When you first boot up Nintendogs you'll walk up to the kennel door. Tap on the door to knock in order to go inside the kennel to pick out your very first pup.

After a few messages scroll by, you'll be left on a screen with two options. The first option (top) will take you to a screen where you can select the puppy you want to buy. The first screen you'll see is a listing of the different breeds of dogs; depending on which version of Nintendogs you have, you'll have five different dog breeds to choose from (though you can unlock more eventually). Once you've selected a breed, you'll be taken to a second screen that shows three puppies of your chosen breed. This is where you'll make the final decision on which puppy you'll buy—the three pups on the screen will vary in color and gender. If you're not happy with the choice, you can go back (by pressing the back-up arrow in the top-left corner) and then select the breed again to choose from three different pups.

When you've finally decided on a pup to purchase, press the confirm button (left button on the bottom) twice. You'll then see the Nintendogs title screen with your pup playing in your apartment on the top DS screen. Scroll through the following messages until they stop appearing, and then select the Puppy Play button (center circle button) from the Home screen.

Scroll through another set of messages and you'll be left with your pup on the touch screen. Simply play with your puppy for the next minute or so, using the stylus to pet the dog. After a bit of time (about a minute), another set of messages will appear that will prompt you to name your dog.

You'll eventually get a message box with some red text and a microphone icon. At the bottom of the screen is a large button with the same microphone icon. Clicking this button will put a microphone icon above your dog's head with a short timer. Speak the name of your dog as you would normally speak to a dog. You'll have to repeat this a number of times before the dog fully learns its name, after which you'll be asked to type out the name in full. Type the name of your pup and confirm the choice. You'll then get a new set of messages to scroll through before returning to the Home screen.

Once back at the Home screen, press the center circle button to play with your puppy. Practice calling the puppy's name and rewarding the pup by petting it until it sparkles. Do this multiple times until the game gives you a new set of prompts.

Eventually you'll get to teach your dog its first trick. You'll see your dog staring at you from the bottom screen while a text message appears on the top screen, urging you to get your dog to sit. You may want to start simply by petting the dog until it sparkles in order to put it in a good mood.

To get your dog to sit, place the stylus on the pup's head and lightly pull downwards. The dog's head should dip with your stylus, slowly moving to the ground. Release the stylus and wait a second to see if the dog sits. If your puppy doesn't sit right away, try it again, slowly stroking down the dog's face to move it towards the ground. When your dog finally sits you'll see a lightbulb icon appear in the upper-right corner of the screen. Tap the icon and a microphone icon will appear over your dog's head, prompting you to speak the command. You can use whichever words or phrases you want to teach the dog to sit (we prefer the typical "Sit down" command), but you'll have to remain consistent. After you've spoken the command, a yellow light should appear over the dog's head. Quickly drag the light to your puppy's mouth to reward it and reinforce the training.

As you've probably already guessed, you'll need to repeat this a number of times before the puppy fully learns the trick. Again, lightly pull the dog's head downwards to make it sit and then tap the lightbulb icon so that you can speak the command. Be sure the command you speak is the same every time, otherwise you'll confuse the dog and it won't learn. When the puppy finally learns to sit down on command you'll be prompted to name the trick—you can name it whatever you'd like, but we find it helpful to use whichever words you chose as the spoken command (i.e. "sit down"). After you've named a new trick, it will appear on a separate screen along with all other tricks you've taught the dog, so try to stay organized with your naming to avoid confusion in the future.

After you've named the trick, you'll get a few messages and will be left with your puppy walking around. Call your puppy by its name and then command it to sit. When the dog successfully comes to you and sits, you'll get another set of messages that leave you on the Home screen.

You can teach your dog new tricks using the same general method, though often times the puppy will perform the trick without any stimulus. If your dog performs any sort of action and a lightbulb icon appears in the upper-right corner of the screen you'll have the chance to teach the dog that trick. Early in your Nintendog's life, the pup likes to crouch down and wiggle its butt. Press the lightbulb icon and speak a command to teach the dog to do this trick on command. Again, you'll have to reinforce the command with reward and repetition.

