Where are the strays?

[Nyami]

Do stray dogs and cats hang out at certain lots? I rarely see them, and I need to find some cats for my new challenge. I tried the gnome and it doesn't seem to do anything. :/

[Rockerduck]

All I can say is that I've witnessed a stray dog disappear on a "fishing spot" community lot. So my guess would be that they spawn / disappear randomly and there's no "home" lot where you'd be able to find them.

[Axe Gaijin]

There should be Gnomes you can buy (not sure under what catagory) that will allow you to either repel or attract strays to your lot.



Edit: They are under; decorative>sculptures

[Zokugai]

The gnomes are under the misc tab of the pet section, and also in either misc decor or statues, I forget which.

[kennyinbmore]

I get strays walking past my home lot

[porkypine]

I get cats and dogs all the time and wild horses and a unicorn once...

[Srikandi]

I have the same issue. I HAVE the "welcome stray cats" gnome... and I had a stray... once... but that's it :/

But perhaps I am just too impatient.

[simbalena]

I was going to start a thread on this topic too. I've never seen any stray cats or dogs even though I have all the welcome gnomes on my lot. All I have seen are wild horses, unicorns, deer and raccoons, but no catties or doggies.

[sci_fi40]

I'm having the same problem. I've never had a stray cat or dog, nor have I really seen much wildlife at all. Wild Foal ran through my property once, but I've never seen it again. I was thinking it might have something to do with my graphics. It sometimes takes sims, and objects, and such a couple of seconds to appear when I go to community lots. Is that even a remotely plausible explanation?

[Nyami]

Hmm :/ Hopefully if this is a glitch there will be a mod or patch that fixes it. For now I'll be adopting from the shelter.

[~Dee~]

I had a stray kitten come to the front door and meow and then it left, same with a dog ( he barked, not meowed ) hung around a bit and left.

[SuicidiaParasidia]

some of my saved games have strays visiting their lots practically all the time...others, not at all, with or without gnome signs.

though, the ones that have discouraging gnomes whose strays pop by anyway, the strays take the time to run over to the gnome, pee on it, then leave. >_>

so far, im not sure what causes these inconsistencies... :/

[Scarity]

strays are attracted to outside pets I think. If a animal is outside i get more strays than if I keep them inside.

[Srikandi]

Hmm, I just realized that the "adopt 6 strays" LTW can be fulfilled by adopting from the shelter.

That is too cheap! It costs no money and you can complete it within six days... maybe faster, not sure how many social worker visits you can get per day.

It's ALMOST as bad as the Ark LTW, which you can complete in a day ><

There was not enough thought put into the LTWs in this game :( They need restrictions on em so you have to get the pets the hard way.

[edejan]

I've had strays come to my house often, usually late at night. The lay down on the porch and fall asleep and usually leave before dawn. I've had cats, dogs and racoons. I've never used the gnome but there are always pets on the lot.

[CinderEmma]

Personally for the strays LTW, I'm going to do it just with the strays, it's not as fun to just adopt them if it's for LTW points.
*tries to remember what the Ark LTW is about*

[KaiRuh]

You have to obtain two of every type of animal for the Ark LTW.

[ShortyBoo]

I haven't seen any stray cats yet, but I've seen at least two stray dogs. They tend to show up just to tear up the newspaper on the front porch and walk away if I don't interact with them. So maybe they're attracted to newspapers.

[Scarity]

I put a dog bowl outside and got two dog strays in one day :) I also put a chew toy box the next day and there were 4 dogs!

[wolfsbayne]

I get strays but they never hang around for long enough to build up any kind of relationship. I can set up a queue of friendly interactions (sim and pet) and after just two or three the strays will decide to run home and that's that.

[Srikandi]

You have to obtain two of every type of animal for the Ark LTW.

Yeah, but it can be completed trivially because a) you can create two dogs, horses and cats with your Sim in CAH, and b) you can buy two each of the minor pets with the cash you have left when you start the game (buy the terraria/cages and "stock" them). That just leaves two each of butterflies and beetles that you need to complete the LTW (fish aren't included... which I guess makes sense when you think about the Ark ;) ), and those you can pick up in a couple of hours (or, in a new game, as soon as the spawners have a chance to generate some). Which means it's possible to complete this within a day of creating your sim. I tested this the other day and it works :/

If they had required you to start the game without any pets, and/or required that the minor pets be "rare" or better examples (which you can't get with the stock interaction), that would have made Ark an interesting LTW.

And if you had to actually adopt strays that were still strays, and not shelter pets, that would make the stray one more interesting :/ Although judging from the responses in this thread, I am not the only one who has trouble meeting and befriending them.

I would have also liked to see a breeder LTW... similar to "surrounded by family", i.e. raise 6 kittens/puppies/horses from kitten/puppy/foal to adulthood (or elder!)

Of course one can set oneself these challenges, but I am happier when the game code enforces the rules ;)

[Zokugai]

I would have also liked to see a breeder LTW... similar to "surrounded by family", i.e. raise 6 kittens/puppies/horses from kitten/puppy/foal to adulthood (or elder!)

Wasn't there an identical LTW to that in Sims 2?

[JurriNeo]

I'm having the same problem. I've never had a stray cat or dog, nor have I really seen much wildlife at all. Wild Foal ran through my property once, but I've never seen it again. I was thinking it might have something to do with my graphics. It sometimes takes sims, and objects, and such a couple of seconds to appear when I go to community lots. Is that even a remotely plausible explanation?

I get an amount of so-so wild animals on my property or around town. The wild foal I adopted, he is sort of a mule like color. Grey and such haha. I noticed another horse spawned in his place after I adopted him though..Hmm. Now I have the same exact issue as the "takes a few minutes to show up" thing. Every time I go down the road or return to a property it takes a few minutes for everything to show up including sims and animals :/
The graphics otherwise is pretty good. My animals aren't all screwed up like most people have said, just fluffy fur seems to be see-through and sometimes their heads are that of the babies of their breed. Like if I had an adult cat, their body is normal but the head of a kitten >_< And sometimes their heads turn black. I'm also having an issue with my sims delaying their actions, as it takes a while for them to do something. I know that is due to loading in the background though. And it takes forever for pictures to show up! Cannot wait until EA gets the pets patch out.

[claudiasharon]

I made a mod that allows more strays. More and more and more. Lol. I'm uploading it here and it'll be up and whoever wants more strays can download it. Or less strays. Whatever you want. Lol.

[simbalena]

I was thinking it might have something to do with my graphics. It sometimes takes sims, and objects, and such a couple of seconds to appear when I go to community lots. Is that even a remotely plausible explanation?

People have said that the number of sims generated in a late night venue depends on the power of your computer, so I have been wondering if this also affects the number of strays you get in a game.

[claudiasharon]

@simbalena I have a pretty good computer and get the occasional stray here or there. But with the mod I made in my game, I get two strays about every sim hour and they stay there for about an hour. I'm never without a stray! Lol. But like I said, I have a pretty good computer.

Looking through the game files, it shows that there are only 5 strays allowed in a world at a time. So that might have something to do with it.

[simbalena]

Looking through the game files, it shows that there are only 5 strays allowed in a world at a time. So that might have something to do with it.

Thanks for the info. So that means I gotsta kill some of them wild horses? yee-ha!

[claudiasharon]

Thanks for the info. So that means I gotsta kill some of them wild horses? yee-ha!

That I am not sure of, the strays seem to be cats and dogs, wild horses are a separate file and I couldn't find a limit to them.