Browsing through the household bin, I came across a household which caught my eye. I believe that this pair of dogs shipped as premade from within the Pets Expansion pack, right? Anyway, I was wondering what path or destiny you picked for those two shelterless dogs? I remember moving them to the other premade household that feature a man and his pupper when I was bored and just free-playing/messing around. I was really surprised that she gave birth to new puppies, as that was unexpected to me. IIRC correctly, the owner died and all the dogs were taken by the adoption agency since no other sim was around.

Right now, I though I should add them to the family/household that first befriends one of two or both of them, and from there use the "adopt" interaction.

ETA Out of curiosity sakes, I google and found their wiki page. It claims that it can crash the game when moving them to pre-existing family. Well sh!t. Any idea how to prevent that, lol ?

I've never seen it crash. There is a glitch where Sarah Crittur's unborn puppies can have the wrong father. Not sure if it's ever been patched but easily fixed with the Blender (terminate and then re-impregnate).

In Black Mesa, I don't recall what I did with them.

In Hazelton, Springwater, and Oakbrook, I moved them all in with different CAS (not premade) families. Usually ones that have families. I once considered placing them with the Ottomases but that seemed like a disaster.

Both of them won't eat from pet food dishes from the start. Either controlpets to make them (and praise them), or put down some food and scold them. Then they'll eat from the bowls.

On Sarah Crittur, the unborn puppers don't/won't have complete character files. As you guessed, corruption may occur. I'll look into blender (haven't used it, but have heard about it before in the past).

That was fixed with the patch, along with the Ottomas pregnancy. If you're fully patched or have the UC then you won't have a problem.

The problem with the Critturs was the same as the one for the Ottomai, and not only is it patched, we now know what the problem was.

The stealth hoods are basically subhoods you can't access directly. Characters in a subhood are necessarily numbered. In order to prevent duplication, when the subhood is added to a main hood, all the characters are renumbered. But pre-patch, the pregnancy controllers weren't updated with the father's new ID number. If the father's old ID number matched the number of someone in the main hood, that sim would be set as the father - even if it was of the wrong species or didn't have appropriate DNA. Had there been a pregnant sim in Downtown or Bluewater, the problem would have been revealed when those EPs came out, but Sarah and Samantha were the first pregnant sims created in a subhood.

The patch overcorrects sometimes, if the original father's ID number is still very low. We discovered all this because the alien pregnancies in Meadow Creek and the subhood version of Strangetown created by Tarlia sometimes went wrong. In most patched neighborhoods, for all practical purposes, it's only a problem if the father is the PT. And that is easily fixed by resetting the pregnancy controller to the correct ID number with your preferred editing tool.

That makes sense. I knew the Ottomai were patched but wasn't sure about the Critturs

I've not played with pre-packaged Sims in a long time. But I do recall placing the Crittur family in with an existing family. Then, I pretended that family found the "stray" Critturs but could not keep them. They called animal control who picked them up and added them to adoption pool for other families to adopt separately.

I like playing messy lot challenges, but I prefer creating my own messy lots over downloading pre-trashed houses. The Critturs are perfect for helping with make a messy house as they are so badly trained - I add them to a house with a single slob of a sim and it's not long before there are weeds, puddles, and chewed or destroyed furniture everywhere.

Also as a challenge, I've played them along with the Newsons, with the goal of getting them well trained and all of the Newsons aging up well.

I've moved them in with other bin families and with CAS sims as part of my regular household rotations - I don't have a preferred household to put them with. I'll move them into any house that I feel has dog lovers that would have more than one dog.

What's PT means?

Pollination Technician

I do not yet have Pets.

in most neighborhoods I think I would place them in a household of another "hidden" sub-neighborhood.
in the neighborhood that I place the pre-made occupied lot bin lots; I think I would place them in one of those households.

So I should download and use Sim Blender to prevent the crash and corruption?

Oh I love the Critturs! What I did with them was, in Pleasantview, I merged them into the family of Lucy Burb and her wife, LeAnn Oldie, and their two kids (LeAnn was adopted as a child by Coral and Herb). There, Sarah gave birth to her puppies with no problems, and I put the puppies up for adoption. As of now, Danny and Sarah Crittur are happily in a loving home and have been broken out of their bad habits.

the mentioned patch would probably be enough to prevent crashing/corruption.
insimenator and sim manipulator I take have the same pregnancy options as sim blender. downloading/using any or all of these hacks I think would be entirely up to you.

Don't know If I had the patch installed :/ Is there a way to check to current installed version?

the testingcheatsenabled cheat I take shows the game version in the top right corner; at least on occupied lots.
attempting to patch the game/pack is another way to check.

If you are on disks make sure you have the Season patch or the Critter family will corrupt all of your hoods, along with the Ottamos family.

The Critters come trained to be the worst dogs possible and the challenge playing them is to retrain them. make sure while training to leave plates of food on the floor for them to eat.

Edit: I just looked above and see you might not be patched. If you are not I would put on all the patches, then rename your sims 2 folder to make yourself a new one and delete your old one. Every hood is corrupted by them simply being in the family bin. All the patches are needed but the Season one is vital.

I thought it was just if you let the pregnancy come to term? If you terminate it and then re-impregnate her, the unborn puppies won't have the wrong father ID.

I've never had a problem with the Critturs or the Ottomai, but that's probably because I got Seasons before I got them, so they arrived fully patched. As Jo says, the Critturs are set up to be nightmares to train, so I don't recommend putting them into a really busy family like the Ottomai or Newsons.

I can't remember who had them the first time I played them, but in Driftwood County (BaCC) I placed them with the Founder, who just had one teenage son, with the head canon that they had been found stowed away on the supply train. The puppies were given away to other households that wanted one.

In Sheffield, they were adopted by Malcolm Landgraab, who always seems to be a good dog owner and certainly can afford to keep five dogs.

In the Victorian hood, they're with Cyd Roseland, the premade who ships with a dog of his own; he's cast as the gamekeeper and he hires out Danny and Sarah as guard dogs (Security career), but keeps little Porthos home with him. I tried to have him keep the puppies, but it was too chaotic, so they went to the shelter for other families to adopt.

The Critters - really, it's not that bad.
I accidentally discovered something a long time ago: you need to teach pets the Come Here command first. Then you can call them to eat!
Once you can call them to eat and they are not dying from hunger, it is a lot easier to train them.

It was Mootilda who said all the hoods are corrupted once the game places them in the bin and installing the patch after that does not fix it. You have to patch then let the game place them in the bin.

Yeah, I did notice they behaviour and themselves are wild, literally. I'm up for a challenge to train them. All in all, I can just build and keep in yard and out of the house. Of course fencing them away If there are any non-destructable proof outdoor furniture.

Thanks. I though there could be a workaround to checking the version before patching. Felt unnecessary, but oh well. Thanks for the advice btw.

I played them once, years ago. Some people don't like them, but I thought they were a fun challenge, but I like pets.

I recently played a bit in Tarlia's Viper Canyon where the Critturs have been adopted by the Goodie family. Sarah Crittur is a shameless mooch. Every chance she gets, she begs the nearest human for a treat.

For what it matters, when they have the right parents, their unborn puppies look rather nice when grown up: