Some quest spoilers ahead, don't read if you don't want spoilage.

If you've ever done the "A Daedra's Best Friend" quest, I have no doubt you'd agree. Last night, I spent a good half hour walking/sneaking through (as yet for me) unexplored territory, at night, to get him to the cave with the stupid axe. Ever since acquiring the mutt near Falkreath, he'd been pushing me around (love how a dumbarse dog can push around a 200-pound human loaded down with armor as if they were a 10-ounce hockey puck) all over the place, almost shoving me off precipices, rushing forward to attack anything remotely attackable within 100 yards of us, wanted or not- and barking into my friggin' nord-shorts every 5 seconds as he's pushing me along the ground like a hockey puck even as I'm trying to crouch still or line up a sneak shot with my bow.... god#$@% that's one annoying pooch. What is so hard about making companions that don't run up yer [censored] and shove you around all the time? Patch, Beth... PATCH! Most humanoid companions aren't too bad about it, but that damn dog... UGH!

So when I get the choice to either take the cool mask (which is what I wanted), or hack his worthless mutt @$$ into bloody mincemeat with the axe... I had to do a quicksave and then HACK-HACK-HACK-HACk-CHOPCHOP-HACK!!!!!! Several very enjoyable reload/hack-hack's later, I then went ahead and told the god to give me the hat, thank you very much.

Would have preferred staying with the first choice, tho....

Hmm, I just let the dog lead. Didn't give me much trouble that way.

He 'led' from Falkreath to the first cave, but when I had to find the cave with the axe, i had not been in that corner of the map yet, so had no fast travel point anywhere near it. In that situation, the dog just follows you all the way as you try to get there. Or pushes you, more accurately.

Barbas didn't push me around much. Then again I stayed on the roads as much as possible during that quest. I took the mask. I kinda wish I didn't.

Yep! Forget sneaking with him around. I abandoned a side quest and used fast travel to the final location just to get rid of him.

If you use the PC get this mod:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=2686

It's my favorite mod.

I noticed the same behavior once before, on a human NPC that I had to escort somewhere. It seems that the worst incidences of this butting-into/pushing behavior, occurs when you already have a regular companion with you, and then get assigned this 'extra' NPC or dog to be a follower as well. If you stop moving, they will constantly butt right into you and push you along the ground a ways. If you're riding a horse, it's even worse. Just some bad programming, on their behaviors.

Thanks, but now that I've done it once, I know to just get the axe cave as a fast travel location, BEFORE starting that quest

I agree with the OP, that is one annoying mutt.

And he sure has a weird accent for the game.

in the end it boils down to a choice between the coolest looking axe or the stupidest looking helmet. first time through you can't know that though.

Agreed, the dog is worthless and must die.

Isn't there a dialogue option that goes along the lines: "Stop following me!"? Then he'll head to Rimerock Burrow by himself, and you'll see the map marker stop there at the cave mouth once he's gotten there. This way, you can take all your time doing something else for a while, then search the cave when you feel like it. That neat little map marker will be still, pointing the way so that you'll irrationally, automatically know where to go, as always. =)

If you're talking about finding the Haemar's Shame for the first time prior to all that, Barbas should lead you there. If he didn't, he was broke.


Aww, poor Barbas! I think I'm the only one here who found him very sympathetic and as positively irritating as a... well, a real life untrained dog. Besides, knowing you, anything must die. So that they can be brought back to life as your undead slaves! >: (

I think barbas is designed to be annoying. When I met barbas I had another dog companion. Now this dog companion was fine he always fought well, never bumped into me. But barbas is different, he`s always bumping right up my ass! After doing the first part of the quest, i told him to go away, which he did.


Another thing I don`t like about Barbas is that he breaks the `fourth wall`. I said to him, "A talking dog?"

And he goes "a world of talking cats, etc and you`re surprised by a talking dog?"

That`s blowing the immersion because wlaking talking cats are the norm, unless this dog is from Earth, he shouldn`t have said that. His accent is annoying too.

Oh yea and it was Barbas fault that my dog died.

With Sithis as my witness, I actually tried Thralling it with various levels of death spells. Nothing worked.
I didn't feel too bad though once he got immortalized in stone.
And plus, I wanted the axe over the stupid-looking mask.

I hate Barbas. He is a total pain in the ass! Clavicus Vile has my sympathy for having to put up with him.

He shoved me all over the place, constantly! He shoved me into a table and facefirst into a bookcase when I was trying to read the books!
I looked over a prescipice, he started shoving me off!
I walked up a winding twisting , narrow path, he gradually started shoving me closer and closer to the edge. He is dangerous!
And the constant barking!

In the end I left him and let him go to places on his own.
I was so pissed off with him, I killled him last time. Then reloaded and took the mask.
A mage has little use for a 2 handed axe. I wished I had killed them though.

I will take the mask this time because I am doing the deadra items trophy.
But it is so tempting to kill him!

