NOVEMBER: TESTSIMS
You can make a living from testing imported furnitue and activites for your neighbourhood. Do you have a web shop offering equipment, furniture or even clothing related to our next article? Please contact web master before July 20.

Click to proceed SimSit's section at STUFF.
Click to proceed Chris JB's section at STUFF.

Breeding cats and dogs is a popular home businesses or hobby to many sims. Learn how to start your own pet breeding business at home and how to succeed!

If you like animals and have access to Old Town you most likely have got a dog or a cat already. Some just want a dog or cat for the company or for their kids' amusement, others like to take advantage economically of the possibilities of breeding and selling pets.

Skills and equipment
You will not need any particular skills in order to breed pets. It's more important to have a suitable personality and lifestyle, but any sim can breed pets. Having a couple pets will keep you  busy as you will need to clean up whatever they leave on the floor or ground, and you must make sure their food bowls isn't empty. You must also expect them to beg you for attention quite often, especially if they are not too happy. On top of this the pets might walk in your way, blocking you in the bathroom or make it harder to navigate through your house, especially if you live in a small house. The more pets you have, the more traffic, and this can be a problem if you have a car pool waiting.

Getting your first pets is expensive, but most of the items will not break down so the cost is mainly a one time investment. The cat's scratching post will need to be replaced occasionally. Feeding the pets will cost §15 each time, and you should expect 1-2 feedings per day depending on how many and how active your pets are. In addition you might need to buy them toys and treats, so all in all you should expect a daily cost of at least §50 to have pets. If you get them to breed they will pay back a lot more than that.

A pet will costs §399 per cat or dog. In addition all you need is a feeding bowl, but to make your pet happy you should also get a bed and some applianes depending on whether you have a dog or a cat. Dogs will pee outdoor and do not need a litter box like the cats do. Dogs are trained to become housebroken, while a cat will instinctly use the litter box. You can keep your pet happy by giving it toys like a scratching post for cats, or a toy for the dog. If you have a dog you might even want a Dog Bath, because the dog will not manage to stay clean like the cat will. A dog can do even without regular baths, but it will show on its all over mood.

Many pet owners arrange it so their pets' base is in the backyard or in a room away from the main route through your house. Pets will spend most time outdoors and where you place their food, beds and toys.

How to make them breed
When they are ready to breed they will snuggle, this is a random thing that you can't tell them to do, and it's been said that the chances for the snuggling to give results is as low as 1/45. Cats or dogs might breed as soon as their relation is established and they won't need to be good friends. Relations less than 40/40 has been reported, and as soon as they start snuggling their relation will improve rapidly. Some pet owners manage to have the first breeding within 10 days while others are still trying. Breeding do not depend as much on how well you treat them, but more on their relation which again depend on their personalities. You can't force them to like each other, but if you help them staying happy the chances might increase.

You can do a few things to help their relation to grow. They need to spend time together to grow a friendship, so if one of them is asleep while the other is awake and in a good mood, wake up the first. If you want to breed dogs avoid having a outdoor dog shelter in the start, because you will not be able to wake up the dog sleeping inside it. Making sure the two pets are in the same room as often as possible might also increase the frequency of their interactions. Cats do like to watch tv, so turn off your tv if you rather want them to play together.

Pay attention to how their relation develops. If they don't go well together, you might try to remove or add pet appliances, or even buy a new pet if you think it's a personality problem.

It's been said that your pets will breed easier if they are not too comfortable, so removing one of their beds might be a good move. The reason is that they gain a lot of comfort from snuggling, so if they are low on comfort the chances they snuggle might improve slightly. This will not help if their relation is poor, though.

Training your pets
Your profit from selling the offspring will be based on the parents' skills and it is smart to start training them as soon as possible to increase the profit. Start with training obedience, it might take a lot of your patient in the start, but when the pet has earned a few points it becomes easier. The housebroken skills for dogs and the hunting skill for cats will come as a natural result of their everyday activities. Training both tricks and hunting will become easier if the pet has a high obedience score. It should be possible to achieve 10 obedience points within 10 days, but this might depend on the pet's personality, and you should also leave the 2 pets alone for some hours daily in order to get them acquainted or to snuggle.

Some pet owners prefer to get one pet at the time, training the first pet before a pet partner is brought into the house. If at least 2 pet interested sims live in the house you can train one pet each.

