Cats & Dogs: Pet illness

Yeah it's really annoying to be honest. I try to take my current pets to the vet for a check up and a shot to keep the illnesses at bay, but it doesn't seem to work so well.

I would prefer if all of the pets needs were static when not played with. In that case we wouldn't have to see all those sick and dirty animals everywhere. It's annoying to see some of your own sims walking a sick and dirty dog. I don't mind seeing dirty strays though since that makes sense.

The preventative shots don't seem to be much use, but I have found that the wellness treats that your sim can buy from the vet will cure pretty much any illness immediately. I make my sims carry lots of them in their inventories to use on their own pets, as well as on any sick strays they come across in the neighbourhood.

Thanks @FKM100 I wasn't aware of those wellness treats, guess I did not pay enough attention to the vet. My pet owners will buy a ton of those right away! :)

Maybe the game resets the preventive shots effect when we switch households. I switch a lot, and I think the illness is less of a problem if I play just one house.

I stock up on a bunch of treats the first time my pets ever have to go to the vet. It's just inconvenient to take my pet, because it's not like you just take your pet, wait for a minute, get it diagnosed and fixed and your home in a couple sim hours... it takes almost an entire sim day and your whole day is wasted and sometimes my sim just can't miss work to do this.

I've started to wonder if it matters what area your sims live in? My sims cat hasn't been sick since moving from Brindleton Bay almost 2 sim years ago. I'm not using any treats, either. Except playing the Heckings in BB a while back, I have no other experience with sim pets, so can't say for sure. It just struck me today, after playing in Forgotten Hollow a good while, that the cat hasn't needed to go to the vet in a really long time.

Well, @Kathykins I hardly played in BB, so pets get sick also in other worlds. But you might have right about some households or some pets not being so often sick. Perhaps there exists some triggers we are not aware of? Because I'm rotating families very often, say I rarely stay in the same house for more than 1 day, I might generally neglect my pets because they are not my main focus when playing.

It might be just a strike of luck that the cat haven't been sick in so long. This spesific cat and sim didn't live in BB very long, at most 3 sim weeks. It seemed the cat had to be taken to the vet at least twice a week in that time. I do rotational play also, but tend to stay with a household for quite a long time, only switching when I get "tired" of them and need change. I don't play the households in any spesific order. Also, I only have 1 house with a pet (they are also not MY focus when playing), not counting any of the premades or randomly generated sims with pets (which I normally don't play anyway).

There might be some hidden triggers that make some pets more sick than others, or areas in the world that triggers sickness more often. Now with Seasons, climate could also play a role.

For my sims who own pets, or when they visit lots in Brindleton Bay and see sick strays, I stop by the vet clinic and stock up on that wellness treat. But I wish there was a simple option, like how our sims can buy human medicine on the computer. They should be able to buy pet medicine on the computer too. I don't mind having my sims visit the clinic for the occasional visit, but I don't want it to be a overly frequent thing that takes time away from other tasks. My real life pets aren't that sick! Maybe 1-2 visits per year, or more as the pet reaches the elderly stage would be more reasonable.

There are bushes in some of the neighborhoods in BB that your pet could be visiting constantly and getting sick all the time because of it. It's similar to all the poohoo bushes from Get Together and Jungle Adventure and placing those anywhere else will also trigger pets to play in it and get sick from it. It's a very attractive item so @Kathykins maybe on the right track noticing the severe lack of illnesses for their pet after moving out of BB.

"Simmerville;d-945155" wrote:
I'm getting so tired of pets needing to visit the vet clinic. I play on rotation, and when entering a new house there seems to be a 50% chance their pet is sick. Visiting the vet was good the first time, but it gets very repetitive and time consuming. There is so much my sims would rather do. Pets are cute and all, but this sickness results in me removing pets from homes.

Is there a mod reducing the chance of a pet getting sick?

I wish EA would patch in a way to visit the vet for a pre-cure to avoid all sicknesses, at least for a certain number of simdays (or like 1 year if having Seasons). OR - it could be possible to purchase the cure from the vendor machine where we can buy age-up/down treats.

How do you deal with this in your game? Hopefully I missed some way to solve it.

You could buy a whole bunch of Wellness Treats from the vending machine and feed them to the pets whenever they get sick! But, if you are playing on rotation and feed Wellness Treats to your pets, you might as well just go get them checked up at the vet if you need to buy some more Wellness Treats for your pet.

I haven't heard of any mods yet.