute me you would say, 'fido mute enrico'.You can only mute one name at a time. To clear a name, say 'fido mute none'. To mute everybody but yourself, say 'fido mute all'. (Actually, if you have given the 'friend' command, your dog will still obey both you and the friend.)


    6. New Shape for the Bubbles

The invisible protective bubbles that surround the dog were originally designed to work around problems with the old physics engine. The new Havok4 physics engine fixes some major problems but creates some new minor problems, so I redesigned the bubbles to optimize for the new engine. The bubbles no longer cover the dog completely, but they create a small (10 cm) gap under the dogs' feet to reduce lag in the sim.  Eventually, the Lindens will remove the need for the 10 cm gap and I'll lower the dogs closer to the ground on a later release. 

    7.  Improved Dog Movement

I spent some more time experimenting with the dogs in the new physics-engine environment and found some ways to improve their movement. You'll find that the dogs jump around or "fly" much less now. They follow better on heel, and get over high obstacles more quickly. They also face the direction they are going better!

    8.  Objects Calling Heel

Before, if you own an object (like a HUD) that gave the heel command, the dog would not obey. Now it does.

    9.  "Illegal" Dog Names

Due to some limitation in SL and some in the way the dog tricks work, there are some characters that cannot be used in your dog's name. Those characters are extended (UTF) characters used in many non-English languages and special characters like apostrophe (') or quote ("). Now if you try to use them when you name your dog, he will reject them. (Before, he would accept them and then fail to work properly afterwards.)

7.2 Release Notes 13-April-2008

  1. I completely changed the way the dogs stay upright. I think it's a big improvement to their natural movement. They now tilt according to the terrain they are on and where their target is. There should be much less need to give the pop command, as the dogs now sense whether they are at the right angle.
  2. Dogs are now 100% physical. (OK, not quite. They have to go non-physical when they cross borders). When there is time dilation, they simply stop trying to move but they stay physical. That means they should stop going through walls or getting stuck up in the air.
  3. I added a new command: friend. The command lets you give full control of your dog to one other person. With your friend nearby, say friend and the full name of the person. For example: fido friend Enrico Genosse. When it works, the dog will walk over to the person and beg, then lie down. If it doesn't work, the dog will go to the rest pose. To clear the command, say: fido friend no. After that, your friend will no longer have special privileges. Only one person can be a friend at a time.
  4. Minor changes
    1. The commands go nearest and go random will ignore targets more than 8 meters above or below. That should help with the dog on roof problem.
    2. If you say remember nothing nothing nothing, you will clear all tricks and marks from your dog.
    3. Dog names now support UTF-8 extended characters.

7.3 Release Notes 17-March-2008

  1. VKC COMMERCE SYSTEM - I completely rewrote the Commerce System in this Release. That is, the way one buys, transfers, updates or retrieves their dog will be completely different. I'll describe how to use the new System here. I also fixed several defects in the dogs' code and made a few enhancements which I will also describe.

    As a continuing example, let's say you buy a Doberman and name it "Fido the First". Examples are in parentheses below.

    1. Buying a Dog

      The price of an adoptable dog appears above its head. Right click on the dog of your choice and select 'Pay'. Click on the price to pay, and a folder appears in your inventory. The folder name is 'VKC' plus the breed you selected (e.g. 'VKC Doberman'). In the folder is the VKC Owner's Manual, a redball, and your dog (the object with the name of the breed you selected, like 'Doberman'). Drag the object in-world to rez your dog.

      When you rez your dog the first time, he takes the name of 'Pup', but it's a good idea to name your dog right away. Say pup name and the name you want to give your dog (say pup name Fido the First). After that, when you take your dog back to inventory, it's name will appear (e.g. 'Fido the First').

      VKC Dog prices are dynamically driven by their popularity. As a dog's popularity goes up and down, so does it's price! So if you buy a dog one day and come back a week later, you may find the price of that dog has gone up or down since you bought it.

    2. Using the Dog Clinic

      The new veterinarian works by chat commands. These are the commands the vet understands:

      • list - see a list of dogs you own.
      • claim - retrieve a lost dog.
      • update - fix or update a broken dog.

      If you want to see a list of the dogs you own, come up to the veterinarian and say list. That is, type list in the chat window while you are standing near the Dog Clinic.

      If you lose your dog, go to the Dog Clinic and say claim and the name of your dog (claim fido). Your dog will appear in your inventory in the Objects folder with the name of its breed (e.g. Doberman). When you first rez your dog, it will automatically change to its proper name (Fido the First). Then when you return it to inventory, it will go into the Objects folder with your dog's name. You may want to move it back into the VKC folder to help keep track of it.

      If your dog is broken or you want to get a newer version, go to the Dog Clinic and rez your dog nearby. Then say update and the name of your dog (update fido). Unless your dog is completely unresponsive, the vet will take your dog (it will disappear) and return it to you (updated) in your Objects folder. If your dog is completely unresponsive, you will have to delete the dog yourself and claim the dog as lost (see the preceding paragraph).

    3. Transferring your dog

      To transfer your dog to another avatar, it's important to remember that you can only transfer a dog after it has been rezzed and has picked up its name. After you have rezzed the dog, take it back to your inventory. Then, simply drag it from your inventory onto the avatar or the avatar's Profile. (REMEMBER: If your dog still has only its breed name in your inventory, rez it first so that it picks up its name. Then you can take it back to inventory and transfer it to another avatar.) If you mistakenly transfer an unrezzed dog it will disappear. You'll have to claim him at the Clinic, rez him to pick up his name, take him back to inventory, then transfer him to your friend.

