The Sims 4 has a wide variety of pets – cats and dogs – from which players can choose life companions.
Sims 4 Cats & Dogs enable its players to experience the growth of these pets from when they are young to when they are old. Similar to human Sims, these animals have limited interactions available when they are still growing. As such, you might feel an impatience for them to grow up so you can move from the boring aspects of their lives to the interesting ones. Luckily, the Sims 4 enables you to control and manipulate the growth of your pets as you desire.
Apart from having the capacity to speed up your pet’s aging process, there are also interactions that enable you to age them down. These interactions will help you hinder them from growing old and dying.
Note that the normal lifespan for a puppy or kitten is three days, while the typical adult has a life span of up to 25 days. An elder, however, does not have a specific life span.
How to Get Pets in the Sims 4
Thinking of aging your pet in Sims 4? Well, you need to have a pet first. If you have one, feel free to skip this part. If you don’t, however, there are a number of methods you can use to get one. Some of them are mentioned below.
Note: ensure you don’t have up to eight members in your household if you intend to get a pet in Sims 4.
Mate Your Pet
To unlock this interaction, you have to have a good relationship with your pet. To know how you fare on this front, click on “Friendly.” This will help you know your friendship level with your pet.
After this, you have to mate your pet with others. Just as it is important for you to have a good relationship with your pet for this to work, it is also important that your pet has befriended other pets. If it hasn’t, then this endeavor will likely fail and you won’t be able to mate it.
To find out which pets your animal is friends with, click on the “Encourage to Mate With” option. Be extra careful when choosing a partner as you will be best served by choosing the right one. You don’t have to bother about the breed of cat or dog; what is important is that the two animals are of the same species.
If the mating is successful, you will be notified a few hours after the act.
You will also receive another notification when they are about to give birth; this usually takes place two days after mating. Note that the delivery process is automatic as there isn’t a bassinet or any interaction you can enable.
Adopt A Pet
You can also acquire a pet via adoption. To do this, proceed to the services menu of your phone and locate the option to adopt a cat or a dog.
There are 12 different stray pets available for you to choose from; a few of these are kittens or puppies.
If you choose more than one pet, they will be delivered to your home in a crate. And you can examine them before deciding whether to adopt or not. In fact, after reception, the pets will walk around your house and you can get to know them before deciding whether to pay the 200 Simoleons fee for adoption.
If you do adopt, you can change your pets’ names to whatever you wish.
Accidental Pregnancy
Sometimes your cat or dog will up and run away and then come back pregnant. Not to worry, you will be notified when this happens. As mentioned earlier, the delivery process is automatic and does not require your input.
How to Age Up Pets in Sims 4
There are two methods you can use to change the age of your pet in Sims 4 – in-game items and cheats.
Aging Your Pets Using Treats
The first method involved in aging up your pets is to create treats for them. To do this, you have to gain access to the crafting machine – Dr. Magi-Heal’s Medicine Craft-o-Matic. This machine is quite easy to locate; it is available in the vet clinic located in Brindleton Bay. You can also purchase it in the Hobbies section of Buy mode.
To create a treat, your Sim has to have a minimum Veterinarian skill of level 6. You can increase your rank to this level by using the crafting machine. Select the “Do Lab Work” option and tinker with the machine with your Sim to gain the required skill.
When you finally reach the level 6, proceed to the “Craft” section and head to “Treats”. There are two options under treats – age up or age down treat. Select the “Age Up Treat” option to craft your treat.
After it is created, it will appear in your Sim’s inventory, click on the pet you want to age up and give them the treat. The effects will become apparent within a few seconds.
If you are aging up a little pet, this treat will make it grow into an adult. On the other hand, using this on an adult will make it grow into an elder.
Aging Your Pets Using Cheats
To avoid upgrading your veterinarian skill level before you craft a treat, you can age up your pet using the full edit mode cheat. This cheat allows you to edit all the components of your Sims and pets, including their ages and appearance among others.
To activate this cheat, press Ctrl + Shift + C on your keyboard if you use a PC. If you use a console, hold down on the four top buttons on your controller. This will cause a textbox to pop up. When this happens, type in “testingcheats true”, then press enter.
To enter full edit mode:
- Input the full edit mode cheat: “cas.fulleditmode” in the same text box and press enter.
- Thereafter, hold shift and click on the pet you want to age up, then select “Modify in CAS”.
- When the *Create A Sim” page opens, enter any age you desire the pet to be and click “Check.”
The pet will become the age you have specified immediately.
How to Age Down Your Pets
Apart from aging up your pets, the Sims 4 also allows you to age down your pets so that they can spend a longer period of time with you. You can do this through any of the aforementioned methods.
Using the treat method, all you have to do is to make your sim create an age down treat instead of age up a treat.
Using the cheat method, all you have to do is to choose a younger age on the Create A Sim page.
