Guides

Pets and K9

Buying a pet at the pet shop (Paleto Bay on the English server, Harmony on the Balkan server), bringing it out, command words in local chat, feeding and care, training and tricks, the leash, riding in cars, and the police K9 unit for law enforcement handlers. For anyone with a character.

Updated 30 September 2026

What it is

Pets are animals your character owns and takes around the city. You buy one at the pet shop, name it, pick a coat, and from then on it can be out with you anywhere: following at heel, sitting when told, riding in the back of your car, walking on a leash you can see, doing tricks once it has been trained, and living a small life of hunger, happiness, energy and bond that you look after from a panel. A character can own three and have one out at a time.

Police K9 dogs are the same animal on a different job. A law enforcement officer gets up to three K9 profiles, deploys one on duty, and uses it for obedience, tracking by blood or scent, sniffing people, cars and areas for contraband, and taking a suspect down. The dog is not invincible: it has a lot of health, a field heal, and a way back if it goes down, and a handler who loses it has lost it for a minute.

Both talk the same language. Say the animal's name and a word in local chat and it does what you said. That is the part people enjoy most, so it gets its own section.

How to start

Go to the pet shop for your server, walk to the counter and press E. The shop panel shows the catalogue with prices, your cash and bank and how many pets you already own.

Pet Shop, English server-269.93, 6283.75

Paleto Bay. Walk to the counter and press E; the map icon only shows when you are nearby

Pet Shop, Balkan server562.38, 2741.51

Harmony, on Route 68. Walk to the counter and press E; the map icon only shows when you are nearby

Breed	Price	Coats	Tricks
Rabbit	$2,000	3	no
Pug	$2,500	1	yes
Cat	$3,000	4	no
West Highland Terrier	$3,000	1	yes
Poodle	$3,500	2	yes
Rottweiler	$4,000	1	yes
Husky	$4,500	3	yes
Retriever	$4,500	1	yes
German Shepherd	$5,000	2	yes
Dobermann, Rottweiler and Retriever (K9 Unit)	$7,500	1	yes, with a collar and harness you choose
Chop	$9,000	1	yes

Pick a card, choose the coat (and on the K9 Unit breeds a collar and harness from the tiles), type a name of 2 to 30 letters, and press "Preview in store" if you want to see it first: a copy of the animal appears in front of you and the panel hides so you can look around; F3 brings the panel back. "Buy" opens the payment prompt, cash, bank or card. Your new pet starts at full health, full stats, no training, and "act on its own" switched on so it wanders and emotes by itself.

Cats and rabbits do not do tricks. They keep their dignity and the Tricks tab is simply not there.

Step by step

Bring it out
/pets opens the panel; press Spawn on the pet you want, or type /pets spawn <name>. The animal appears in front of you and an emote shows above your head: "whistles and Nanook comes running over." Only one animal per character can be out, so calling a second one sends the first home.
Walk with it
The pet follows on its own: walking close, jogging when you pull ahead, running when you get far, and catching up if it falls too far behind. Clip the leash with /leash (or the button) and everyone nearby sees a rope from your hand to its collar; the pet stays tight to you on the lead.
Tell it what to do
In local chat, type the name and a word: "Nanook, sit", "Nanook, stay", "Nanook, come", "Nanook down", "Nanook, heel", "Nanook, play". Punctuation does not matter and neither does case. The Words tab lets you set custom words that work on their own without the name.
Take it in the car
Get in a vehicle and the pet asks for a seat by itself: rear right first, then rear left, then the front passenger seat. Within a few metres it is helped in; a bit further and it runs to the car. When you get out, a pet that rode with you hops out beside you. If there is no free seat it keeps following on foot and tries again.
Feed it and play
Open the Care tab. Feed costs $25 and restores hunger; the Vet costs $400 and restores health; Play, Pat and Walk are free and raise happiness and bond. Every five minutes while you are online your pet gets a little hungrier and a little less happy, and regains energy and health, so a fed pet heals itself. A starving pet stops healing and, at zero hunger, loses health instead.
Train it
Train (button or /train) adds 5 to 15 training points every thirty seconds up to 100. Tricks unlock on the way: Sit at 10, Shake at 25, Bark at 40, Roll over at 55, Beg at 70, Spin at 85, Lie down at 100. Perform one with /trick <name> or the Tricks tab.
Send it home
/pets despawn or the Despawn button. The pet is kept with its current stats and comes back next time exactly as you left it. It also goes home on its own when you log out or change character.

