Cat Petology

I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.

—Rudyard Kipling

There’s an old saying that when a Sim feeds a dog, the dog thinks the Sim must be a deity. But when a Sim feeds a cat, the cat thinks the cat must be a deity. Cats think they own their Sims, not the other way around. Nonetheless, Sims and cats make a great team. Sims can provide food, petting, brushing, and litter box cleaning for their pet cats, while pet cats provide love and affection plus the occasional hairball or dead rodent.

Cat Petology

The mechanism for playing a cat in The Sims 3: Pets is very similar to that for playing a dog. But as anyone who’s owned either cats or dogs knows, the animals themselves are completely different as pets. Cats are a lot more independent, they’re cleaner, and they do as they please. Cats cannot be trained, of course! However, they do respond to reinforcement from their owners. Just as with dogs, their traits can be changed and molded by interactions with their Sims.

The Cat UI

Cats have the same basic game panels as dogs and horses. Like horses and dogs, cats are full members of the household, and are under your control. Cat icons appear to the right of the household Sims icons in the UI, along with the icons of any other household pets.

The Cat UI shows the following panels: Petology, Relationships, Careers (This tab is grayed out because pets don’t have jobs), Skills, Inventory, Opportunities (This tab is grayed out because pets don’t receive opportunities), Lifetime Happiness, Needs.

Petology and Relationships

Cats have the same Petology and Relationship bars that dogs and horses do, and these are pretty similar to the ones you’re used to for your Sims. Remember that cats, like all pets, start out with certain traits, but those traits will be added to and subtracted from, based on the training and reinforcement they receive from their Sim guardians.

Pets have slightly different relationship levels than Sims do. Rather than Acquaintance, pets who know another Sim slightly show them as a Familiar Sim. There can also be Familiar Cat, Familiar Dog, and Familiar Horse relationships. Pets also have access to the Best Friend Forever relationship level, and can bestow it upon favored Sims or other pets. Pets are also considered Mates if the Mate relationship was set in Create a Sim, or if they have bred.

Pets that were created together as part of the same household in Create a Sim are considered Litter Mates unless you set their relationship to Mate at the end of Create a Sim.