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Minecraft: Java Edition
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🐕 Better Dogs
"Make Wolves Worthy Companions. Smarter, Safer, Livelier."
Every Minecraft player knows the pain: you spend hours finding and taming a wolf, and five minutes later it jumps into a 2-block lava pit or walks off a fatal cliff. Better Dogs overhauls vanilla wolf AI from the ground up to turn them into intelligent, durable, and highly capable companions. Powered by a high-performance Event-Driven AI Scheduler, every mechanic operates with near-zero tick overhead.
Part of the Vanilla Outsider Collection — modern mods designed to refine and elevate the vanilla Minecraft experience.
[!NOTE] 1 Jar 1 Version Policy: I build 1 dedicated JAR for each Minecraft version (e.g. MC 26.2, MC 26.3). Please download the exact build that matches your Minecraft installation.
✨ Features
🧠 Personality Intelligence
Upon taming, every wolf permanently develops one of three distinct personalities with custom stats, traits, and ambient patrol particles:
- 💢 Aggressive (The Vanguard): Proactively scouts up to 10 blocks ahead of the owner, targets hostiles up to 20 blocks away (+15% speed, -15% damage, -10 HP offset, 10% low-health flee chance). Emits red patrol dust (
0xFF3333). - ❤️ Pacifist (The Sentinel): Follows closely within 6 blocks (+20 HP bonus, -10% speed, +15% damage, +50% knockback, 100% low-health flee chance). Emits green/teal patrol dust (
0x00FF88). Warns you of nearby monsters with vocal growls and alert stances. - ✨ Normal (The Balanced Companion): Follows reliably within 10 blocks (balanced stats, 50% low-health flee chance). Emits golden patrol dust (
0xFFD700).
🛡️ Tamed Wolf Guard Mode
Shift-Right-Click (Sneak + Right-Click) your tamed wolf with a Bone in your main hand to anchor them to their current spot in Guard Mode (consuming 1 bone).
- Posture Preservation: Seated wolves remain sitting in a stationary sentry posture at their guard post without breaking posture.
- Personality Patrol Styles:
- Aggressive: Active polygon perimeter sweep patrolling up to 8 blocks around the post.
- Normal: Radial sweeps up to 6 blocks, returning to the center.
- Pacifist: Tight orbital circular sweeps within 4 blocks.
- Watchdog Alarms & Threat Pointing: When hostile mobs approach a Pacifist guard, the dog stands, freezes, looks directly at the closest monster, emits directional red dust particles, and growls according to its unique sound variant.
📄 Wolf Ownership Transfer (Adoption)
Transfer ownership of your tamed companion to another player safely and seamlessly:
- Initiate Adoption: Shift-Right-Click your tamed wolf with Paper. The wolf sits down, clears aggression, and emits a sparkling Rose Pink particle trail.
- Claiming: Any non-owner player can right-click the adoptable wolf with an empty main hand to claim them as their new companion.
- Safety Protection: Taking any damage or a normal right-click by the original owner immediately cancels the adoption state.
🦯 Select-and-Ride Command System
Command your tamed wolves to ride vehicles, mounts, boats, minecarts, or modded chairs with accurate sitting poses:
🎬 Video Tutorial: Select-and-Ride Command System
Click the thumbnail or button below to watch the feature showcase on YouTube
- Selection: Shift-Right-Click your tamed wolf with a standard Stick, Blaze Rod, or Breeze Rod to select them (plays a chime and emits a golden particle ring).
- Mount Target: Right-click any vehicle (Boat, Minecart, Horse, Camel, Donkey, Mule, Skeleton Horse, or modded Chair/Stair) to direct the wolf into the seat.
- Natural Sitting Pose: Wolves maintain a natural, upright sitting pose while riding vehicles instead of floating or standing awkwardly.
📏 Dynamic Size & Attribute Scaling
Every wolf features continuous, genetics-driven body scaling (70% to 145%) utilizing Minecraft's native Attributes.SCALE:
- Physical & Stat Correlation: Physical size scales health pools and attack damage proportionally.
- Unique Sound Variant Lottery: Scale, genetics, and personality deterministically seed a unique audio sound variant (Classic, Big, Cute, Puglin, Angry, Grumpy, Sad) with individual pitch offsets.
🤝 Advanced Social AI & Pack Genetics
- Multi-Puppy Litters: Breeding can produce litters of 1 to 4 puppies, each rolling independent personality traits, mutations, and scale factors.
- Adult Disciplinary Correction: Aggressive adult pack members gently discipline mischievous puppies to prevent chaotic death loops.
- Food Quirks: Dogs possess individual dietary traits — enthusiastic "Hoovers" eagerly scavenge dropped food from the ground, while selective lineages refuse ground scraps.
