Tambo
05/21/2001

"Tambo never grew out of being clumsy, goofy, or big-hearted."

This is the boy who started it all. My very first Dogz adoption, Tambo has been with me since I was fifteen and has lived on four different computers, dating all the way back to my family's first Windows PC.

Tambo was named after a character in the song Weep Day by They Might Be Giants. I'd discovered TMBG only a year or so earlier; I was obsessed with them then, and they're still my favorite band today. There's no deep meaning behind the name choice -- I'm sure the song was just stuck in my head at the time.

What I wrote about Tambo in his Petz profile still holds true. He was so loving and so clutzy that it skewed my expectations of all other dogz' personalities and abilities forever. I was shocked when I met dogz who could actually catch frisbees instead of falling on their faces. Because of Tambo, I hadn't thought it possible!

For almost twenty years, every single puppy born under my care in Dogz 4 could trace their ancestry back to Tambo and his mate. They started a small village, and each pup in their line was naturally raised. All that time spent getting to know their progeny and watching them grow means I am very fondly attached to many of them -- especially the eight in this small original crew.

Faith
04/29/2000

"Faith has some jealousy and anger issues, but she's got enough grace to sink a ship.
She's mellowed out considerably during the last ten years, but she still has her moments!"

Despite being more than a year older than Tambo, Faith was the second dog to join our family. She was an online adoption from a website whose title I didn't think to remember; all I know is that she was bred by someone named Samantha. I remember thinking Faith was absolutely beautiful, and I wanted to introduce her to Tambo.

She came to us fully grown, and the two of them hit it off immediately. It was mind-boggling how different she was from Tambo: she could catch bouncy balls in midair, do tricks for treats, and land on her feet (!!). She was the acrobat to Tambo's clown, and I loved that they loved each other.

It's because of Faith that each mate I found for my crew going forward involved online matchmaking. I was amazed when each of Faith and Tambo's children were a completely different color, and I figured it had to be Faith's long ancestry tree that did this. I didn't know anything about how the game's genetics system worked yet, but it made sense to me that greater inherited data would yield a wider variety of results. I thought that if I continued adopting dogz bred by other players, maybe I'd increase our chances for delightful surprises. The complexity and mystery were magical to me.

Tobias
11/22/2001

"Tobias inherited some of his mother's looks, most of his father's endearing clumsiness, and all of his father's gigantic heart."

It's hard to put into words how special Tobias is to me. He was the first child of Tambo, my first Dogz adoption; he was the first newborn I'd ever seen in Petz 4 and gave me my first clue that the game had an incredible genetics system; and on top of all that, he was born on my sixteenth birthday. I named him after my favorite character in the Animorphs book series, which I'd started rereading at the time.

Tobias' fur coloration was a complete shock when he was born. I distinctly remember saying to myself, "Where did that come from?!" Apparently there was a complex inheritance algorithm lurking under the game's calm surface -- something I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined was there. As an adolescent who'd grown up loving the 90s blind box toy fads like Puppy Surprise -- not to mention any digital pet that had different "evolutions" to discover -- this revelation was the moment the game hooked me forever.

Tobias is so much like Tambo, which I loved. When he was all grown, finding him his own precious soulmate like I'd done for his father was a dream I kept on the horizon...

Pyramid
11/29/2001

"Pyramid is a graceful, goofy baritone who has always been especially close to her brother Tobias and nephew Dust."

Something I love about my Petz is how I can often tell what bands, shows, events, or characters were big in my life based on the names I chose for them. Pyramid here was named after Radiohead's Pyramid Song. My brother had just brought the Kid A album home from college on holiday break and it had blown my mind; he'd let me keep it, and then burned me a copy of Amnesiac too. That's the album I was listening to when Pyramid was born.

Although Pyramid inherited her mom's advanced coordination and motor skills, I always liked that she looked like a stockier version of her dad. I enjoyed imagining that she and Tambo shared a special bond, that she preferred silly, messy adventures despite her clear gift for refinement. I also felt that she was strongly independent, yet devoted to her immediate family. Because of this, Pyramid never felt the need to seek out a mate.

At least, not in this dimension...

Slate
04/29/2002

"Slate has a tendency to sit outside and admire the sky."

Slate was a fascinating addition to the family due to how immediately different he was from his siblings. Instead of chasing toys around with flying somersaults like his sister or tripping all over himself like his brother, Slate was just... thoughtful. Introspective. The first time I brought him to the shore as an independent pup he just sat down and watched the sky for a while. I'd never seen a dog in the game do that before.

