...by a Facebook application – Pet Pupz. However just now I accepted a friend request from the 4th person who has added me as a friend based solely upon the fact that we both have virtual dogs which made up my mind, and made me realise that my life as I once knew it was over.
Disclaimer
I ... Read review
Advantages: Not sure there are any really, but it's so addictive! Disadvantages: A sad, pathetic and pointless addiction!
...work)…..by a Facebook application – Pet Pupz. However just now I accepted a friend request from the 4th person who has added me as a friend based solely upon the fact that we both have virtual dogs which made up my mind, and made me realise that my life as I once knew it was over.
'''Disclaimer'''
I cannot be held responsible for anyone who as a result of this review becomes addicted to Pet Pupz. ...another story, and not about Pet Pupz at all…
'''Facebook Applications'''
When I first joined Facebook there were hardly any applications (I think that Food Fight was one of the first), but these days there are loads and loads, and I get at least 10 requests a day from hubby to do something in his Lil Blue Cove. I tend to ignore….I tend to ignore most requests – when I don’t I find that I try ... more
I had my 100th review all planned, it was going to be about how Ciao has changed my life, because to an extent it has changed my life – I’ve met loads of great people (and not so great too), made a little bit of cash along the way (probably working out at about 2p an hour), and through Ciao also joined dooyoo where I probably make more like 10p an hour (to work out exact amounts would take far too long).
However, I changed my mind, and decided to write a review of my new phone….but then just now in an inspirational flash I decided that my 100th review (which really has to be an epic in keeping with my style) would be about something a bit different. The phone review will come in time though, rest assured!
Anyway, since 1st March (incidentally that was Self-Injury Awareness Day which I like to remind people about – see http://www.ciao.co.uk/Member_Advice_on_Self_harm__Review_5614015/SortOrder/4 for more info) my life has been taken over (aside from the fact I’ve been exceptionally busy this month in real-life too with self-harm charity work)…..by a Facebook application – Pet Pupz. However just now I accepted a friend request from the 4th person who has added me as a friend based solely upon the fact that we both have virtual dogs which made up my mind, and made me realise that my life as I once knew it was over.
Disclaimer
I cannot be held responsible for anyone who as a result of this review becomes addicted to Pet Pupz. Facebook
I have resisted the urge to write a review about Facebook thus far. If anyone doesn’t yet know about Facebook then I’m not sure where you’ve been. I must have joined Facebook well over two years ago now, initially as a way of keeping in contact with friends. However as time went by anyone and everyone seems to have joined, and I have to say that after my brother joined and I realised that potentially anything I said would get back to my parents, that it lost a bit of its novelty value.
The main problem I have with Facebook is that after a few drinks I get it into my head that I need to have lots and lots of friends – the people who I disliked with a passion at school are now my friends. But anyway, that’s another story, and not about Pet Pupz at all… Facebook Applications
When I first joined Facebook there were hardly any applications (I think that Food Fight was one of the first), but these days there are loads and loads, and I get at least 10 requests a day from hubby to do something in his Lil Blue Cove. I tend to ignore….I tend to ignore most requests – when I don’t I find that I try and do a quiz and then I have to add something, and it all becomes a right hassle.
However, I do have a virtual pet Caribou called “IwishIwasaMoose”, and I was quite obsessed with him for a while. I have quite an addictive/obsessive personality you see…
In February hubby seemed to be spending far too much time on Facebook (he seems to be on it constantly anyway), we’ve actually got to the stage in our relationship now where we poke each other on Facebook (me on the desktop, him a metre away on the sofa on the laptop) rather than communicating in real-life – mind you our relationship first began on Yahoo messenger when we lived down the same corridor. Anyway, I digress….
Hubby’s latest addiction was his Chocolate Labrador called Tibbs. In real life Hubby would love to have a Chocolate Labrador called Tibbs (whatever!!!), but I hate dogs, so tough!So, I hate dogs
Why would I want a virtual pet dog then? Well, I’ve always quite liked these virtual pets, from the Tamagotchi I borrowed off my friend in the sixth form, and had to take to work at the weekend and the pub with me, to the PC game I bought when after 2 months of obsessing over it, the dog just disappeared into thin air. Oh, and of course Nintendogs….but that obsession ended thankfully.
Anyway, my Pet Pupz isn’t a usual dog…..and for me it’s all about getting a collection of little badges on my Pet Pupz homepage! Choosing a dog
When you sign up with Pet Pupz you choose your breed of dog, so I chose an English Sheepdog as it was the closest thing to a sheep that I could find (I like sheep you see – you might like to read my animals review - http://www.ciao.co.uk/Top_10_Animals__Review_5717859/SortOrder/4 ). I called him “Sheepie”.