You can also persuade your puppy to try new tricks by using the stylus to gently guide your dog's head. Experiment with new tricks, but remember not to get too greedy. Your dog can only learn so much in a single day, and you'll soon see that the pup will become unresponsive if trained too heavily.

For a list of tricks you can teach your dog, head over to the Puppy Tricks section of this guide. There's more for your Nintendog to learn than you might think!

Other Things to Do

So you've got your pup all trained to recognize its name, and you've taught the dog a couple of tricks. Now what? You're just getting started, and there's a lot more to do with Nintendogs.

Walking Your Dog ::

One of the most lucrative activities you can participate in with your Nintendog is a simple stroll around the neighborhood. To walk your dog, go to the Home screen and select the icon with with person walking next to a dog. From the next menu (titled "Menu"), select the icon to the top-right with a dog on a leash. You'll then be prompted to confirm that you want to take the dog on a walk—select the left button to confirm and you'll be left with a map of your neighborhood.

The first thing to do is to plot out your walk. Use the stylus to draw a line through the neighborhood streets, starting from your house (in the center) and eventually circling back to end at your house. You can't walk forever, though, as your puppy has limited stamina. Watch the meter in the lower-left corner of the screen and be sure not to go too far without coming back towards your house. When you've finished drawing your path you'll be asked to confirm the walk. Choose yes to start the event.

But wait! There's a lot more to walking your dog that simply drawing a line and watching. From the overhead map you'll be able to spot various points of interest, including blue questionmark boxes. When you approach one of these blue questionmark boxes on your walk, a random event will trigger that could leave you with some pretty cool swag. Oftentimes your pup will simply run off screen and return with a present. The present could be a random dog toy, piece of dog clothing, or something else entirely. When you come back from a walk after your puppy has hunted down a gift, browse through your inventory to see the new items you've got!

Free gifts aren't the only thing the questionmarks represent, though. Other times you'll initiate an encounter with another dog. Both your puppy and the stranger's puppy will begin barking at each other and you can tug your dog's leash to force the puppies into meeting (short, quick tugs towards the other puppy work well). The puppies may befriend each other or may continue to bark, though no matter how they interact you won't see any imediate result from the encounter. However, you can, over time, use these encounters to help shape your Nintendog's personality. If you get your puppy to befriend wild, rowdy dogs then your Nintendog may take on those characteristics.

Though you can simply tell your dog to walk and leave it be, you'll want to remain attentive for more than just one reason. Most importantly, your puppy may at times pass up special gifts without picking them up for you. If you see your Nintendog pup waltz by a gift that's on the side of the path, tug the leash backwards to stop the dog and be sure the gift is collected. Some of the rarer items and toys can easily be lost if you're not paying attention! The other thing you'll want to look out for is your dog's waste. Your puppy will often stop to either urinate or defecate (in other words, your dog pees and poops at random). You don't need to do anything with the puddles of piddle, but you will need to pick up the little dumplings by tapping them with your stylus. If you go long without picking up after your dog, you'll be scolded by an angry neighbor and that's never a good thing!

Puppy Maintenance ::

As any real-life pet owner can tell you, playing with your puppy is only half the responsibility that comes with pet ownership. When it comes to maintaining your dog, there are a number of things you'll need to keep in mind, including feeding your dog and keeping it in good health.

To monitor the status of your dog's health, press the questionmark icon next to the dog's picture on the Home screen (bottom-right corner for your first dog). You'll then be taken to a screen that resembles the one pictured above, detailing the status of your dog. The three entries below the time are the main ones you want to focus on as they'll give you clues for properly maintaining your Nintendog.

If the status shows that your puppy is thirsty or hungry, go to the Goods screen and select the center icon (a brush) to pick a bottle of water (clear bottle) or a packet of food (red pouch). If you need to get water or food, go shopping for some (from Home, select the bottom-left icon, then the top-left icon, and then the next top-left icon). You likely won't need to use more than one bottle of water and one pouch of food at a time, so don't waste any of your supplies.

