The Sims 3 Pets: Cats Guide
Feline Companions: Hunting and Training
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With The Sims 3: Pets expansion, you can at last own a cat. These cute additions to the household will cost a bit to feed, but can make up for that with their ability to hunt and catch small critters and bugs. This guide to cats will teach you about the feline pets, what they can do, how to train them and ways you can get your own.
Getting a Cat
You can make a cat with your starting family, but it will need to be an adult or elder. Your next option is to adopt one from the shelter by using a phone or computer. The options will change a little each day. You can also befriend strays over time. They won't stay long enough on a visit for you to adopt them right away, but you can build a relationship.
Breed doesn't matter for cats. They can't be sold or traded, so there's no incentive to mating two cats of the same type. That is, unless you want another of the same breed. Tracking down a certain type of cat can be a chore given the limited options at the shelter. What you should really pay attention to are cuteness, its traits, and whether its age and gender are what you want for your household.
Cat Life
Cats have three ages: kitten, adult, and elder. The ages of these life spans can be customized through the interface. Elder males can breed, but only adult females can become pregnant. A cat will die some time after it's maxed its elder bar, just like a Sim. Cats shouldn't be dying of anything other than old age. Animal ghosts appear red as though through Death by fire. The only way to extend a cat's life (that I know of at the moment) is the pet young again lifetime reward. You'll want to try to fulfill your cat's wishes if you hope to afford other rewards as well.
Behavior
We'll publish a guide to behavior soon. Scolding and praising your cat will influence the traits it will develop. You can see the trait that is developing by looking at the icon that appears over their head. Animals can have over five traits and all cats should easily pick up the hunter trait. You can learn more about Cat Traits here.
Fleas
Cats and dogs can get fleas while outdoors. They should be treated as soon as they come around other animals or your Sim, so that the fleas don't spread. A good flea bath will do the trick, but you'll need a tub to do so. Pets can buy a Lifetime Reward that will take care of their flea problems without a Sim's help.
Kittens
Kittens are adorable to have around. You can begin guiding them during this phase, by praising and scolding behaviors. Having them play with objects and explore your home can also lead to trait development. If you want to take the kitten down stairs to get outside or upstairs to another level, you'll have to tell your Sim to pick it up. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get a mother cat to pick up a kitten. Thankfully, a Sim can enter a car with a kitten and will take it with him to his destination.
Adulthood
Cats can't learn tricks, but do get a useful skill in adulthood. Having a cat around is as you would expect. Pet them, have some fun watching them, and maybe breed more kittens to keep the line alive. During this stage of life, males and females can start breeding. It takes a lot of interactions before cats are ready to mate. Use easily accepted interactions like sniff and socialize before you go for more intimate options like nuzzling. The build up here leads to the only cat romance option, try for kitten. For me, this took place in a pet house. After a few days, from one to three kittens will be born. If you are at 5 animals in the house, your cat would only have one kitten.
Cat Hunting Skill
Cats gain the hunting skill just like Dogs, only instead of finding rocks, metals and gems, they are adapted to hunting for small prey. Cats can eat small prey. All you need to do is drag it from the inventory and drop it on the ground. If your Sim wants a pet, you can put the prey into terrariums. But of course the best use may be to sell the animal by dragging it to the sell button in the cat's inventory. Quick money.
Cats can learn how to hunt using a toy from the animal toy box. When they've got out the small mouse, cancel play and use the mouse to practice hunting. Once you've unlocked the skill, you should have your cat hone their abilities outside.
Your felines should all develop the hunter trait if they focus on this activity. While stalk for prey is great, cats can also fish. Fishing doesn't work for cats the way it does for Sims. Instead, the cat will go to the shore and catch one of any kind of fish. For example, while trying to get a death fish, I was catching robot fish, koi, and even crawfish from the pond at the graveyard. That is not to say this is useless, only that you cannot focus your efforts. You can catch all rare fish types, including death fish but it is very random. So having a home near any body of water could allow a cat to make great use of this skill.
Around level five, you can click the cat to locate prey. They can find numerous small prey of each type, and you can queue them to roam the world gathering them. Catching 20 fish, lizards, or bugs will result in unlocking a challenge that will make those catches guaranteed. At 20 rare catches, they can more quickly find new prey.
Cats are fun animals to have around, and can bring plenty of spare money to the household by catching prey with their hunting skill. Having one of these at your side is very helpful to completing the Zoologist lifetime wish as it can help your Sim to locate animals for your collection.
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