- Social Bonding & Affinity: Packmates build mutual affinity over time, preventing accidental infighting and suppressing blood feud retaliation.
🛡️ Smart Survival AI
- Cliff Safety: Wolves detect fatal falls (>3 blocks) and ledge edges, halting dangerous chases.
- Hazard Avoidance: Intelligently paths around lava, fire, drowning hazards, and Magma Blocks.
- Wolf-on-Wolf Collision Push Safety: When colliding with a packmate perched near a cliff or hazard, wolves immediately halt navigation to avoid pushing them into danger.
- Fire Survival AI: Burning wolves break their sitting posture in an emergency and sprint at 1.4x speed toward the nearest water body within 16 blocks to extinguish themselves.
- Creeper Blast Evasion: Tamed dogs detect swelling creepers and sprint radially away at 1.5x speed.
- Scaled Whimpering: Low-health whimpering dynamically scales to
< 50% max HP(preventing healthy runts from constant crying).
🏰 Dynamic Territoriality & Wild Pack Wars
Wild wolf packs roam as organized units led by an Alpha leader:
- Territorial Encounters: When rival packs meet, leaders negotiate outcomes based on personality:
- Aggressive vs. Aggressive: Triggers an intense 1v1 Leader Duel.
- Aggressive vs. Pacifist / Normal: Forces submissive pack mergers or peaceful retreats.
- Pacifist vs. Pacifist: Both packs peacefully retreat in opposite directions.
🌕 Restored Howling Soundscapes & Zoomies
- Pack-Wide Howling: Under a full moon, pack leaders initiate howling choruses using restored classic wolf howl sound files.
- Morning & Rain Zoomies: Happy, healthy dogs occasionally burst into playful high-speed sprints in the morning or during fresh rainfall.
🔍 Jade Mod HUD Integration
- Dynamic Numeric Health: Displays exact numeric health values (
HP: X / Y) and hearts. - Inbred Status Tag: Displays genetic lineage and inbred warnings in tooltips.
- Favorite Treat Discovery: Identifies your dog's secret favorite treat once fed.
💻 Server-Side Optional & Client Gating
- Server-Side Optional: Fully functional on dedicated servers even if connecting clients do not have the mod installed!
- In-Game GUI Config: Seamlessly integrates with ModMenu + Cloth Config / YACL v3.
📊 Quick Reference & Mechanics Matrix
🐺 Personality Comparison Table
| Personality | Base HP Offset | Speed Modifier | Damage Modifier | Follow Distance | Low-HP Flee Chance | Patrol Pattern | Patrol Particles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aggressive 💢 | -10 HP |
+15% |
-15% |
10 blocks |
10% |
Perimeter Sweep (8m) | Pure Red (0xFF3333) |
| Pacifist ❤️ | +20 HP |
-10% |
+15% |
6 blocks |
100% |
Orbital Sweep (4m) | Teal / Green (0x00FF88) |
| Normal ✨ | +0 HP |
+0% |
+0% |
10 blocks |
50% |
Radial Sentry (6m) | Golden Yellow (0xFFD700) |
🧬 Breeding Genetics Inheritance Matrix
| Parent Personalities | Primary Offspring Outcome | Secondary Mutation Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Same Traits (e.g. Aggro + Aggro) | 80% Inherits Parent Personality |
10% Mutates to alternative personality |
| Normal + Non-Normal | 40% Dominant Normal |
40% Recessive Non-Normal |
| Aggressive + Pacifist | 50% Dilutes into Normal |
25% Mutates to Aggressive / Pacifist |
⌨️ In-Game Commands
All commands are registered under /betterdogs (alias /bd) and support rich tab-completion:
| Command | Permission | Description |
|---|---|---|
/betterdogs help |
All | Displays the in-game command reference handbook. |
/betterdogs status |
All | Displays current mod configuration and core active parameters. |
/betterdogs get <rule> |
All | Reads the live value of any namespaced GameRule. |
/betterdogs set <rule> <value> |
OP (Level 2) | Updates the live value of a GameRule in real-time. |
/betterdogs reset |
OP (Level 2) | Restores all Better Dogs GameRules to factory defaults. |
/betterdogs reload |
OP (Level 2) | Reloads configuration files from disk. |
/betterdogs debug action <entity> <action> |
OP (Level 2) | Triggers actions (howl, zoomies, mischief, play_fight, retaliation). |
/betterdogs debug personality <entity> <type> |
OP (Level 2) | Forces a wolf's personality (aggressive, pacifist, normal). |
/betterdogs debug territory <entity> |
OP (Level 2) | Tests wild territorial pack negotiations. |
⚙️ Native GameRules & Configuration
[!IMPORTANT] 💡 Config vs. In-Game GameRules: The global configuration file only defines default values for newly created worlds. In existing worlds, change settings in-game via the Edit Game Rules UI screen or the
/gamerulecommand.