The dog ai is annoying in general.
Meeko can be annoying too. Not as annoying, nowhere near.
He pushes you, stands in doorways and narrow places. And I teleported to Bards Leap Summit, to jump off and meet the ghost bard, and he was pushing me to my death.
He had spawned in the middle of the path, and I was hanging on by my toes nearly. And he would'nt move. I had to dismiss him just to get to a safe place.
But Meeko is nice, and it is sad how his owner is dead and he waits there. Shame you can't take him home with you. I wanted to take him home.
He is does'nt walk into attacks much either.

Ha, ouch! Well, my namesake character in Morrowind is not wearing the masque for aesthetic reasons, either. Just because it adds certain mystique, even supernatural vibes (resemblance of [another] immortal being) and is a dang powerful CE artifact. What comes to the guy on my avatar... well, he's just a Nelacayne poser from 4th Era...


I couldn't recall that, so I checked. Barbas' line is: "Skyrim is now host to giant, flying lizards and two-legged cat-men... and you're surprised by me? Yes. I just talked. And I'm continuing to do so."

Yes, still breaks the fourth wall a tiny bit. (As in I'd think, if not dragons or even Khajiit, giants at least have been around for a long time in Skyrim. They're just new for us gamers.) But it does it in a great, subtle way. That line, in my opinion, is great - and very M'aiq the Liarish!

Another thing about Barbas is I very much like his voice acting. I think absolutely everything in that character is very dog-like: the constant stupid running around and pushing, his brisk persona, and even the English/Ehlnofex/Nordic/whatever tongue voice! As far as I can think. Dog's don't usually speak those kinda languages, that is...

I loved Barbas. He was a nice and fun dog. And I did owe him once.

Remember in Oblivion he tells you to keep Umbra? Because of him, I decided to keep it. I was originally planning to give it to Viles but he told me I can keep it if I want to.

wait so if you end up saving barbas you cant have him as a follower? and is he immortal?

Barbas was incredibly annoying on the second leg of the quest. He was mostly fine from Falkreath to Haemer's Shame, but after that he just followed me, the dumb brown-noser. On my first character, I got so annoyed that I'd punch him with the bow to get him to back off a bit. Well, eventually he had enough of that and went ape-guano crazy. I suspect we are to use the axe to examine his brain for signs of rabies. I had to disable him with the console. He isn't actually needed for the trip to get the axe anyway. If you tell him to stop following you he just returns to Clavicus Vile who, like some dog-owners I've met, hasn't a clue how annoying his pet is.

Oh, and now I have another "pushy" follower: the female Dark Brotherhood Initiate. Well, not pushy like Barbas, but she butts into me all the time.

"Huh?"

Funny thing, though, is that she makes a great partner. She does a lot of damage armed only with an ebony dagger, plus she can't die. However, she did attack me once. I was trying out a new flame cloak spell from the Kajiit at the mages college. She kept bumping into me and getting burned, lol. Also, Dawnbreaker's proc alarms her, "What are you doing?" or "I'm on your side, remember?"

No... I liked him very much. Acting like a real untrained dog. For some kind of dogs it's common to push. My Labrador pedigree pushes my other dog to go where I asked it to go. Sometimes she pushes me too. It's in her blood acting like that. That's why they are used for keeping the sheeps together. Bethesda has done a good job with the dogs. They act like they were real.

Yes I still have Meeko with me.

well, just finish the barbas quest and kill him

The stupid dog AI got me in a bit of trouble in Castle Dour in Solitude. I was looking for the executioner to turn in a kill bandits quest, I went in the room near Legate Rikke and my Housecarl and Meeko plugged the door. I tried sprinting into them, jumping , nothing worked. FusRoDah to push them out the door, the whole castle went crazy. General Tullius, Legate Rikke and a zillion guards attacked. I killed everyone except for the immortals, sighed at Bethesda's brain dead companion programming, and reloaded to an earlier untrapped-in-room save. Since then I've found a few companion mods that have quite a bit better companion behavior. I sometimes wonder if the design for Beth's followers is purposeful to fool with the player's mind and make them as annoying as possible.

I used fast travel with him around because I couldn't stand being pushed around, not to mention thats sometime he would stop and wait for no reason and it took me a few retries of running away and going near the dog again to make him move. I don't use 2H axes but the Rueful Axe is really a nice piece to display.

On the plus side, you don't really 'kill' him as the dog is just an avatar of Clavicus Vile (since this Daedra seems to suffer from a split personality disorder... one is joyful and honest the other tricky and loves pranking people).

Barbas is annoying, yes... but I enjoyed using him for quite awhile. If you leave the quest unfinished, he works as an "extra" companion... you can use him AND someone else in your adventuring party (more if you're a conjurer or have the Sanguine Rose). Plus, he's impervious to damage, so that helps in combat. I put up with all the bumping and barking because of that.

The ultimate revenge on Clavicus Vile is that you give that annoying dog back to him for ETERNITY. He's stuck with Barbas and you get a neat mask in return. That's more than fair.

Precisely. What people here mainly call "stupid dog AI" is more like "realism" to me. As if dogs do not bark and push/play in real life...