Honouring a lost Petz dog (lengthy)
Aug 17, 2021 19:59:38 GMT -5
CatCreature and meowlissa like this
Post by rhikan on Aug 17, 2021 19:59:38 GMT -5
Lengthy story time!
I got back into playing Petz a couple of months ago after playing the games on my 13yo laptop one evening and was curious if they’d play on my current laptop. They did, so my mission to get back a lost dog was on.
It was, at the most, a decade ago that I either lost or deleted a dog I had named Chad. However, I can’t say for certain he wasn’t simply deleted by mistake or on purpose after a while, because my interests in particular looks of petz can change spur of the moment.
But he still could have been a corrupted file… I really don’t remember how he went! He’s the only one I remember going that I really liked, the only one that stands out to me, so I’d prefer to tell myself he was a corrupted file lol.
Anyway.
With just a photo of him to go by on my 13yo laptop, I’d been trying to get Chad back every now and then over the years, but no success. This laptop overheats quickly, can’t be run without her wire connected, takes forever to load anything, and the games crash on her way too often to really enjoy playing them, so that’s why I don’t like using her that often.
There was a time I even asked on here (might’ve been on another forum, idk) for anyone to create me one like Chad and someone had offered me one close enough to him. That dog I still have because it was a very nice gesture from that person. Sadly, I don’t know who that person was, but I’m still thankful!
That was a dog called Quizzle:
She was all correct other than her colouring, and Chad never had patches, but she’s still adorable, nonetheless.
I guess I gave up for a couple of years, and my last attempt was in 2019, or at least that’s what it looks like from my files. Then at the end of June this year, I decided to try again, so when I installed the games on my current laptop, as I said, the mission was on. I was determined, and I haven’t the attention span to be determined, so this must’ve meant a lot more to me than I’d realised.
This is how I got Chad…
• 13th June 2007: I bought Dogz 4 and installed it when I got home. I adopted two Great Danes who I named Gina (who I still have) and a boy named Blue. I also adopted two Sheepdogs who I named Ula, and I kept the default name Rufus for the boy. (This was before I knew about the Petz community and PetzA, so they were all raised naturally.)
• 21st June 2007: Ula and Rufus were old enough to have their own puppy, and it was a boy I named Chubs (who I also still have).
• 23rd June 2007: Gina and Blue had their own puppy, a girl I named Aida.
• 15th July 2007: Aida and Chubs were old enough and happened to have their own puppy, a little boy, and that was Chad.
It was as simple as that!
Was it that simple this time round? Of course not.
Apart from breeding other random dogz and catz for a day or two to take a break from getting another like Chad, this was the only thing I was doing on Petz5 for a solid 10 days, but on and off since June.
For this mission of mine, I stuck to purely using Great Danes and Sheepdogs and tried my hardest to keep them from being inbred, though after a while (you'll see why), I stopped caring about that (but did rectify it).
I started off with 4 Great Danes and 4 Sheepdogs. I bred them and bred the pupz, then bred the grandpupz. None of them really looked anything like Chad, but I kept the grandpupz that had some of his traits and bred them with the pupz/grandpupz of newly adopted Sheepdogs and Danes. Still no luck. Again, I kept the closest to Chad and got rid of all the others to start a new batch with the first ones with traits like his.
After doing this a few times with a few new batches and breeding them together (this was when I was still keeping them from being inbred), I realised two things: this would probably take a while if it wasn't happening straight away like getting Chad did, and I was basically running a puppy farm. I had to convince myself that my aversion to this type of thing in real life didn't apply in a game and it was all fine lol.
Eventually, I was working with 11 pairs to breed from with either one or both parent with the most traits like Chad's, and the same pairs bred each time.
I was ready to give up multiple times, I thought I’d never get another one like Chad, it genuinely made me depressed to the point I almost cried lol, especially when getting so many SO CLOSE to how he looked but still so far from being like him (they’ll be included below to show what I meant).
But then, after almost two weeks and, easily, over 4000 puppiez born and rejected, I finally got one like Chad last Friday morning. It was a little girl, but I was opposed to sex changing her and naming her after him. He was one I had a long time ago and it felt weird recreating him when all I wanted was another that simply looked like him. This girl is a brand new one, so meet Lilith!
