To all of your comments on the puppy pen--It disturbed me so so much when I first used it, and the puppy never grows up (at least to my knowledge, I never used it again). I had almost forgotten about it existing D:

I love cats in real life and in the game. I think the game doesn't give them equal rights, though-there are more dogs represented than cats I think in the stray population..but why my pixels end up with dogs I'll never know. I've only had one pet actively so far-and it's very annoying to be unable to really enjoy having a pet.

But as I said, cats rock!

That would be the fix I referred to in my post that does not work

I also despise the dogpen and ignore any wants for it. Dogs and cats are my favourite. I don't like keeping birds for long - I want them to be free too, so I let them fly around the house and always set them free after a while. No bird should be caged. I sometimes get an aquarium, not often, and always completely forget about womrats and ant farms (does that count as pet?)

The first and last time I tried the puppy pen it attached itself to my sims wrist. <_< I love every other pet and have CC small pets as well.

My favorite pets are dog and cats. Sometimes I get womrat or this: http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=481210 is kinda cute and is a fun pet to have and you only need feed it one time a day! My least favorite are the birds mine are always dying even when I feed them twice a day and when they die is disturbing because is the corpse at the floor of the cage looking so realistic. I know that Sims 2 is not a kid's game but common' EA it doesn't have to have realistic birds corpses,,. it's just disturbing

I love Pets EP and since I am a Bird person in real life ( I have two Parrots name Spike female & toby male ) Birds are among my favorite pet next is cat and small dogs.
I want to say Maxis did an excellent animation with the birds, they really act somewhat that way in real like. My least favorite is fishes they always died on me, I have had that happen as well in real life.

Although I prefer cats over dogs, I cannot own cats for a couple reasons. The biggest problem is I've owned zebra finches for years, and I don't have a great place to keep them safe from any felines. Because of these tiny birds I've become more of a bird person. Shoot, at the Sim house I built to resemble my real home, I placed a budgie cage where my finches would usually be. Perhaps someday I'll do recolors of the parrot so they can have identical colors like my birds..

@kamoodle5, I own a pair of zebra finches and I LOVE them, they're the sweetest little things!!

I also often forget that the ant farms exist in game... will definitely try out

Have you tried twojeffs caged pet fixes? If you haven't, try it. There's an issue with bird and their hunger, it goes down when the game is paused. If you have tried it and it did not help, let me know if you want my mod that stops birds from losing hunger. You miss out on watching them eat and no refilling bowl, but at least they stay alive.

@gummilutt I did not know you made a mod for birds, I do use Twojeffs I have had it for a long time, but I would like to check your mod out as well I am curious. that is if it work with Seasons.

I don't upload everything I make, and this is one of those that I never shared anywhere so it would have been strange if you had heard about it I went ahead and put it on my tumblr (found here) for those that may be interested. It's compatible with any setup, requires Pets since that's the game that introduced bird cages.

Favorite is the giant square fish tank because it requires zero maintenance. I love dogs in real life, I have 2 of my own, but sims dogs are eh. I wish there was more autonomous dog behavior that wasn't destructive, like more toy options, or more interacting (not fighting) with each other.

Least favorite are the bird and womrat because they never die. Parrot, ok, technically realistic because they live for 50+ years, but I have a family that got a womrat the day their kid aged up to child and he's grown up, gone to college, moved out on his own, and that same damn womrat is still alive.

Sims 2 pet choices were so lame in comparison to Sims 1 pets. I liked the different bird choices and the turtles and iguanas. Has anyone adapted those for Sims 2?

And this is going to sound terrible, but I wish the dog and cat life expectancies were more realistic. Real life dogs live 12ish years (depending on breed) and cats maybe 15. I had a sim who bought a dog right out of college and it died when she became an elder- basically 40 years. That's insane. I feel like I would have more pets in my game if they had shorter life spans. I'd prefer if my sims got a dog when they got married, it died when their kids were children, they get another dog, it dies while the kids are in college, etc. As if is, I have to worry about the family pet outliving the parents.

destructive; from my understanding, it is one of the reinforceable behaviors. with each reinforceable behavior, praising would encourage the pet to do it again and scolding would discourage the pet from doing it again.

@gummilutt Thanks for sharing the link, I going to take Twojeff out and check this out., I made a txt about what you said in your notes there. I also notice your Custom Memories and like mostly all of them that is listed.
I do like to see them eat, but if I had to pick I rather have them live longer.

Maybe you will like this http://modthesims.info/download.php?t=464697

@Simonut You don't have to get rid of Twojeffs mod because of mine, they don't conflict (sorry forgot to say so in the tumblr post). Twojeffs does a bunch of other stuff you might like, and it won't interfere with mine in any way.

I would also prefer to see my birds eat, and for Sims to have to refill their bowls. I intend to work on it some more at some point, maybe make it so that hunger does not kill birds instead of stopping hunger decay. But until I have time/feel up to it, this is an acceptable compromise for me and my game

Maybe this would help if you could apply the same thing to birds.

http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=6496

I've downloaded twojeff's fix and have yet to install it, but I now see what yall mean about the bird glitch!!! I had my game paused all night (i never shut my computer off, shame on me) and unpaused and dear little Pepe died. And mind you I've never actually SEEN the death animation for the bird ingame. So having a soft spot for birdies...yeah it wasn't pretty lmao

Anyways, its good to hear everyone's opinions and I even learned a thing or two from this thread

@gummilutt Oh good I can keep both since there is no conflicts, yes you are right TJ mod do other things as well,thank for the head up.

Your birds never die? Mine usually keel over after a week or so, even though my Sims always keep them clean, fed, and talked to. I don't like them much precisely because they die so quickly!

That's kind of my point. Once they're trained, sims dogs don't really do anything. They eat, they pee, they lay in their beds, they chew their bones. Nothing else.

My dogs play with toys (plural), they follow me around, sit next to me when I'm making dinner, play with each other, sit in my lap while I'm watching TV, sniff around the backyard. That's the kind of autonomous behavior I mean. Sims dogs just go from point A to point B to meet their needs. At least the untrained dogs do spontaneous stuff like roll around in the flowers and jump up on the bed.

I've something to add about the dog pen even though I don't have the Pets expansion (I do have Apartment Life). Even though I don't have pets in my game, fortune sims especially will roll wants for the dog pen. Even if you haven't fulfilled a single "buy something" want. Just goes to show you that some Sims want things they don't have a need for.

I've always found the Pets expansion the one that left the most to be desired. Why can't we wrestle with dogs and place cats on our bellies while lying down? I've always hated how the only Play interactions with dogs are Razzle and Fetch, and the only ones for cats are Cat Teaser, Toss In Air, and Finger Wiggle. There's so much more you can do with pets, but alas, EAxis didn't grab at any of those opportunities. As such, I generally don't play with pets very often in my game.

But I'm more of a dog person in real life, so I'd go with dogs.

Pets always gave me the impression that development was a bit rushed. It has the feeling that they planned more, but just ran out of time.