Talking to the animal

Any line you type in local chat is checked against your animal's words after it is said out loud. Two forms work:

Name plus word. "Biscuit, sit" or "Rex fass". The first token must be the animal's name, then a built in or custom word.
A custom word on its own. A line that is exactly one custom word, for example "platz". Built in words never work alone.

Action	Built in words	Pet	K9
Sit	sit, sitdown	yes	yes
Down	down, lay, laydown, lie, liedown	yes	yes
Stay	stay, wait	yes	yes
Heel	heel, follow	yes	yes
Come	come, here	yes	yes
Play	play	yes	no
Apprehend	bite, apprehend, get, attack	no	yes
Release	release, out, off	no	yes
Track	track, sniff, find	no	yes
Search	search, check	no	yes

Custom words are 2 to 16 letters, letters only, not a built in word, not part of the animal's name, one per action. A new pet has none, so it only answers "Name, word" until you set some. K9 profiles come with a German set by default: sitz, platz, bleib, fuss, hier, fass, aus and such. One word per second per animal; a downed animal ignores everything; an animal in a vehicle refuses every word except Release.

Two chat commands emote as the animal rather than to it. /petme <action> prints "* Biscuit <action>" in purple to everyone within 20 m, and /petdo <description> prints a description with the pet's name. Use them: a dog that growls at the man by the door is roleplay a nametag cannot do.

Health, hurt and lost

A pet has a health bar. At half health you are warned ("Nanook is hurt (43% health)"); at 15 percent it collapses and only Heal, Refresh or Despawn work. If it dies it is stored at 15 percent and needs a $400 vet visit before it can come out again. The vet works from the Care tab even while the pet is away.

The leash is safe by design: it is a rope drawn between you and the animal and it never pulls, launches or attaches anything. It is not drawn while either of you is in a vehicle.

The K9 unit

Everything above applies to a police dog, with these differences. Only members of a law enforcement faction can use /k9, and most K9 actions need the handler on duty or holding an off duty permit from a supervisor. The first time an officer opens the panel a default profile called Rex, a German Shepherd, is created. Up to three profiles; the active one is the one /k9 deploys, and profiles can be duplicated (words and wardrobe copied) and swapped live.

K9 breeds are the German Shepherd, Belgian Malinois, Husky, Rottweiler, Retriever, Bloodhound and the three K9 Unit models with collars and harnesses. The Bloodhound tracks further than anyone else. K9 profiles are free.

On the street. /k9 deploys, /k9 dismiss recalls, /k9 menu opens the panel. /k9 heel, sit, stay, down, load, unload and leash do what they say. A K9 never gets out of the car on its own, so a traffic stop does not empty the cruiser of the dog.

Tracking. Take a scent from the last person seen in a nearby vehicle (/k9 scentcar) or from seized clothing or evidence with a known owner (/k9 scentitem), then /k9 track: the dog pulls towards that person with a waypoint and a distance, or, with no scent, towards the nearest blood trail. Scents are lost on dismiss.

Searches. /k9 search <id> sniffs a person within 12 m for drugs and weapons; /k9 sniffcar sniffs the occupants of the nearest vehicle; /k9 area counts the people within 25 m carrying contraband.

Apprehension. /k9 bite [id], or "Rex, fass 14" in chat, sends the dog at a suspect within 22 m. The suspect is told "A police dog is coming for you." and has a couple of seconds to break away; if they are still close when the dog arrives they are taken down and told to expect the handler. There is no damage and no hold beyond the takedown, and an eight second cooldown between bites. /k9 release calls the dog off. A K9 refuses to engage on duty officers, which is what training mode is for: /k9 training lets the dog work only against on duty members of the handler's own department for exercises, for up to thirty minutes, with an orange TRAINING tag over its head.

Down and back. A K9 has three times a pet's damage budget and no critical hits, but no godmode. /k9 heal is a six second field treatment to 60 percent health, on foot, beside the dog, with a two minute cooldown. If the dog goes down completely, /k9 refresh brings it back at full health after a one minute cooldown, and typing /k9 on a gone dog runs the refresh for you.

Permits. A supervisor (a rank that can promote, on duty) grants /k9permit <officer> [reason] to let an officer work the dog off duty. The permit unlocks the whole set, and it ends automatically if the officer leaves the faction.