Game Skyrim Forum

Once a long time ago.. like 3-4 ingame weeks ago i had a dog companion and sadly i lost him near Solitude in the water.. i have no idea where is he...

I would like to buy a new doggy, but the seller always says that i already have an animal companion with me... Probably talking about my lost dog.... Is there a console command to get rid of that lost dog? I want a new one

I don't know sorry. Have you tried fast-traveling like 10 times in succession to see if it spawns him? Sometimes that will pull a companion to me.

As i mentioned i got that dog companion 3-4 ingame weeks ago... I were to a lot of places since then and traveled a lot, entered and exit buildings a lot, but he never spawned around me..

When my own dog disappeared a message eventually popped up saying 'The dog had returned to its home'. This was after one or two in-game weeks, I think. I'm not sure if this was because it was a stray dog I had found while wandering around the countryside (and had told to wait for me outside a castle), or whether this happens with any dog companion. that has gone missing.

There must be some sort of console command to either summon the dog or otherwise stop the follow script attached to it.

He will (or should) eventually return to the seller, at which point you will need to pay 500 gold for him again if you want him to continue travelling with you. If/when that happens, don't let him die because you can't buy another one if he does.

I had a stray dog. He was cute. He all of a sudden refused to continue in the direction I was heading (plain path) and stopped dead in his tracks.
I left him and did the nearby cave I was heading to, but when I came back, he was gone. This was 15 levels ago, and I don't remember seeing a
message of him leaving. Maybe I just missed it. I never tried to buy a dog though. No one ever offered to sell me one. Don't think I want another
one anyways. he was cute, a little helpful, but ALWAYS in my way...always.

The problem is that he was a stray dog who i found while adventuring... so i didn't buy him, he just agreed to follow me and now he is gone. I didn't get any message about him at all...


I think that you are in the same situation like me, you wouldn't be able to buy a new dog if i'm right.

I found the constant barking made me psychotic.

It had an accident.

I didn't even know you could have a dog companion. I'd probably just treat them the same as my regular companions though. "sit, stay out of my way, good girl."

*FIREBALL* WOOF!

I'm kinda of having the same problem, but I've never even had a dog companion, yet he's telling me I already have an animal when I try to buy his dog.

Well, I had the one from the Daedric quest, but I completed that quest more than 1 in game month ago.

Ditto.

Unfortunately, my dog is impossible to kill, as he's a cute little demon dog.

If you leave a companion somewhere, and it doesn't appear when you fast travel, it should return to its home position. Try returning to the stables where you bought the dog and see if it hasn't returned.

You could try the place at me command to get your dog back to you. In the console type -

"player.placeatme [dog's id]" without quotes or brackets.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Followers#Dogs are the dogs and their IDs if you click their links. I'm not sure if you need the Base or Ref ID but a little trial and error and you'll find out.

Well.. my dog was a random stray dog, it didn't have a specific name.. i found him in the woods near Solitude when he was fighting some wolves... I killed the wolves and he decided to help me after that...


I already said multiple times that i didn't buy him, i just found him and i can't even remember where exactly to check there..

I just found the dog type that i got as well. It's just called Stray Dog as i said and he is a random encounter..

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Stray_Dog

Sadly this wiki doesn't show the ID of the dog

Hmm, what about the help command. Type help "stray dog". Got this from the uesp...

I just tried it and i found the dog's ID.

I used the placeatme command, but the dog seemed confused and didn't know me, i couldn't talk to it to tell it to go "home" or wait here or anything, it just barked at me like random dogs.... I killed it and then went to Markarth to buy that dog there, but the guy still says that i have an animal with me...

I don't understand this..

As he takes up the dog sllot, there might be a way to get his reference ID from one of the commands related to followers. I'll check.. As he is part of a generated encounter, I beleive his reference ID (the one you'd need) is generated at that time too.

Thank you, i hope you will find something

I had the stray dog as a companion for about an hour in game. I had gone to Whiterun to drop some stuff off in my house, and when I left, instead of following the road to enter the wilderness I jumped over the wall for a shortcut as I usually do. Have never seen the dog since, and I can't buy a new one either

Well no luck finding ref id for stray, but try this command:

set playeranimalcount to 0

Wow... thank you, this command worked Now the guy let me to buy his dog...

Thanks for helping me out... i was soo annoyed about trying to fix this ^^ I just didn't think about a command like that..

Now the only thing that remains is the mystery of the lost dog...

Yeah I guess it's a good thing I'm obsessive about solving things - finding that variable's name took a few searches.

I suppose you could use it and the similar command "set playerfollowercount to 0" after recruiting/purchasing each dog/follower to have your own personally horde. I also suppose that could mess things up if you did use it like that. As long as your old dog stays gone though, you are not likely to have any problems from doing this.

Yep thanks, i'll use these if some problems will show up again


I don't plan to make a personal army though lol.