You'll also want to maintain the quality of your Nintendog's fur, especially when you start to enter the dog competitions. Just like food and water, you can purchase dog shampoo at the local shop and use it in much the same way. The only difference here is that you'll actually have to do the shampooing! Start by rubbing the dog down with the sponge. When the water icon in the upper-right begins to flash, touch the icon with your stylus and begin to hose the dog down. As long as you use the proper shampoo (the orange-topped bottle is for short hair, the green-topped bottle is for long hair) the puppy will begin to sparkle when the cleaning is done.

You can also brush your puppy's hair using one of two different brushes. Just like the shampoo, there's one brush made for dogs with short hair and one made for dogs with long hair. The first brush—the rubber brush with the black bristles—is for short hair, while the second brush—with the handle that extends out and the silver brush head—is specially made for dogs with longer fur. You can brush your dog to your heart's desire in preparation for an event, but there is no sign that you've "finished" brushing.

Nintendog Play ::

Though there's no responsibility behind it, one of the most entertaining things to do with your Nintendog is to simply play. You start the game with just a couple of toys—a tennis ball and a bubble wand—but as you continue to play you'll get the opportunity to purchase new toys as well as collect toys that your puppy finds on walks.

To play with a toy, select the Goods icon from the main screen (the middle icon on the left of the Home screen) and then select the icon in the upper-left corner of the screen (a baseball). You'll see a list of any toys you've collected which you can then select to begin play. Alternatively, you can select the top-center icon from the Goods screen (the robot) to find the bubble wand, or select the bottom-right icon (an "etc." box) to play with miscellaneous items. Often times items your dog finds while on walks will appear here, including things like disposable cameras and boxes of tissues. Be careful, though, as your dog may not like every item you throw at it. Certain items may make your puppy irritable, so it's best not to tease them with toys they don't like.

Puppy Competitions

There are three different competitions you can enter with your puppy. The first is the Disc Dog Tournament, a competition to see how good you and your dog are at playing catch with a frisbee. The second event is the Agility Tournament which will test your skills at guiding your puppy through an obstacle course, and the third event is a good old Dog Contest that lets you show off how well you've got your puppy trained to perform tricks.

There are five different tiers of competition, and you'll start from the very bottom (the Beginner Cup). If you place third or better in an event you'll move up to the next tier, though if you do worse than third you'll drop down a level. You'll earn more and more money for wins in the increasingly difficult tiers so try to go for the top!

Disc Dog Competition ::

Zone 1 (dark green)	0 pts
Zone 2 (green)	1 pts
Zone 3 (light green)	3 pts
Zone 4 (orange)	5 pts
Zone 5 (red)	7 pts
Zone 6 (blue)	9 pts

The Disc Dog Tournament is not only the most fun to partake in, but it's also the easiest for non-Japanese readers. Before you jump into the competition, be sure to do some frisbree training with your pup. You can either buy a frisbee or hope to find one on a walk. Either way you get the frisbee, you'll want to take it to a park while on one of your walks to train your pup in the art of frisbee play.

Start off with close-range tosses and don't get discouraged if your dog doesn't start catching them right away. It may take a long time before your puppy gets good at catching frisbees in mid-air, but with time and encouragement the dog will soon learn. Be sure to reward your puppy every time it comes back with the frisbee, as the dog will eventually learn to come back with the frisbee without being called. This will greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to retrieve a frisbee during competition.

When you've got the dog well-trained, head to the Disc Dog Tournament to put your skills to the test. You'll earn points every time your dog catches the frisbee after you've tossed it, and you'll earn more points the further you toss the disc. The carpet is colored to mark different zones, each of which scores different points per catch. Also, your pup will earn one extra point for jumping and catching the frisbee in mid-air.

Dog Agility Competition ::

Before you can participate in this event, you'll need to take your pup on a walk and stop by the agility training center (located in the southeast end of town). You can practice walking your dog through the obstacle course without any limits, letting you learn the basics of the event. Tap the screen to lead the dog around the course and tap on the horizontal bars to coerce your pup into hopping over them. If you lead your Nintendog into a tunnel you'll want to continue leading the dog by dragging the stlyus through the tube until your dog exits.