There is a reason behind her name. Like many of my petz (even real pets), they have meanings behind their names. Some names come to me instantly, some might have relevance to something about the day they were born/adopted on, anything I may be listening to, or it'll take me a long time and I have to be inspired by baby name websites instead.
At first, she was simply named '6', being the 6th puppy born that time around. Her mother and father happened to be nicknamed '6a' and '6b', and the number 6 happens to be my favourite. So, three 6's… and she was born on Friday the 13th. Of course, in that case, I wanted to give her a creepy name lol, but none were coming to mind so I searched for "creepy girl names".
I wasn't aware of it but 'Lilith' is a "female demonic figure of Jewish folklore", so that was appropriately creepy enough lol.
There were thousands of rejects who just weren't anywhere near what I wanted, but there was also a handful I kept because I liked how they looked. I was planning to rehome some of them, then I changed my mind because I liked them too much! (This has meant that a desire I had to downsize my amount of petz has gone completely out the window, as I did have over 400, but now I’ve nearly 600. Oops!)
These are the cuties I kept along the way during my mission. You can see how frustratingly close I got with some of them. Yep, all those with everything right but the Great Dane ears, are all different dogz… I was so close:
(Letty and Bungle are Lilith's parents!)
About Lilith’s look, I’ve always named them ‘Grover’ because they remind me of Grover from Sesame Street, and he’s my favourite one. Though, I’ve no idea if there’s a dog mix like this with a name already, like the 'Tamsin', for example. Another name I've given them is simply 'Chad' after my old dog himself, but in the past year or so I've learnt about the name 'Chad' being used by a certain group of individuals to describe another certain group of individuals, and I'm a bit reluctant to stick with that one, so that name is just an AKA next to 'Grover'.
I guess I should explain what a ‘Grover’ is to me. It’s simply a Sheepdog with a Great Dane body and legs.
• Head and ears: Sheepdog
• Body and legs: Great Dane
• Paws: Sheepdog
• Tail: Long Sheepdog
• Fur: Sheepdog
• Colour: Any
• Pattern and patches: self or two-tone (if two-tone, the second colour MUST go down to the toes, not just to the ankles)
• Eye/eyelid colour: Any
These are my ‘Grovers’ who were created during this!
And after all this, I don’t wanna do anymore breeding for a long time.
I got back into playing Petz a couple of months ago after playing the games on my 13yo laptop one evening and was curious if they’d play on my current laptop. They did, so my mission to get back a lost dog was on.
It was, at the most, a decade ago that I either lost or deleted a dog I had named Chad. However, I can’t say for certain he wasn’t simply deleted by mistake or on purpose after a while, because my interests in particular looks of petz can change spur of the moment.
But he still could have been a corrupted file… I really don’t remember how he went! He’s the only one I remember going that I really liked, the only one that stands out to me, so I’d prefer to tell myself he was a corrupted file lol.
Anyway.
With just a photo of him to go by on my 13yo laptop, I’d been trying to get Chad back every now and then over the years, but no success. This laptop overheats quickly, can’t be run without her wire connected, takes forever to load anything, and the games crash on her way too often to really enjoy playing them, so that’s why I don’t like using her that often.
There was a time I even asked on here (might’ve been on another forum, idk) for anyone to create me one like Chad and someone had offered me one close enough to him. That dog I still have because it was a very nice gesture from that person. Sadly, I don’t know who that person was, but I’m still thankful!
That was a dog called Quizzle:
She was all correct other than her colouring, and Chad never had patches, but she’s still adorable, nonetheless.
I guess I gave up for a couple of years, and my last attempt was in 2019, or at least that’s what it looks like from my files. Then at the end of June this year, I decided to try again, so when I installed the games on my current laptop, as I said, the mission was on. I was determined, and I haven’t the attention span to be determined, so this must’ve meant a lot more to me than I’d realised.
This is how I got Chad…
• 13th June 2007: I bought Dogz 4 and installed it when I got home. I adopted two Great Danes who I named Gina (who I still have) and a boy named Blue. I also adopted two Sheepdogs who I named Ula, and I kept the default name Rufus for the boy. (This was before I knew about the Petz community and PetzA, so they were all raised naturally.)
• 21st June 2007: Ula and Rufus were old enough to have their own puppy, and it was a boy I named Chubs (who I also still have).