Key GameRules Overview
| Category | GameRule Identifier | Default | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Survival | betterdogs:bd_cliff_safety |
true |
Boolean | Prevents wolves from walking off fatal cliffs (>3 blocks). |
| Survival | betterdogs:bd_wolves_seek_water_on_fire |
true |
Boolean | Burning wolves sprint to water within 16 blocks. |
| Survival | betterdogs:bd_creeper_awareness |
true |
Boolean | Tamed dogs evade hissing creepers. |
| Survival | betterdogs:bd_friendly_fire_protection |
true |
Boolean | Protects tamed wolves from accidental owner hits. |
| Behavior | betterdogs:bd_storm_anxiety |
true |
Boolean | Enables thunderstorm trembling and whimpering. |
| Behavior | betterdogs:bd_zoomies_enabled |
true |
Boolean | Enables morning and rainfall sprint zoomies. |
| Behavior | betterdogs:bd_fetch_enabled |
true |
Boolean | Enables stick fetch games. |
| Guard | betterdogs:bd_guard_patrol_range_aggressive |
8 |
Integer | Patrol radius for Aggressive guard dogs (blocks). |
| Guard | betterdogs:bd_guard_patrol_range_normal |
6 |
Integer | Patrol radius for Normal guard dogs (blocks). |
| Guard | betterdogs:bd_guard_patrol_range_pacifist |
4 |
Integer | Patrol radius for Pacifist guard dogs (blocks). |
| Genetics | betterdogs:bd_wolf_litter_max_size |
4 |
Integer | Maximum puppy count in a single litter (1–4). |
| Scale | betterdogs:bd_wolf_min_scale_percent |
70 |
Integer | Minimum scale percentage (70%). |
| Scale | betterdogs:bd_wolf_max_scale_percent |
145 |
Integer | Maximum scale percentage (145%). |
📖 In-Depth How-To & Gameplay Playbook
Master every interaction in Better Dogs with this comprehensive operational playbook:
1. Taming & Discovering Personality
- Feed bones to any wild wolf. Upon taming, inspect the floating particle color (Red = Aggressive, Green/Teal = Pacifist, Gold = Normal) or check their Jade HUD tooltip.
2. Shift+Right-Click Gesture Playbook
- Bone + Shift-Right-Click: Toggles Guard Mode (consumes 1 bone). The dog anchors to the spot. Seated dogs remain sitting as sentries.
- Paper + Shift-Right-Click: Puts your dog up for Adoption (sparkling Rose Pink trail). Any non-owner player can right-click with an empty hand to claim them.
- Stick / Blaze Rod / Breeze Rod + Shift-Right-Click: Selects the dog (golden particle ring). Then right-click any vehicle (Boat, Minecart, Horse, Camel, Chair) to command the dog to mount with a seated pose.
3. Selective Breeding & Litter Genetics
- Feed meat to two tamed wolves. Litters produce 1–4 puppies. Puppies inherit parental scale and personality with a small chance of mutation. Outcrossing prevents inbreeding debuffs.
4. Reading Audio Cues & Whining
- Whimpering only triggers when health falls below 50% of the dog's maximum HP. Feed meat to restore health.
- Under a full moon, enjoy the ambient chorus of nocturnal pack howling.
5. In-Game Configuration
- Open World Settings → Edit Game Rules to browse all Better Dogs settings in a dedicated folder, or use
/betterdogs set <rule> <value>in-game.
☕ Support
[!NOTE] 🇮🇩 Indonesian Users: SocioBuzz and Saweria support local payment methods (Gopay, OVO, Dana, etc.) if you want to support me without using PayPal/Ko-fi!
📜 Credits & Permissions
| Role | Author |
|---|---|
| Creator | Dasik (Rifaditya) |
| Collection | Vanilla Outsider |
| License | GNU GPLv3 |
[!IMPORTANT] 📦 Modpack Permissions & Distribution:
You are free to include this mod in any modpack on any platform. However, the mod itself must be downloaded from its official distribution pages on Modrinth or CurseForge. Re-uploading or redistributing the mod jar file to third-party sites is strictly prohibited unless explicitly permitted by the creator.
License & Forks:
Since the source code is licensed under GNU GPLv3, you are fully permitted to fork the repository, make modifications, build your own versions, and distribute them under the terms of the GPLv3.
Made with ❤️ for the Minecraft community
Part of the Vanilla Outsider Collection