Another Monday and yes…another Meme by Strawberry! And one I really had a lot of fun doing, although it took me a while thinking on how and what as the challenge this week is: blog about something that is completely new to you.

Hmpf…After almost 7 years in SL and visiting so many locations for my blog, I thought I had seen it all…and then, I knew it! One of the things I have never, ever tried is: a virtual pet! (No, Parrot was never mine and he lacked the interaction of being a real pet :))

I decided I wanted a dog! Not breedable or one that needs all kinds of food and supplies, but preferably one that just wanders about a bit and doesn’t ask too much.

After some browsing on MP and googling, I found the dogs from VKC (Virtual Kennel Club) looking good and they indeed need no food, it is a one time buy. The VKC has a very informative website (in several languages) which I, as soon to be owner of a dog, of course went through to find out what I could expect. Then I went to the marketplace and found a lovely Dachshund. OK. The price is a bit of a ..bummer, they surely are not cheap (LS 4.800!), so after some more coffee I hopped over inworld to a VKC dogpark to see some dogs in the pixel. They looked nice and have all kind of nifty tricks, pathfinding, AI and so on and oh well….I bought the Dachshund.

At home I rezzed the Kennel, according to instructions I should not touch it but wait for my dog to be delivered and I was so excited!

Within a minute the dog appeared! w000t!

And then it poofed and I got an error message. My hund! Poofed! Gone! Nothing in my inventory! Arrrgghhh!

Off to the clinic I went, to claim a new version – as the website told me. Alas. Since the failure happened during delivery, of course my hund wasn’t registered yet. The clinic however, has a wonderful system and with a simple ‘help’ in open chat, an approved VKC Trainer was paged and she arrived within a minute.

I told her what happened and Renate, the trainer, was sure it was some glitch and she would contact someone else to help me out, but due to timezones this could take a while.

Within an hour though, Renate tp’d me back to the clinic and helped me retrieve a new pup! After some rezzing issues (of course I wore the dog, instead of rezzing it…) finally my dachshund was inworld and I could name him. So, here he is: Tango

Isn’t he adorable? And well made too! I am not quite familiar with all his options and currently, while I am writing this blogpost he is greeting all furniture by name …A bit odd, so I will look into that later..!

I have to confess, it is way more fun than I thought it was, I cannot resist petting him – as he comes with such a cute petting animation! Also, I am extremely happy with the wonderful service I got after the disastrous start, Renate has been so patient and helpful, chapeau!