VKC Manual - Troubleshooting

Working Out What Went Wrong

Finding a Missing Pet

VKC Pets are curious and independent, they sometimes are out of sight, on the roof, over at the neighbor’s, or lost. If this happens to your pet, try the following:

Shout* to call your pet: Fido come
Shout* to discover your pet’s location: Fido ping
Your pet will shout his location and you can go to him.
Shout* to tell your pet to teleport to your side: Fido tp owner (or you can use your name: Fido tp enrico)
Check your lost and found folder.
Go to the VKC Clinic to claim your pet. Stand by the clinic and say: claim Fido. If this is a brand-new pet, and the Marketplace delivery failed, or you did not name your pet yet, you can say these things to the VKC Clinic:

claim pup — for a dog, bear, or wolf
claim kitten — for a cat
claim rabbit — for a rabbit

* To shout in SL, type the message you want to shout, then press the Ctrl Key and hold it down as you press the Enter Key.


Getting Stuck

If your pet 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.

Nine out of 10 times, using "pop" solves the problem. But another thing to do is take him back into 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, bring your pet to the VKC Clinic to update him.


The VKC Clinic

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

list — If you want to see a list of the pets you own, come up to the clinic building and use the command, "list". That is, type "list" in your chat window while you are standing near the VKC Clinic.
claim — If you lose your pet, go to the VKC Clinic and use the command "claim" and the name of your pet (for example, "claim fido"). Your pet will appear in your inventory with the name of its breed (for example: Newfoundland or Rabbit Self Blue). When you rez this object, it will automatically change to your pet's proper name (Fido the Magnificent) and recall all of his memories and tricks. Then, when you take it back to your inventory, he will go into your inventory with his proper name again. You may want to create a VKC folder just for your pets to help keep track of them.

Again, if this is a brand-new pet, and the Marketplace delivery failed, or you did not name your pet yet, you can say these things to the VKC Clinic:

claim pup — for a dog, bear, or wolf
claim kitten — for a cat
claim rabbit — for a rabbit
update — If your pet is broken or you want to get a newer version, go to the VKC Clinic and rez your pet nearby. Then in local chat, say "update" and the name of your pet (for example, type "update fido"). Unless your pet is completely unresponsive, the clinic will take your pet (it will disappear) and return the updated pet to your inventory with the name of its breed (for example: Old English Sheepdog). The updated pet will be just like your pet — with all the same memories and tricks — but better. If your pet is completely unresponsive, you will have to delete the pet yourself and claim the pet as lost. (See claim above.)
help — This will summon a VKC Proven Trainer to assist you. If no trainers are available, the Clinic will send out an email to all of the VKC Park Service staff. One or more trainers will respond to you as soon as practical.

Mr. Genosse keeps making improvements to the VKC pets, and you may want to get yours updated occasionally. Major updates are always announced in the Virtual Kennel Club group. Enrollment is open to all.


Restoring, Clearing, and Backing Up Memory

If your pet seems confused about his tricks, you can tell him to restore his memory from a backup copy kept at the VKC. Just say:

Fido remember

If you just want to start over completely and clear your pet's memory of all tricks and marks you taught him, say:

Fido remember nothing nothing nothing

If you wish to create a backup of your pet's tricks and marks as he knows them at this particular moment, say:

Fido backup


Verbal and Quiet commands

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

Fido greet-quiet

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

Fido greet-verbal


Initialization Settings

When you claim your lost, broken, or updated pet from the VKC Clinic and rez him, the pet goes through a process of loading his scripts again. This allows him to recall his tricks, marks, and familiar people and places so that he becomes the pet you know and love.

There are other things that you might like your pet to remember without having to tell the pet each time he is newly claimed. If you want him to remember things like specific coloring, positions, water mode, or greeting mode, you can teach him a trick called "init" and he will automatically load these settings. The "init" trick is sort of a re-initialization of your pet as you had him before his trip to the VKC Clinic.

For example, you might say:

Fido learn init water avoid position 90 2 greet-quiet

If you add the command "greet-quiet" to the "init" trick, it must always be the very last command in the trick. If you add "greet-quiet" anywhere but at the end, it will break the trick and the pet will not recall his initialization commands when he is claimed.

Once you teach "init" to your pet, it is never necessary to speak the command in chat. The "init" trick becomes part of his initialization.


Listening

Your pet normally listens to any typed text that begins with his name. By default, he does this both on Channel 0 (public) and Channel 1 (private). Some people like to command their pet on Channel 1 while using natural speech on Channel 0 because this enhances the realism of the pet.

Occasionally, people want to be able to speak silently to their pet on Channel 1 but find that some other nearby device already listens on this channel. When this is the case, it is possible to add another listening channel to your pet.

Channel 0 is the public channel that anyone can hear. Channels 1 to 2,147,483,648 are private channels that aren't sent to the SL client.

For example, you might say:

Fido channel 9

Remember: this is an extra channel. He also listens on Channels 0 and 1. If you later say

Fido channel 42

this will remove Channel 9 and he will listen on Channel 42 as well as Channel 0 and Channel 1.

To remove the extra channel, say:

Fido channel 0


Setting Jump Limits

You can control how high your pet jumps.

Sometimes Fido finds something really interesting scripted object high above his head and he will try to get as close to it as he can, even if it means that he leaps onto the roof of your house or shop. Other times, he may be exploring and decide that he should try to jump over an obstacle that stands between him and his destination, no matter how big the obstacle is. Finding your pet in unlikely high places or watching him bounce in place in an effort to scale tall buildings can be highly amusing or mildly upsetting, depending on your view.

If you would like to limit how high he will jump, you can use the "jlimit" command. The default setting is 1.75 meters. There is an upper limit of 20 meters. Values higher than 20 will be interpreted as 20 meters. For example:

Fido jlimit 2

Fido jlimit 4.33

You can reset the jump limit to its default setting by saying:

Fido jlimit -1




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