So I've played over 40+ hours now, and have only just reached Markarth. I go to the stables knowing that I can buy a dog there, Vigilance, except when I go to the guy to buy it off him he tells me: "Sorry. You already have an animal with you".

My face:

I look around me. I see my Khajiit followe Kharjo (btw the coolest follower) and think maybe I have to tell him to part ways - perhaps the dog handler was racist and already associated the Khajiit with an animal. I tell Kharjo to get lost, but still he says that I can't buy Vigilance because I already have an animal with me. What is going on? Glitch? Anyone else get this?

If it helps I did the one quest in Farkreath where:


Anyone have any ideas?

Anyone?

i have no idea but do you own a horse? could that be it?

I do own a horse. This shouldn't be a problem though. Let me go murder it, sell its delectable meats, and come back to you.

HAHAHAHA Hilarious. I doubt that fixed it. I had a horse and a stray dog at the same time and it kicked [censored]. But then i lost the dog , and I am getting the same message when I try to buy Vigilence, and plus the stray dogs I find now attack me. Even if I kill the stray dogs, the dude still says I have an animal already. Getting really tired of it. I really want a dog. I can't find mine anywhere. Maybe he died in a battle and I didn't notice. But if so, I should be able to buy another one. Or recruit a stray.

Do you own Meeko the dog? If you do, maybe you told him to wait somewhere and forgot?


probably a bug tho

Also jumping on the guessing board..
Did you encounter the stray dog random encounter and possibly tell it to wait, or for that matter Meeko? (i can imagine, this is what can happen even unconsciously).. That is known to cause issues..

I had this twice. First time it happened I had to reload a save from 4 hours earlier to fix it.

It's caused by a stray dog follower I had. He would totally disappear from game when travelling the wilderness. I thought he had died because he didn't come back when I waited or when I fast travelled but I then tried to buy the dog in Markarth and got told I already had a dog.

I reloaded earlier save and not long after the stray dog vanished from the game again. This is a really annoying bug. So I again lost a couple of hours of gaming. After reloading I dismissed him.

It seems there is a bug where dog followers can just disappear from the game making it impossible to get another dog.

Just read your spoiler below your post, didnt notice it at first, oops, deleted lol