Now the Dog has armour, Monaghan should add more ways to keep Dogs safe so the armour can be put to use in combat.

Firstly, add a dog bowl. The dog bowl would have an inventory slot of 1, allowing for up to 64 of a food item to be stored within it. It is refilled by dropping food into it. Up to 4 dogs can bind to a bowl to be able to eat from it. They unbind when the bowl is broken, or a secondary bowl is located and the primary bowl is unloaded. If the bowl has food in it and the dog is injured, it can eat and regenerate automatically. If the bowl is empty, they will whine, and follow the player when in range of the bowl.

Secondly, add a third state next to sitting and standing. This third “passive” state, they act like they do when standing, but do not leave the 32 block radius around their bowl, allowing them to walk around player’s houses and bases without following player or teleporting. When passive, they might follow the owner when in range and run around to “play”

Thirdly, if a dog find rotten flesh on the floor, it picks it up and eats it if it needs to regenerate. This also applies to any dropped food, until it is full healed. If a bone is presented and it is fully healed, it will pick up the bone, and take it to the player and drop it at their feet if they have bones in their inventory. If not, it will keep the bone for a random amount of time.

Add personalities and stats to dogs, like Pandas. Aggressive dogs will attack any hostile on sight, even when sitting, they will stand, kill, then return to their spot. Passive dogs will only attack once a mob has been attacked by the player, and not move when sat. This extends to passive mobs. Pacifist dogs don’t attack anything, but will bark repetitively at mobs, with a 20% chance of scaring it off each bark.

Add stats like Horses, some dogs having more health, speed, or jump ability. These attributes can be selectively bred to pass on the traits.

Finally, add various skins to dogs, varying in fur colour from white, grey (classic), and brown, depending on if the spawn biome is snowy, taiga, or forest. Again, this attribute can be selectively bred and passed on.