Note that you can't train a pet unless you have a good relation with it, so it can be time consuming to train 2 pets simultanously. To build your relation with your pet, play a lot with it and give it treats and a collar or ribbon etc. Also note that hugging a pet is much more rewarding than just petting it. Also calling for it is good, but might give a negative result with some pets.

The pay cheque
The parents' skills will decide how much you earn from selling their offspring. You can expect about §50 per skill, but this is not written in stone. Note that you can increase the income even after the kittie or puppy is born, because the price will be set when you sell it and nit when it was born. Be careful though to train the mother because she will need to stay happy to look for the offspring.

Although you can increase your profit by training the pets, you can not control how often they breed. Even if you can get a nice sum by selling a offspring, it might not be a lot if it happens very rarely. Each offspring will need 2 days of nursing until it can be sold. Quite often the parents will snuggle daily, so theoretically you can have 3 offsprings per week, but don't count on it.

You will not be able to sell the adult pet, and having 3 of them might benefit your business - or not. You can try to breed more than just 2 pets, either you can have 4 dogs or 4 cats, or 2 of each. You might not be able to have more than one puppy or kitten at the time, but while one couple looks for their offspring, you can work on the other couple's relation making them ready to breed as soon as the first couple's offspring is sold. It is easier to keep the pets coupled if you have 2 cats and 2 dogs, but if you have i.e. 4 dogs they might all breed (male with female, of course). Keeping more than 2 pets will be a lot more time consuming, but two adult stay at home sims might succeed.

The local pet show
Entering the local pet show is something most pet owners look forward to. The Pet Show takes place in Old Town, and you must contact the Kennel President in order to enter the show. Entering the show does not directly affect your income from breeding pets, but it is a good motivation and psychological reward along the road. We asked Mr Kennel President about the judging:

- Your pet will be judged by skills and mood, and you will be rewarded with The White Ribbon (3rd prize), The Red Ribbon (2nd prize) or The Blue Ribbon (1st prize). If your pet is not quite ready for this kind of judgement yet you will get the "Booby Prize", because we think it might encourage both the pet and the owner if they can put away something in their trophy cupboard.

What are the requirements for each of the prizes?

- The White Ribbon requires that your pet has got about 15 skill points, and to get The Red Ribbon the pet must have more than 20 skill points. To achieve The Blue Ribbon, which is the Kennel Club's highest prize the pet's mood must be very good when you enter the Pet Show.

Thank you, Mr Kennel President.

From the neighbourhoods
In the neighbourhood Arcadia, Sabrina and Brian Toomey have recently discovered the joy of breeding pets:
- We live on a farm on the outskirts of the Arcadia neighborhood. We are both very active in the garden, as well as making preserves and selling gnomes. However, we have recently discovered the benefits of breeding. We have two dogs, Babydoll and Abe, both of the same breed. They are both fully housetrained and have been taught tricks at home. However, they are very lacking in obediance. On their own, with no coaxing from my family, Babydoll and Abe had puppies one day! We were all surprised by the blue maternity basket alongside the doghouse in our backyard, but Babydoll watched her child incessantly, requiring us to do nothing. After a few days, we received a notice that we could either keep the dog as a pet or sell it for about $750! We decided to sell it, and are hoping to breed the dogs further.

Simmerville Hood Council has a Pet Owner's representative, Angela Gobelin. She has 2 siamesian cats that she has been trying to breed for 50 days without success:
- Celtina and Celton actually did breed once before the hood was ruined by the upside-down plague 50 simdays ago. After the plague, the cats' relation never got right, Celtina likes Celton very much and I'm sure she is very eager to breed with him, but Celton is absolutely  not interested in Celtina. I have tried everything from avoiding to pet them to removing their beds, but nothing seems to help on their relation. It seemsto be a personality thing and I'm starting to realize that they might never breed.

Over in the hood of Betterville, Mrs Jansson reports she has pretty much succeeded with her pets:
- I guess I was lucky when buying them, because they started to breed after only 5 days, and they still breed at least every 5th day. They are now pretty skilled, and each baby pet brings in about §2500 to my household budget. This is §500 per day, and it makes it possible for me to stay at home.

Photo top: Mr Bertrand Montpellier in his home office.