Slate is the quiet one -- the gentle soul in the room with no ego, no desire to draw attention to himself, no compulsion to please or seek reassurances that he's loved. He's a master at just being, and I would bring him out to play when I wanted to share that calming mood.

Slate was the last of Tobias and Faith's children to be born during my first Petz era. I consciously stopped at three siblings because something about this trio just felt right. I wanted them to stay the way they were, three incredibly unique dogz in a tight-knit family, all of whom could comfortably spend quality time with me (and each other) every time I launched the game.

Enya
03/03/2002

"Enya is probably the most hyperactive little pup I've ever seen." -- Appy
"Wow. Appy wasn't kidding." -- KeyGlyph

Enya was my second online adoption, but she broke ground in other ways. She was hexed (brexed?) by a player named Appy from Driftwood Kennelz (or possibly Driftwood Kennel Club), but I'd had so little contact with the community that I didn't really understand what that meant. All I knew was that I was excited to pick her as a potential mate for Tobias due to her intriguing color palette. Just look at those heterochromic eyes!

She arrived as a puppy, and Appy had written this in her profile: "Enya is probably the most hyperactive little pup I've ever seen." Not only was Appy completely right -- Enya was riding a permanent sugar high, it seemed -- but Appy was the first person to draw my attention to the fact that I could keep notes about my Petz in their own file. I became diligent about leaving at least one or two sentences about my dogz in their profiles after that, which is something I've continued to do with my naturally raised crew ever since.

Enya and Tobias are one of my favorite dogz couples of all time, if not the favorite couple of all time. They're just wonderful together. Like his father, Tobias wound up with a soulmate who balances out his clumsiness -- but instead of being serious like Faith, Enya is the hyperactive tornado of ridiculous fun that Tobias had always hoped to meet. These two live life to the fullest in their own special way.

Tambourine
05/21/2002

"Tambourine is the only pup in her family who inherited her grandfather's particular shade of bright green eyes."

Tambouriiiine, Tambourine! My brother's musical influence continued inspiring dogz names, as Tambourine gets hers from a tune by the jam band moe. By 2002 I had decisively abandoned contemporary pop and was instead knee-deep in rock, new wave, and alternative. This was thanks to my brother's old cassette collection and, of course, Napster.

The decision to call her Tambourine was a particularly sentimental one because it also served as an homage to her grandfather Tambo. She unexpectedly inherited his striking green eyes, and so it was fitting that she would inherit a piece of his name, too. Despite eventually winding up with nine (!!) other siblings, not one of them would express these special green irises.

Tambourine remained a puppy for a long while. Although I have distinct memories of bringing her out to play with her younger sister later on, by late 2002 my attention was beginning to slip from the game. A large reason for this was undoubtedly the passing of my family dog in the real world, which affected me so deeply that large swaths of time following it are blanks in my mind. I'm sure that continuing on with Dogz was proving too painful, but as if to make my point for me, I can't really remember.

Tambourine did eventually reach adulthood, but I don't think she achieved full growth.

Cabaret
06/29/2003

"Cabaret is a sweet, enthusiastic puppy who is always looking for a playmate to join a game of catch. She adores her older sister, Tambourine, with whom she is very close."

Cabaret is no longer as young as you see her here, but this is how I always think of her: an adorable, small, palette-swapped copy of her sister Tambourine.

In mid-2003 my love of the X-Men movie franchise had reached new heights with the introduction of Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United. When I discovered that Nightcrawler's actor Alan Cumming had done work in musicals, I found and downloaded some songs he'd performed so that I could hear his singing voice. Thus I became enamored with Willkommen from Cabaret, despite the fact that 99.9% of the innuendos went completely over my head. (I was a very innocent kid.)

To me, Cabaret's color palette was incredible. That dark gray muzzle against her white coat! Those blue eyes! I wasn't sure why Enya's offspring weren't inheriting her mismatched irises -- I still didn't understand the implications of hexing/brexing yet -- but I thought it was beautiful that her second child inherited her one shade of blue.

Cabaret was the last puppy born to me during my first era of Petz. When she was an infant I was just about to enter my senior year of high school, my parents were separating, and I was distracted by a myriad of challenges and emotions leading up to my depature for college.

When I did leave for college in the fall of 2004, I was fortunate enough to have my own laptop -- but it was a Windows XP machine, and I quickly discovered that it ran Petz 4 at unplayably overclocked speeds. I tried dabbling in Petz 5, but it wasn't the same. My mom understood my attachment to the old game and promised to keep the outdated Hewlett-Packard desktop hooked up in her basement as my dedicated Petz station, because she's the best. But even so, living on campus afforded me little opportunity to play it. I still loved my Petz, but an era had come to an end.