  2. Pet your dog

    Anyone can come and pet your dog now! When someone right-clicks on your dog and selects 'Pet me', they will come up to your dog and pet it.

    Master Animator Mr. solcar Amat graciously agreed to create new "Pet Me" Animations for the VKC Dogs. The new animations are longer, more detailed and much more natural and realistic. You and your friends will really enjoy them!

  3. Instincts vs. Tricks

    I separated the dogs' tricks into two separate modules, tricks (as before) and "instincts". Instincts are the "factory installed" tricks that come with every dog, such as 'sit' or 'heel'. By separating them into their own module, an owner can no longer accidentally erase them. Since the instincts no longer share the memory space with custom tricks, we have a lot more room in memory for new tricks! A new dog will have the full 2K of memory available for tricks.

    For advanced owners, if you want to replace an instinct with your own sequence of commands, use the command 'override' instead of 'learn' to override an instinct with a trick by the same name.

    In active behavior mode, the dogs will choose among both their tricks and their instincts to act.

  4. Holding the Chihuahua and the Bichon in Your Arms

    Yes, I added the 'here' instinct to Bichon too! Now both the Bichon and the Chihuahua can jump up into your arms. But in this new version you have to tell your dog it's ok to do that first by saying attach. Like other commands, just say your dog's name and attach; a dialog box will pop up asking you for permission to attach and animate your avatar. After you click Yes, you can give the command here and your Chihuahua or Bichon will jump into your arms! If you change your mind you can say attach no and he will no longer attach. Remember the only way to let go of your dog after he is in your arms is to right-click on him and select 'Drop'. Some parcels do not allow this command, in which case select 'Detach' to return your dog to your inventory.

  5. Two new turn commands

    The dogs have two new ways of turning, "toward" and "away". If you say turn toward, your dog will turn to face you (or whoever gives the command) and if you say turn away, your dog will turn away from the speaker.

    This should be useful for third-party toy and accessory scripters!

8.0 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

My dog is missing. What do I do?

If your dog disappears, you'll often find him in your Lost and Found folder in your Inventory. It may take a few minutes, but if he does not appear there, go to the VKC Dog Clinic at one of the Dog Parks. When you are in front of the Clinic, say claim and the name of your dog, for example if your dog is named Fido, say claim fido. Your dog will appear in your inventory in the Objects folder as the name of its breed. When you first rez it, your dog will automatically change to its proper name. Then when you return it to inventory, it will go into the Objects folder with your dog's name.

My dog is broken. What do I do?

If your dog is broken, go to the VKC Dog Clinic at one of the Dog Parks and rez your dog nearby. Then say update and the name of your dog. For example if your dog's name is Fido, say update fido. Unless your dog is completely unresponsive, your dog will disappear from the world and reappear in your inventory. You'll find it in the Objects folder as the name of its breed. When you first rez it, your dog will automatically change to its proper name and load its memory. When you return it to inventory, it will go into the Objects folder with your dog's name. If your dog is completely unresponsive, you will have to delete the dog yourself and say claim and the name of your dog to get a new one. There is no charge. Updates and upgrades to VKC Dogs are always free.

Do you have my favorite breed?

I get so many requests for specific breeds, it's impossible for me to make them all. So when I'm ready to make a new breed I hold an election! You will be able to vote for the dog you want. If you want to hear about the next election, let me know and I'll invite you to the Virtual Kennel Club Group, where I will make the announcement.

How do I get a dog?

You can adopt a dog one of our many VKC Dog Parks, like Turing Isle. You'll find all the breeds of VKC Dogs playing in the park. Look for the dogs that say 'ADOPT ME' over their head. To buy one, right-click on the dog of your choice and select 'Pay'. Click on the price to pay, and a folder appears in your inventory. The folder name is 'VKC' plus the breed you selected (e.g. 'VKC Doberman'). In the folder is the VKC Owner's Manual, a redball, and your dog (the object with the name of the breed you selected, like 'Doberman'). Drag the object in-world to rez your dog.

Why do the breeds have different prices?

VKC Dog prices are dynamically driven by their popularity. As a dog's popularity goes up and down, so does it's price! So if you buy a dog one day and come back a week later, you may find the price of that dog has gone up or down since you bought it. Although the breed is different, all the dogs have most of the same features.

Your dogs are wonderful! Do you do custom work or sell your scripts?

Thank you for your interest, but I cannot do it. I continually work to make my dogs as realistic as possible, I have many new features and new breeds I want to add, and I get wonderful constructive feedback from my customers which I incorporate when I can. This work takes all my available time in SL, and doesn't leave me room to consider other opportunities.

How can I make my dog more active at home.

VKC Dogs are very active at the Dog Park because they have a lot of tricks they can choose from and they are stimulated by the active environment at the park. There are two reasons why your dog may not be so active at home. First, your dog may not be in active mode. If he's in passive mode he only obeys direct commands, so make sure you've given him the 'active' command. Second, your dog may not have many tricks to choose from. The more tricks you teach your dog, the more active they will become. You can see what tricks your dog knows by the 'help' command. Be sure to read the manual about teaching your dog tricks.

9.0 Command Reference

These are all the commands you can give your dog, in alphabetical order. The ** after a command means only the owner (or selected friend) can give that command. Search for the command in the manual to find more complete descriptions.