Dogs and The Second Life Kennel Club Dog Show

One of the coolest things about Penny’s Pets is the Second Life Kennel Club Dog Show.  Penny has her 75 breeds of dogs displayed in an out door arena, with the dogs standing on platforms as if to be judged.  People can walk in and amongst the dogs to get a very good look at them.  At the center of the arena is a winner’s stand with the blue ribbon winner, the second place and the third place dog all standing on them showing their ribbons.  Trophies are on either side of the winner’s stand, and seasonal flowers decorate the venue.  You’ll notice the Golden Retriever is the winner, because we ARE the best dogs in all the world.

All of the dogs displayed are arranged according to American Kennel Club groupings — Herding Dogs,

The Second Life Kennel Club Dog Show Winners

Toys, Terriers, Working Dogs, Non-Sporting and Sporting Dogs.  There are several dogs of each category for people to choose from, and each one is created to American Kennel Club breed standards with a close attention to detail.  That is to say, a wolfhound looks like a wolfhound and a beagle looks like a beagle.

Penny’s dogs are all scripted with artificial intelligence.  She worked with a very talented scripter to bring these dogs to life.  They will get hungry and tired and when their hunger and tiredness reaches 100% will go to their dishes and beds and you set those locations.  They all come with a set of dishes and a little bed, but you can make their sleeping place your bed, a chair, a rug, or the sofa.  In Penny’s Cabin, I live with Angus the Scottie and Chili the Shorty Jack and we sleep on Penny’s rug in the living room. 

Anyway, in addition to the AI aspect, Penny had her scripter add a Random feature to the dogs.  When in Random Mode, they will go through their animations in a random manner, so its pretty cute to look over and see your dog sitting, laying down, sleeping, offering his paw, playing dead, barking, wagging his tail and sitting up.  If you touch him and choose follow, he will follow at your side til you tell them to stay.  They are not bad about running away, either.  Penny’s dogs are scripted to be companions, and don’t roam or wander away on their own.  They want to be by their owners because that’s where I like to be…right with Penny.  I get very sad when I can’t come with her, and I try to use guilt to get my way.  Most times it works, but sometimes she has to leave me all alone.  Thankfully I have Chili and Angus to keep me company so I don’t get too lonely.  We usually just flop down and take a nap til Penny comes back for us and takes us for a walk.

In addition to the 75 breeds of dogs, Penny will also get requests to do custom dogs for people and for color changing.  Penny always does these when she can.  If the residents can get her a good enough picture, Penny will work very hard to get them looking like their real life counterparts.  Sometimes people ask for rare dogs, or dogs not recognized by the AKC, like the Kelpie.  Recently someone asked Penny to do a Kelpie and she did and he turned out to be a very popular breed.  One of the most fun project for Penny was the lady who wanted a Basenji, and wanted it to be scripted with real Basenji sounds and since these dogs don’t bark or howl like the rest of us, the lady uploaded sounds from her own Basenjis and Penny loaded them into the Basenji’s script.  Wasn’t that nice of her?

Well, I think its about time for my mid afternoon nap, so I am going to get back to the dog’s business of napping.  Be sure and check out the Second Life Kennel Club in the center of the Papercut sim…you can’t miss it.  Its all blue and white and scenic.  Come look at the dogs and see if you can find your favorite…of course, if you’re a true dog lover, look no further than the Golden Retriever.

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Hello From Me to You

Hello there. I’m PennyWhistle Cameron, the owner and creator of Penny’s Pets in Second Life.  I started this blog to keep people updated about the pet store, the sim, my satellite stores and what’s going on with us down there.  We’re always mixing it up and changing things, so we needed a way to let people know about the changes, special features and new items for sale.  This is my first entry and I have a lot of things to tell you folks initially and then I will send out messages and notifications as they occur.

Carla and Murphy in repose

First, I would like to give you a little background into Penny’s Pets.  The whole thing sort of steamrolled me, but it all started when I was looking for a Golden Retriever to give to my Real Life sister Carla who is also in the game and is my assistant, my touchstone, and my inspiration on many, many ventures.  She has a glorious three-year old Golden Retriever named Murphy who is a constant source of amusement to us both and I wanted her to have in Second Life what she has in Real Life.  I went to the only Pet Store I could find at the time and they didn’t have a Golden, so I went directly home and began crafting a dog.

I wish you could have seen my first effort.  He looked like a cross between Marmaduke and Clifford the Big Red Dog, was textured with brown leather, and was about the size of a Clydesdale.  But I kept working until I made something mostly resembling a Labrador.  A black lab easily became a yellow and a chocolate lab and then I just started making more and more breeds. My friend Keera Woyseck of Peace Haven Comunities encouraged me to open a store and offered me room in a little mall she had called Annabelle’s Emporium.  Thus began my secondlifelong battle with vendors.  It wasn’t long til I was making enough sales to have a free standing store which Keera built to perfection for me.

Then, not long after that Mash Mandala of Depoz came to see me to ask me to sell my dogs and cats at Depoz.  He wanted pets sold at Depoz and I happily complied and soon after Susan and XTrojan Ramos invited me to come sell my animals on their sims and I was thrilled to do so.  The last step was moving to a full sized sim and that is what we have on Papercut.  Penny’s Pets at Papercut is a full sim devoted to our love of animals.  Most are displayed in their natural setting, and lately we’ve taken on a whole zoo-like appearance.  We recreated the Big Cat House at Chicago’s Lincoln Park zoo to house our large cats, and recently added a Special Exhibits building along with an Endangered Species Building.  These two exhibits change monthly with a theme of animals in our Special Exhibit — right now, its Bears and we are displaying a Grizzly, a Black Bear, a Polar Bear, a Sun Bear and a Spectacled Bear.  The Endangered Species building is housing a pair of Cheetahs in their natural habitat.  These will both change in the next few days, and like I said before, change each month. In addition to being a commerical sim, we take great pride in making it visually pleasing with lots of pathways, trees, ponds and a complete North American Forest. 

Trophies and ribbons for the Best in Show!

At the center of it all is our Second Life Kennel Club Dog Show displaying our dogs in a dog show like tableau. Each breed is crafted to the specifications of the American Kennel Club breed standard, and is shown standing on an exhibit table as if he is being judged — and he is, by his prospective owner.  Our dogs are scripted with Artificial Intelligence, which means they have the capability to think for themselves.  You set their eating and sleeping locations and when they are hungry and tired they go to their beds to sleep and dishes to eat.  They are also animated to the max.  The dogs sit, lie down, sleep and close their eyes, sit up and beg, roll over and play dead, speak, offer their paws, throw their heads back to howl, pounce playfully and growl with menace.  They are created to be your companion and to follow their owner so they don’t roam, wander or forage on their own.  They also don’t end up on your neighbor’s roof, wander off world or fall out of skyboxes.  They stay where you put them!

Anyway, thats a little rundown, and I have run on and now must go for a bit, but I will be checking back in from time to time to updated the goings on at Penny’s Pets.

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