The actual competition is pretty much the same thing, except that you'll have a specific route through the course. Your score is based on the amount of time it takes to run through the course, and you'll lose points for missing a goal (such as jumping into a bar instead of over it).

Dog Contest ::

The Dog Contest is easily the most difficult competition for non-Japanese readers. Before you enter this event, you should spend a lot of time teaching your dogs all the tricks you can. For a list of tricks, check out our Puppy Tricks section. Also be sure to head into this event with a very clean, well-groomed puppy. You'll earn some bonus points from the judges if you bathe and brush your Nintendog before going in.

The tournament starts with the usual banter between commentators. Eventually, you'll be left staring at your puppy with a count-down timer on the left and some Japanese text at the top of the screen. The Japanese text refers to the tricks you need to get your dog to do, sometimes combining multiple tricks. You'll benefit a lot by memorizing the Japanese text to avoid having to check our translations (right).

You can get by simply by having your dog perform random tricks and hoping they match with the on-screen commands. We've done that with minimal success, but we don't really condone it if you're trying to win the event. The first few rounds of tricks are all limited to what appears on the screen, though for the last trick you're typically left to do a "free performance." That is, you can have your puppy do as many tricks as possible within the limited time. Try to vary up your tricks and do the ones that you can get off as quickly as possible.

Puppy Tricks

Half the fun of having a pet is training it to behave however you see fit, and in Nintendogs you've got a lot of tricks to train your dog. We've compiled a list of tricks we've taught our Nintendogs along with tips to help you train your own pup. Just remember that while experimentation is fun, you don't want to do things that your puppy isn't comfortable with. Some dogs won't like their paws being grabbed until they know you better so build up your relationship before cracking the training whip. Also be sure to remember that proper rewards will help training. The more you reinforce good behavior with a reward (feeding the pup with the lightbulb icon) the faster your Nintendog will learn new tricks.

Sit	You'll have to teach your dog to sit during the introductory tutorial of the game. To do so, get your dog's attention and place the stylus on the pup's head. Slowly pull downwards with the stylus to move the dog's head towards the floor. Eventually (and it may take a few tries), your Nintendog should obediently sit down.
Lay Down	It's best to start in the sitting position. When you've got your dog sitting, place the stylus on the pup's head and slowly pull downwards towards the floor. After a few tries, the dog should eventually lay down for you.
Wag Tail	Most pups will have zero problem showing off their ability to wag their tail in the air as they'll typically perform this trick without any stimulus. Simply wait for your Nintendog to crouch down and start waving its butt in the air. It shouldn't take long before your pup is dancing for you, waiting to be taught the trick.
Chase Tail	Call the puppy towards you and gently grab its tail with the stylus. You can then tickle the puppy's face with its tail to instigate it, and before long the dog should be chasing its own tail! Be sure not to be too rough with the tail pulling, though—you can upset your dog if you're not careful.
Shake	First get your puppy into sitting position. When you've got that down, lightly grab the dog's front paw with your stylus and raise it up slightly to "shake" with the dog. If a lightbulb icon doesn't appear in the upper-right corner of the screen, try shaking with the other front paw.
Wave	Convincing your pup to wave is much like getting it to shake. First, get the dog in a sitting position. Next, lightly grab the dog's front paw and lift upwards past its head. If the lightbulb icon doesn't appear, drop the paw and try using the other front paw. The dog should eventually catch on, letting you teach the trick.
Roll Onto Side	Get your puppy into a laying position and then put your stylus on the dog's head to lightly pull sideways. The dog should roll over onto its side without much resistance, letting you teach the trick.
Roll Onto Back	Getting your puppy to roll onto its back is just one step past rolling onto its side. First get the pup onto its side (either by command or by progressively moving the puppy from sitting to laying to rolling on its side) and then gently pull the pup sideways even more using the stylus. You can move the pup sideways by stroking slowly along the dog's torso, pulling the dog onto its back.
Sneeze	You can actually teach your dog to sneeze in three different positions! From either a standing, sitting, or laying position, simply tap your dog's nose with the stlyus to cause it to sneeze. A lightbulb should then appear in the upper-right, letting you teach the trick. You can teach the trick in just one position or all three if you choose, but you'll need to use different vocal commands to specify which sneeze you want from your dog.
Jump	It may take a while before you can teach your puppy this trick, but eventually your dog will jump for you on command. A good way to teach the dog to jump is to call the puppy close to you by tapping on the screen. When the dog is up close, wave the stylus around the very tip top of the screen. Your puppy should eventually jump for the stylus, letting you teach the trick.

