As inspired by this thread.

What would you want to change? What would you leave the same?

Features:

1. Controllable pets without a cheat!
2. Fully functional horses.

I see it more as: at least there is a cheat

There may be players out there who prefer not to control the pets.
(When I played the vanilla game back in the day, I was unaware of the cheat. My Sims had pets, and I still had a ball, although some of the things that worked I found accidentally.

I remember hiring a pet trainer - and because I could not remember why I did, I simply let the trainer teach the dog "Come here". Suddenly, my Sim could call the useless creature to eat! I still think I hit the jackpot by that find )

I wouldn't mind if the pets were controllable from the get-go, but I understand if it was via cheat (like TS2).

Would add all the other pets (horses, and extra caged animals like snakes, various birds, lizards, etc.), chickens and livestock from other games, for a more complete experience. Livestock would not be roaming free (wouldn't want cows/sheep/goats/llamas suddenly appearing), and maybe also not horses (always found it a bit weird with free-roaming horses in TS3/TS4, except for the unicorn). They'd mostly be custmizable like dogs/cats, and not locked to an object, and all livestock would let you have baby animals (including chickens). Maybe also ducks, and bunnies (I'd love customizable and breedable bunnies!)

For horses, I'd combine most of the TS3/TS4 functions, and make sure children and up could ride them. Possibly add some kind of riding function for toddlers, too (ponies? Riding on some other animal? Ridealong with parent? Not sure).

Would also add a few more for show only, like dolphins and crabs (to make beaches a bit more exciting).

Genetics working like TS2. Obviously. Would also fix it so baby animals show proper genetics.

Agility for dogs (from TS2 stories), but with a few fixes, and working for bunnies (and other smallish/medium-sized pets, too).

Being able to teach birds (and other animals, of course) tricks.

A lot more toys and toy variation for the pets.

Pets being able to interact with all ages (especially toddlers and children - I love them being able to help out, or just being able to hug/play/poke at/ride/feed/etc. the animals).

Some of these ideas were swiped from TS3.

- More small pets.
- More wildlife.
- More pet interactions. I want dogs to drink out of toilets and cats to knock things over.
- Pets get wants and fears.
- Pets go hunting! Cats can bring 'gifts' to their owners, and dogs can dig up treasures.
- Properly animated livestock. Keeping chicken would get you eggs (stock frige), goats for milk (stock fridge), and llamas for wool (sell for money).

I think it would be a good idea to add a new neighborhood and... any CAS content for humans at all. The lack of those two makes the pack feel a bit barren when you're not playing a household with pets.

I would've liked if there were more customization for werewolves, like there is now in TS4... it's kind of weird that TS2 on the PSP has a werePUG in it but this is impossible to make in TS2 on the PC proper without CC. I'd also want wolves to look more like wolves than just, fat pointy-eared dogs or Literally Just Malamutes. More wildlife in general would've been great, like foxes for example. More types of pets and more to actually do with them. A neighborhood that comes with the EP would've also been nice, like how AL got Belladonna Cove, FT got Desiderata Valley, and Seasons got Riverblossom Hills... come to think of it, Pets is the only EP that didn't come with any sort of proper playable neighborhood at all, isn't it?

I would add all the animals from the later games - horses and other farm animals, wildlife, reptiles. I liked the way you could catch small animals in Sims 3 and keep them as pets.

I wish werewolves could transform into actual four-legged creatures.

I would add so much.

There would be pet shows like they had in Pet Stories.
A pet grooming station so they could be washed, brushed and long hair breeds clipped.
Usable veterinarian objects.
Being able to make an animal sanctuary with real animals. They would need enclosures, food, proper maintenance. Breeding of course. You could say sell a panda bear to someone else's sanctuary and also buy from them.
Dogs could be guard dogs against buglers.
Cats could climb trees and sit on a sims lap.
Genetics would be improved.
Way more animals including horses with a whole system of learning to ride, training and shows including dressage, jumping and barrel racing.
Taking cats and dogs for a walk with a proper harness and this would load a new hood where you could explore. I deplore rabbit holes of any kind.There would be dig spots, swimming spots, hunting/chasing spots.
You could go shopping and buy various clothing for your pet such as warm coats, skirts, bow ties etc.

If I could make a proper Pets EP it would be huge. Possibly this would take 2 EP's, a Pets and a separate Wild Animal Sanctuary EP.

