Dogz, Your Virtual Pet - Downloads
| OK, here are goodies for the Dogz game. There aren't a whole lot of them, but the ones I've got for you are pretty important. To begin with, you can't play with the original dogz or use any of the hexed breeds unless you have the game. If you are lucky you might be able to find a copy for sale at Ebay or Amazon.com. I haven't seen it offered very often, though, so you will have to make do with the Adoption Kit. This Adoption Kit is rather like a demo which allows people to see what the game is like and, hopefully, tempts them into buying it. It is rather limited because you can't actually adopt a dog. However, you CAN play with the original breeds as well as the hexed breeds you download if you follow the instructions below. |  |
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Dogz Adoption Kit |
The Original Breeds!
| Hmmmm... what else? OH! You might need these breed files! Believe me, I have been guarding screens and watching people for years and all it takes is a crash, a virus, or a slip of the finger to send a file into cyberspace, never to be seen again. This can often happen when people are hexing new breeds or switching breed files from one folder to another. The other thing I have observed is that very few people make backup copies of important files and having to reinstall a game because of one lost file is silly. So, here are the files should you ever need them. These are from the English US version of the game. The breed files are in lnz format and should be placed in the Dogz Data folder. |  |
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| Download the Big Dog Breed | Download the Terrier Breed | Download the Chiua Breed | Download the Scotty Breed | Download the Bulldog Breed |
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Huh? What? Not THESE tricks??? Minibyte is waving those silly wet noodles at me and telling me to get serious and to stop foolin' around. SHEESH! Can't a guard dog have a little fun around here? Uh oh... I think she's serious about this... OK, OK, I'll tell the folks how to do little tricks that don't involve begging or balancing on balls.... harumph..
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Is there a Dogz Fooler?
Yes In fact, there are two. SuperSwampert67 created a "Fooler" for Dogz. Minibyte doesn't offer it here because it is very limited and you can play with more breeds using the Adoption Center Demo. The fooler makes the computer behave as if you have the full game, but it works for only one pet. The fooler includes Scrappy and you are rather stuck with him. You cannot reactivate the Adoption Center to get a pet of a different game breed or to try out any hexed breeds. The only way to get different petz would be to find someone who has the full version of the game and ask them to adopt pets and send their files to you. Considering that Dogz hasn't been available for years and the fact that most people won't know how to manage the files, it is doubtful that you will find someone to help you. If you want to try the Fooler, you can download a copy from Carolyn's Creations. The Fooler requires that you install the Adoption Center demo first. The second fooler was created by Carolyn Horn and is available for download at her site, Carolyn's Creations. Her fooler allows you to reactivate the Adoption Center and lets you take Daphne's quiz. Daphne's quiz is designd to help you choose the dog that would be best for you. Carolyn's fooler also requires that you first install the Adoption Center demo. Once everything is installed you will be able to play with the Dogz breeds as well as any hexed breeds you download. Just follow the directions below to learn how to use extra breed files and how to save your Petz. Learning how to save your Dogz petz is VERY important because when you reactivate the Adoption Center to try a new breed or when you try a downloaded breed, whatever pet was in your game will be lost.
Using Hexed Breeds
There are only five breeds in the original Dogz game and, as you can see from the section on downloadable breed files above, the files all end with the extension "LNZ." These LNZ files are located in the games's Data folder. Since the game is programmed to use only those five breed files any hexed breed must have the same file name as one of the original breeds. Of course this means that a hexed breed will overwrite one of the game breeds. Not good unless you know how to handle the situation.
The way to do that is to set things up so that you can switch files around without losing them by having them overwrite each other. Set up a new folder and call it something like "Game Breed Baks." Put copies of the five game breeds into that folder. These will be your game backup breeds. Now make a second folder and call it something like "Hexies." This folder will be used to store your hexed breeds.
You are now ready to download and use a hexed breed. Let's say that you want to try the Chickens breed from Maxine's Kennel. When you download a file it is (or should be) in a zipped or exe file. MAKE A COPY OF THAT ORIGINAL DOWNLOAD AND SAVE IT ON A FLOPPY DISK, CD OR DVD! If the file you use gets corrupted or you lose it in some way, you might not be able to download a new copy. Web sites disappear almost as fast as they pop up and there is no guarantee that the hexed breed you love will always be available for download.
OK, Your original breeds are safely backed up and you have a copy of the hexed breed file you downloaded safely stored outside of your computer. You can now unzip/extract the hexed breed into the game's Data folder. Since the Chickens breed is based on the Bulldog, it is named Bulldog.lnz and will overwrite the BULLDOG.LNZ file that you have in your game. The next time you try to adopt Jowls you won't get a Bulldog. Instead, you will get a little yellow chicken!
After awhile you will probably want to try some other hexed breed or maybe get your original Bulldog breed back. No problem. Navigate to the game's Data folder and find the file named Bulldog.lns. Rename it. Since you don't want to forget that it is a Bulldog based file, but you do want to remember that it is the Chickens file, the best thing to do is to rename the extension. (I renamed mine Bulldog.chickens.) Then move the renamed file to the Hexies folder that you made to store your hexed breeds. Now you can put a new hexed breed into your Data folder or get your original Bulldog breed back by copying it from the backup folder to the Data folder.
Whenever you want to adopt a chicken again, just move or delete the BULLDOG.LNZ file in the Data folder, copy your renamed Chickens breed file to the Data folder and change its name back to Bulldog.lnz. This switching of files can be a bit confusing at first, but with a bit of practice you will be a pro at it!
Backing Up a Favorite Pet
So you have adopted, raised and grown attached to a cute little pet, but you are terrified that something might corrupt it. Or maybe you just want to adopt and try another pet without losing the one you have and you know that your beloved pet will disappear when you reactivate the Adoption Center. Never fear! P.F.Magic neglected to tell you how to save copies of your petz, but it CAN be done.
This is what Minibyte did to save a copy of me and you can do this with any Dogz pet that you want to save. My name is Caesar, so Minibyte created a folder and called it "Caesar." Then she navigated to the Dogz main folder (the folder where you will find the DOGZ.EXE file) and located the files called DOGZ.INI, BRAIN.PBT, brain.BAK, tricks.tdt and saved.lnz. She made copies of those five files and put them into the Caesar folder. Those files hold all the information that describes me: my name, colors, age, etc. Now I am safely stored in that backup folder called "Caesar." To be extra sure that she doesn't lose me, Minibyte also copied that folder and the files in it to a cd. Now if she loses me in the game she can always get me back by copying those files back into the game's main folder!
After saving your pet you can reactivate the Adoption Center and adopt a new one. You can adopt petz from all of the game breeds and from your hexies, save their files to folders and then switch the files depending upon which pet you want to play with! HA! P.F.Magic, did you really think we would stop at having just one pet? ROFL!
These Playpen Backgrounds are Getting Boring!
You don't have to be satisfied with only the playpen wallpapers which came with Dogz. Many playpen wallpapers have been offered at Petz sites and they work in all of the Petz game versions. Minibyte has posted some for you to download and she will be adding more in the future. You can also use desktop wallpapers to give your Dogz interesting "playscenes!" Click on the "Desktop/Playscene Wallpapers" and "Playpenz Wallpapers" in the main menu to find out how to give your petz some interesting places to play.
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