If you have a nintendogs game from japan read the following

General Navigation

Assuming you don't understand Japanese, the biggest challenge in the import version of Nintendogs is simply figuring out what's what. We'll go over the basics of navigating the game's menu screens as well as provide translations for the more important Japanese text.

Here are a few general navigation tips:

• When you're prompted by a screen with two small green boxes at the bottom, these boxes typically allow you to "confirm" or "cancel" a request. The button on the lower-left is the "confirm" or "yes" button, while the button on the lower-right is the "cancel" or "no" button.
• During menu navigation, press the red "back" arrow in the upper-left corner of the screen to leave the current screen and return to the previous.
• To progress through dialog boxes, press the red arrow that appears under the dialog box (in the lower-right corner of the screen).

Home ::

The first screen you'll see is the Home screen. There are five main buttons on this screen, including the center button with no text on it. This button allows you to play with your dog, directly interacting using the stylus. The top-left button allows you to save your game. If you press this button, you'll be prompted (yes or no) to save. Select yes to save and you'll soon be prompted with another choice. Select the left box to continue playing, or select the right box to shutdown the Nintendo DS and end play.

The Goods button will take you to an inventory of your collected goods. You'll find any toys or items your dog has found on walks here, along with all food and general puppy maintenance products here. When you select most items from this menu, you'll automatically go to a puppy play session where you can either use the item with the puppy or watch the puppy use the item alone.

The third button on the left brings you to the "Menu" where you can go shopping, take your dog for a walk, enter a competition, look for other Nintendogs players nearby, or view an information screen. For more details on taking your puppy for a walk, check the Other Things to Do page, or check our Puppy Competitions page for tips on competing with your dog.

Select the lower-left button if you want to search for other Nintendogs players around you. Confirm the first prompt screen and you'll be taken to your Goods menu where you can pick a gift to exchange with another player. Confirm the selection and you'll see your pup walking on the top screen. Confirm once more to get a new screen with just one button on the bottom. Clicking this button will end the "bark mode" session, so don't press it until after you've met with your intended Nintendogs buddy.

Shopping ::

The Shopping menu is home to plenty of different things. The goods shop will let you purchase goods that are necessary to maintaining you puppy, such as water, food, shampoo, etc. Look below for a list of items available in the goods shop—the available goods will change from time to time, but we've marked the more important ones.

The recycle shop simply allows you to sell items from your inventory. You can use this to make some money from items that your puppy may have found on walks and to get rid of toys your dog may not like. The middle button on on the Shopping screen will take you to the kennel, where you can purchase a new dog, while the reform shop (lower-left) allows you to buy a new apartment (note: it will take a day before you move into a newly purchased apartment). The last option, the dog hotel, allows you store up to five dogs. Storing dogs will let you purchase more (since you can only have three dogs at home at a time). Be careful of the "give away dog" button—if you go through with this, your dog will be gone forever.

Menu > Info ::

From the Home menu, select the "walk / shop / compete" button to reach the Menu screen and you'll find a small white button to the lower-right. Click this button and you'll see the Information screen with four different sections. The first screen is the owner information which displays a few tidbits of info on the owner of the Nintendog (that's you!), including the number of "points" you've earned by playing the game. The friends list will display a list of any other Nintendogs players that you've interacted with using bark mode.

The progress/stats button takes you to a page that shows your success in the various dog competitions. The system settings button allows you to tweak certain settings. Press the "apply" button to save the settings, or press "cancel" to undo any changes you've made to the settings.