One of Minecraft's most alluring factors are the huge variety of animals and mobs that the game possesses. These in-game species are constantly being added to, and borrow from real-world animals to completely fictional creations.
Some of Minecraft's most beloved animals come from the real world, specifically the title's cats and dogs. There is of course a level of relatability to these tamable animals, which possess some great pre-existing mechanics. While cats and dogs have long been a staple part of the Minecraft experience, it seems time for Mojang to give the creatures more depth, variety, and purpose to give them new life.
The Current Mechanics of Minecraft's Cats and Dogs
Dogs were first added to Minecraft in 2011 with the 1.4 update. It added wolves as neutral mobs that can roam in packs, which can be tamed by the player and turned into pets, after which they're referred to as dogs. This led to the addition of other pet animals in Minecraft, such as parrots and cats.
When not sitting, dogs can follow the player and defend them in combat, providing a level of utility to taming them beyond being pets. Cats would be added to Minecraft soon after dogs in 2012, being able to be tamed similarly. While not possessing the same combat advantage as dogs, cats can crucially repel certain monsters like creepers and phantoms, offering great defensive capabilities.
However, dogs in Minecraft are somewhat marred by the lack of customization they offer. Beyond changing the color of their collars, all dogs are identical and have not offered a greater purpose since being added. While there is more variety in the different breeds of Minecraft cats, they too are in need of greater functionality and interaction with the player.
Changes That Could Be Made to Minecraft's Cats and Dogs
One of the easiest changes Mojang could make to the dogs of Minecraft would be to give them the same species variety as cats. Like cats, wolves could take a random aesthetic look when being tamed, incentivizing the player to tame as many as possible.
While it would be difficult to improve the offensive and defensive capabilities of cats and dogs, new mechanics could be added to let players interact with pets in more detail. Something as simple as allowing players to play fetch with their pets could offer a great level of personalization to Minecraft, for example. This player interaction could build a bonding level with a pet, offering players increasing rewards with each new rank.
Higher level pets could offer greater customization abilities. If Mojang was to ever extend Minecraft horse armor to cats and dogs, then this could be a mechanic only available to well-bonded pets. A more immersion-based change could see Mojang add emotes between players and their pets. Emotes have become a growing aspect of Minecraft in recent years, and allowing them to involve other mobs would be a huge improvement. These emotes could allow players to perform tricks with their pets, with more complex emotes perhaps even being locked behind higher bond levels.
Changes like these would be a pretty significant overhaul to the somewhat tired mechanics of Minecraft's cats and dogs. Moving beyond the recently released Trails and Tales update for Minecraft, a future update for the title could even be centered around this overhaul. With how iconic cats and dogs have become within Minecraft, fans would likely be very receptive to these changes, and there are many avenues of improvement for Mojang to take.
Minecraft is available now for PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and legacy platforms.
