The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom does not let players pet the dogs they meet across open world Hyrule. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's open world is full of all different kinds of creatures, from monsters to friendly NPCs to various animals that can be found roaming around, including dogs.
The same was true of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's predecessor, Breath of the Wild. Sadly, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild didn't let players pet the dogs they came across in the open world, and so fans were hoping that would be rectified with Tears of the Kingdom. Now that Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been released to the masses, though, fans have realized that they can't pet dogs in the new game either.
It takes a few hours for Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players to reach open world Hyrule where they'll find dogs and various other animals, but it still didn't take long for fans to realize that they couldn't pet the dogs in the game. The Can You Pet the Dog Twitter account wasted little time confirming this sad news.
It's unclear why Nintendo still isn't letting players pet the dog in Tears of the Kingdom, but at least there are other animals players can interact with in the game. Just like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom has wild horses that players can find, mount, and tame. Horses can make getting across the vast open world of Hyrule a lot faster and can be registered at the stables dotted around the map. So while players may not have the chance to fully interact with the dogs in the game, at least there is still some animal bonding moments.
While highly unlikely, it's possible that Nintendo could update The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to let players pet dogs and have other interactions with animals in the game. Nintendo did release DLC expansions for Breath of the Wild that added some substantial new content to that game, but it hasn't revealed any plans to do the same for Tears of the Kingdom just yet. For now, Zelda fans will have to accept that they simply can't pet the dogs in Tears of the Kingdom.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is out now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