• 23rd June 2007: Gina and Blue had their own puppy, a girl I named Aida.
• 15th July 2007: Aida and Chubs were old enough and happened to have their own puppy, a little boy, and that was Chad.
It was as simple as that!
Was it that simple this time round? Of course not.
Apart from breeding other random dogz and catz for a day or two to take a break from getting another like Chad, this was the only thing I was doing on Petz5 for a solid 10 days, but on and off since June.
For this mission of mine, I stuck to purely using Great Danes and Sheepdogs and tried my hardest to keep them from being inbred, though after a while (you'll see why), I stopped caring about that (but did rectify it).
I started off with 4 Great Danes and 4 Sheepdogs. I bred them and bred the pupz, then bred the grandpupz. None of them really looked anything like Chad, but I kept the grandpupz that had some of his traits and bred them with the pupz/grandpupz of newly adopted Sheepdogs and Danes. Still no luck. Again, I kept the closest to Chad and got rid of all the others to start a new batch with the first ones with traits like his.
After doing this a few times with a few new batches and breeding them together (this was when I was still keeping them from being inbred), I realised two things: this would probably take a while if it wasn't happening straight away like getting Chad did, and I was basically running a puppy farm. I had to convince myself that my aversion to this type of thing in real life didn't apply in a game and it was all fine lol.
Eventually, I was working with 11 pairs to breed from with either one or both parent with the most traits like Chad's, and the same pairs bred each time.
I was ready to give up multiple times, I thought I’d never get another one like Chad, it genuinely made me depressed to the point I almost cried lol, especially when getting so many SO CLOSE to how he looked but still so far from being like him (they’ll be included below to show what I meant).
But then, after almost two weeks and, easily, over 4000 puppiez born and rejected, I finally got one like Chad last Friday morning. It was a little girl, but I was opposed to sex changing her and naming her after him. He was one I had a long time ago and it felt weird recreating him when all I wanted was another that simply looked like him. This girl is a brand new one, so meet Lilith!
There is a reason behind her name. Like many of my petz (even real pets), they have meanings behind their names. Some names come to me instantly, some might have relevance to something about the day they were born/adopted on, anything I may be listening to, or it'll take me a long time and I have to be inspired by baby name websites instead.
At first, she was simply named '6', being the 6th puppy born that time around. Her mother and father happened to be nicknamed '6a' and '6b', and the number 6 happens to be my favourite. So, three 6's… and she was born on Friday the 13th. Of course, in that case, I wanted to give her a creepy name lol, but none were coming to mind so I searched for "creepy girl names".
I wasn't aware of it but 'Lilith' is a "female demonic figure of Jewish folklore", so that was appropriately creepy enough lol.
There were thousands of rejects who just weren't anywhere near what I wanted, but there was also a handful I kept because I liked how they looked. I was planning to rehome some of them, then I changed my mind because I liked them too much! (This has meant that a desire I had to downsize my amount of petz has gone completely out the window, as I did have over 400, but now I’ve nearly 600. Oops!)
These are the cuties I kept along the way during my mission. You can see how frustratingly close I got with some of them. Yep, all those with everything right but the Great Dane ears, are all different dogz… I was so close:
(Letty and Bungle are Lilith's parents!)
About Lilith’s look, I’ve always named them ‘Grover’ because they remind me of Grover from Sesame Street, and he’s my favourite one. Though, I’ve no idea if there’s a dog mix like this with a name already, like the 'Tamsin', for example. Another name I've given them is simply 'Chad' after my old dog himself, but in the past year or so I've learnt about the name 'Chad' being used by a certain group of individuals to describe another certain group of individuals, and I'm a bit reluctant to stick with that one, so that name is just an AKA next to 'Grover'.
I guess I should explain what a ‘Grover’ is to me. It’s simply a Sheepdog with a Great Dane body and legs.
• Head and ears: Sheepdog
• Body and legs: Great Dane
• Paws: Sheepdog
• Tail: Long Sheepdog
• Fur: Sheepdog
• Colour: Any
• Pattern and patches: self or two-tone (if two-tone, the second colour MUST go down to the toes, not just to the ankles)
• Eye/eyelid colour: Any
These are my ‘Grovers’ who were created during this!
And after all this, I don’t wanna do anymore breeding for a long time.