Oh good we’re doing another one! Pets was actually my least favourite EP for 2. I found outside of you know, the actual pets, there wasn’t much going on.

Big agree with the vet career. I think it would be fun to run a clinic as a business and even just taking pets in for treatment.

One thing I hadn’t seen mentioned yet is pet shows like in Unleashed. I think they got rid of them in favour of pet careers which I always thought were meh. But I wouldn’t mind more of those either!

I also wish there were more small pets. One of my biggest pet peeves was there were no dragons in 2, but I’m not sure they’d fit with the pack. A few more fish tanks would be great, as well as reptiles. A tank built into the wall was always my dream.

Horses are one I go back and forth on. I actually really enjoyed them in 3 and sometimes find myself eying the ones we have for 2 but none of them really feel ‘right.’ I think they’d have to be fully customizable and controllable like cats and dogs.

Wants & Fears for pets weren’t something I’d considered before but after seeing it I think it’s a great idea! I dunno if I’d do 4/3 like sims have I can’t see pets really fearing too much so I’d probably give them 1 fear and 3 wants. Something simple. But then would they get aspirations? I don’t think unique ones would be a great idea, but maybe like ‘Grow Up’ there would be a ‘Pet’ aspiration. And then some rewards I guess they’d need? Maybe a litter box that cleaned itself and lowered bladder loss for a bit or something. And kibble of life would become a pet aspiration reward.

And a smaller thing that I’m really not sure how I’d fix but has always bugged me: the family tree for pets. I hate having all the broken lines for siblings because the parents aren’t married. They can’t get married they’re pets quit splitting up the litter it drives me crazy. But pet weddings also sounds cute.

Werewolves I think might have been my favourite occult in 2 so I don’t have much to add there but I do think there needs to be some way for there to be a full moon. I don’t like them transforming every night. But I do like the body skill they get each time as well as the personality change. I think it would be fun if you could make werewolf packs and there could be alphas and power struggles.

I’d get rid of the skunk too. Or maybe make it only appear at like parks? I dunno I have it modded out in my game skunks aren’t very common where I’m at and I’ve always hated that my sims get sprayed and they don’t learn from it. They just go see the damn skunk again.

Oh and cats should be able to hunt mice/rats.

I agree about the cats sitting on laps. It would be great if they could also sleep on the bed at night or even wake up sims by sitting on them and pawing their face like my cats do!

In S2 I always miss the "follow master" action from Sims 1 pets. My cats and dog often trail around after me while I'm puttering around the house and it was nice when my sims' pets would, too. And didn't the pets used to greet a sim coming home from work in S1? Even if not, I'd like it if pets - at least dogs - would come running up when my sims got home from school or work.

Horses.
Being able to have cats sit on laps (and toddlers too, seeing as we're fantasising).

I wonder if a mod allowing dogs to have a chance of digging up treasure when digging holes is possible (or hitting a water main and getting a free bath lol).

The Pets EP was seriously empty. I feel like most other EPs had two main things that they added (e.g. Seasons: Weather AND gardening, AL: Apartments AND magic, NL: nightclubs AND cars, OFB: businesses AND subhoods) but Pets was just...pets. They didn't even include a neighbourhood with it and the only theme was the atomic theme. I also remember reading that basically all the code to support pets was in there from the base game and so they literally just...turned it on. I don't think this is 100% true, because stuff like items being pet-compatible or not is a thing. But still.

Sims Unleashed had pets and gardening for example. Now I do agree that gardening fits better in Seasons, so I'm happy that stayed there, but they could have done something different with pets.

Magic, perhaps? In order to have more integration with the spectral cats - there could be all different kinds of familiars - owls, frogs, rats, snakes, spiders? Though, I suppose, that they would have had to skip werewolves in this case and I do think werewolves fit best in Pets. (Also, I already argued for Magic to be the supernatural included in uni!)

I agree with others that there could have been more smaller pets. It would have been fun to have more interaction with small pets, too, like being able to move them between different cages or upgrade the cage, like you can in TS3. The tiny hamster cage looks cruel through today's eyes, and it would be fun to have a choice of a smaller, more basic cage vs a larger one or one with lots of tubes etc to crawl through. In general I love the look and the interactions of the TS2 dogs and cats, more so than other sims games.

I'm not personally bothered about horses and I think the animations probably would be a bit glitchy with TS2 sims and using them as a vehicle unsatisfactory. Plus, I don't think TS2 lots are really big enough for large animals like horses, cows, sheep etc, so I'm OK with skipping them.