There’s a good selection of dogs to choose from – Border Collies, Cocker Spaniels, Australian Shepherds, Dachshund, and some quite dubious looking things like the Bull Terrier, and something which looks like a black furry rat-dog thing.Loves and hates
When choosing your dog you have to fill in loves and hates – unsurprisingly Sheepie loves sheep, but hates dogs.
Birthday
Your birthday is the day you adopt the puppy….a year later you get a little birthday cake symbol. I’m a long way off that. The age goes in weeks and months. Sheepie is currently 3 weeks old.Hunger, Happiness and Health
When you first adopt a Pet Pupz your puppy’s hunger, happiness and health is set at 50/100. Each day these each lose 4 points. So, do nothing for the first week and they’ll be 22/100.
Although it took me a while to build up the points, I now keep all three at 100/100 which is described as “Perfectly Fed”, “Ecstatic” and “Perfect” – as opposed to Okay, Content, On the up, Starving etc etc etc
Hunger
Your puppy needs feeding…..10 Puppy points buys you water which increases (or should that be reduces?) the hunger level by 1 point. Steak costs 100 Puppy Points and increases it by 10 points. Then of course there’s different things in between – budget dog food, ham, meaty bone chew. Hubby’s friend doesn’t think this is appropriate as dogs shouldn’t really be fed steaks as a rule.
Happiness
You need to play with your puppy to make it happy. 10 Puppy Points buys a short walk and increases happiness by 1 point. Swimming costs 80 points and increases by 8 points – again there’s various in between.
Health
You need to care for your puppy to make it healthy. 10 Puppy Points pays for nail clipping and increases care by 1 point, vaccinations cost 80 and increase score by 8 points – again there’s various in between.
If you’re already up to 100/100 then it tells you, so you don’t overspend!
So, what to do first?
Well, that’s entirely up to you really, but it makes sense to train your puppy. Firstly there’s basic training to get through, then Companion Training, Utility Training and Working Training. After that the fun begins (God, I have a really sad life!) and you can complete Specialist training. It does cost a lot of Puppy Points to train your puppy, but it’s just got to be done really.How do you get the points you need to train the puppies and stuff?
Well, for a start you can pet other people’s puppies. The easiest way to find puppies to pet is to go to “View Puppy”. There you can pet your own puppy but also see who else has recently petted your puppy. Click on “View’ under their name and you’ll be directed to their puppy. Then you’ll receive 4 Puppy Points - you can choose to do different things – Cuddle, Fuss (etc), but it’s easier just to leave it at the default as it makes no actual difference what you do.
Then basically go to another puppy and pet that too. Ok, it’s time consuming, but petting 10 puppies gets you 40 points.
The other thing about petting puppies is that other people will be more likely to pet yours (hey, it’s a bit like rating on Ciao!) – you get a badge when your pup’s been petted 100 times, 500 times, and 2000 times and so on – I’m only up to over 2000 at the moment.
Friends with puppies
If you have a Facebook friend with a puppy, and that friend has visited their puppy in the past 48 hours then you get 10 points for petting them. This is why I have accepted 4 friend requests from fellow Pet Pupz addicts – honestly it’s not because I’m sad and pathetic and need all the friends I can get. However, if your friend hasn’t visited in 48 hours then you just get the usual 4 points. I should perhaps now have a little bit of a moan – there are several Ciao members who have a Pet Pupz, but don’t ever visit their puppy. I am not impressed with you – you know who you are….Competing
Once way to get points each day is to enter the Obedience Show and Flyball competitions. You can enter 5 a day (on each) and it resets at midnight. On Obedience you can choose how many opponents you have, how hard it is, and whether or not you want to ‘pay’ puppy points to enter (if you pay then there’s the chance of more points to be won).
The harder and the more opponents then the more points there are to be won, but obviously the less likely you are to win.
In the Flyball competition you race against your friend’s Pet Pupz. The speed of their pup determines the points you’ll get if you win. However, this only goes up to 25. At the moment both Sheepie and Tibbs (hubby’s puppy) are at 25 PPM (Paws per minute), and you win 25 puppy points if you win. So, there’s pretty much a 50/50 chance of winning. If I go for a certain Ciao member’s puppy called Cindi the Boxer then currently they are 16 PPM, so there’s more chance of me winning, but I’d only get 16 Puppy Points rather than 25 if I won against Tibbs.
Of course, competing isn’t just about the points. Once you’ve won 10 Flyball competitions you get a little badge, you also get one for 10 Obedience wins. Then again at 50 wins (the badges get fewer and further between) which is what Sheepie now has.Top Dog
By far the easiest way of getting Puppy Points is to go to Top Dog every day and claim your 210 Puppy Points.
Also here you can convert silver coins into puppy points. At present you can get 20 silver coins each for adding the Happy Horses and Cute Catz applications. I added both of these, got my coins, and then deleted the applications (they are very similar applications). I then converted them into 200 Puppy Points. You do get badges for having 50 silver coins (and I don’t know if that takes into account ones which you’ve had and then converted), but the main way of getting silver coins seems to be to buy them. And I’m afraid that no matter how addicted I am, I am never going to be buying points with my credit card!!! Invite Friends
Each day you can invite 8 friends to join Pet Pupz – you get 5 points per invite (I think this is a limited thing though and might finish soon). However, you get 150 points if that person accepts to join as a result of your invite! If you’re somewhat tempted then please add me as a friend on Facebook and then I’ll invite you – oh dear, how sad am I?! Oh, and I should say here that I apologise to those who get my invites – I know how much I hate getting application invites!
Holiday Mode
Once every 30 days you can go into holiday mode (minimum 24 hours). This means that you won’t lose the hunger, happiness and care level you’re at. But it also means that others can’t pet your pup. There’s a Ciao member actually whose pet pup has been on holiday mode since I came along…..Specialisms (or should that really be specialities?)
Once you’ve completed the main puppy training you can become a specialist in 8 areas. The first I chose (obviously) was sheep herding. Basically there’s 6 training things to buy (starts at 300 Puppy Points, the highest is 500 Puppy points – although cost is more if your puppy isn’t perfectly fed, cared for, and happy). Sheepie has just qualified as a therapy dog too, and is currently learning to be a dog for the blind.
Then once you have a specialism, you can send your puppy out to work for instance being a sheep dog – Jobz (it’s in the Compete menu). The puppy points aren’t much (generally 3 for an hour’s work, but it all adds up.Champz
Once your dog’s a Working Puppy there’s another competition to take part in, called Champz. This is very exciting (well, if you’re me anyway). You get a badge when you get to Champz level 1 (and then at 5). It is a bit awkward actually finding puppies to compete with, but you’ll soon get the hang of it. I tend to stick with “Best in Show” rather than “Sled Pulling”.
As with anything it gets harder to get to the next level…I’m currently on level 4, hopefully be level 5 tomorrow!
Champz updates every hour, and I’m currently ranked about 115,000th, so I have a long way to go before Sheepie is the best! The problem is with it updating every hour is that I can spend ages just waiting for the next hour so I can compete again (rather than with Flyball and Obedience which is just 5 times a day to compete).
Helping Others
You can earn badges for spending your hard earned Puppy Points on other people’s puppies by feeding, caring or playing with them. A nice thing to do, but for me it’s all about getting those pretty badges rather than some kind of altruistic thing!Other
You can ‘buy’ a Pet Pal(z) for 750 Puppy Points…..I haven’t done this yet, so can’t really say anything about it, but like anything, you get a badge for it!
Each puppy has a message board (a barking board) where people can leave links to pet their puppies….not really something I use much except when needing to find puppies to pet!
There are some other options, such as buying gifts, or increasing wins in competitions, but these actually cost real money, so I can’t imagine why anyone would do this. Also you can pay to become a member and get a pretty gold bone badge. But again, I might be addicted, but not that much.
Conclusion
Thanks for bearing with me during my journey with Sheepie. I realise it’s not the most exciting choice of review topics, but I just wanted to share my obsession with you. I have to say that Sheepie has long since overtaken hubby’s Tibbs in every way and has far more badges. Sheepie is fantastic…..
The only niggle I have with pet Pupz (aside from its addictive nature) is that with the new Facebook layout it keeps wanting me to publish Sheepie to my homepage – I don’t want to!
With any luck in a couple of months the novelty will have worn off. But for now I’ve got the addiction badly…and things are much much worse now that Facebook isn’t a blocked Internet site at work anymore (sssshhhhh, don’t tell anyone)!
Please, just humour me……
I can be found via the Ciao Facebook group if you want me to add you as a friend and invite you to Pet Pupz! - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/group.php?gid=2237160387