Having more general wildlife added would have been cool. Like the bug hunting and birdwatching interactions, from Freetime. I love the mod that lets cats catch roaches, and think this should be in the Pets EP. Likewise there is a mod that lets dogs chase burglars away, which I think should also be vanilla - this should depend on the personality of the dog though - aggressive, genius, hyper, independent dogs should be the best at scaring away burglars and might even pin them down and bark until the sim wakes up and calls the police, but a doofus, friendly dog should try to greet them like a friend instead, a lazy dog wouldn't bother to react and a cowardly dog could whimper and hide. Training could also play into this too - playful (more likely to play) vs hostile (more likely to scare/pin), calm (more likely to correctly identify burglar/ignore) vs disruptive (more likely to bark or play), and relationship with the humans in the household.

I find it a bit annoying that the Pets EP adds a pet noise emitter to every single house - so even if nobody in the neighbourhood owns a dog, you'll hear dogs barking in the background of every lot. I'd make this more random.

I agree that agility training and pet shows should have been added, just ported exactly from Pet Stories. I have the agility items from Pet Stories, but they don't work properly.

Maybe just for something completely different, there could have been some of the stuff from the Family Fun stuff pack rolled into Pets, with all the costumes for kids - I love Phaenoh's "costume trunk" object and think that throwing a costume party could have been added in. Maybe the playground equipment from AL, or smaller, garden like versions - there could have been some fun cat animations added to these! Many people with pets have access to a garden, so it would have been nice to get some items to use in the garden, like a swinging bench, a bird bath/bird feeding table, which would attract wild birds (and cats/dogs could scare them away), a paddling pool for toddlers/kids to play in, adults to cool down in, and dogs can drink from, and jump and play in too, but cats would be wary of (maybe touching the water with a paw and running away, or having a drink). Dogs able to interact with swimming pools! And an outdoor tub for washing the dog - there's a CC one which I use a lot, which is really useful for households that have tiny awkward bathrooms. Actually, some of the Pet Stories items like the ice sculpture table, buffet table and fancy BBQ would fit nicely into this theme too. I'd like that auto pet feeder and porta-potty, too!

Some adult careers would have been nice- Oceanography fits well here. Maybe a vet career, or more generic "animal care" with a poop cleaner at the entry level, vet type jobs at the mid range, moving onto zookeeper and eventually Dr. Doolittle. Show Business, because it matches the pet career and would have fit that premade family who were supposedly sitcom stars, better.

Edited to add: I love the ideas about pets waking up their owners! And the idea of a neighbourhood to visit for dog walks would be awesome - this could be a kind of destination subhood, sort of like the Bon Voyage ones, with different rural themes - beach (if you have BV), woodland, meadow, farmland. These could maybe even contain the bigger animals but as sort of hood deco viewable from the lot, so they don't seem penned in, and aren't directly interactable. They could be a "special" community lot type by inviting fewer visitors than usual community lots. And if you have residential lots in the rural subhood, you lack certain features (like delivery groceries/pizza) and the police would take longer to arrive, hence the need to have your own guard dog.

With the rural theme, this could add loads of build mode content too to recreate old style houses like thatched cottages and stone houses.

Oooh and then they could add buses - because villages are often too small to be served by train or major highways, but (at least in Europe) there are often bus routes. So your sims could choose to take the bus somewhere instead of walk to / taxi.

Some great ideas here

I have to agree, the toys for pets are not enough. Poor dogs basically just have bones, and a lot more could have been done. I do enjoy training the pets, though, and do have my sims taking their dogs to my digging lots (yes, I have those, and quite like everyone digging, although they normally only burst the waterpipes ).

Jo certainly has some great suggestions. Mentioning horses again made me wonder why there never was an expansion pack with farm animals - it would have been so logical to add one after Seasons? (Or even before, I guess).

One thing I noticed about the Sims 2 pet animations is that Maxis missed the ultimate expression of catitude - strutting along with tail erect and waving. (Cats do this when they are very pleased with themselves, which is a lot of the time.) Maybe Maxis couldn't figure out how, maybe there was some practical limitation. But I miss it.

Also, cats will climb on anything and everything - bookcases, cabinets, refrigerators, curtains, you name it. (My pair of little furry fiends still climb curtains even though they are full-grown, and just about every other day I find one or both on top of the hall bookcases. And one really likes the top of the refrigerator....)