It goes without saying, but this guide probably contains spoilers in some way or another.

These are the basic animals you can come across in your time playing the game. They're non unique and have no notable qualities that help them to stand out, but they can typically be found in multiple quantities and are easily replaced if they suffer any unfortunate accidents along the way.

Note that there are some uniquely named animals in the game such as Bellameow, a cat found in the Garden of the Gods, but they're otherwise completely identical to the standard non-named version in stats, perk and appearance and often simply revert to a default name when moving between areas anyway, so they won't be listed here for simplicity and sanity's sake.

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 3

Locations Found:
Ranger HQ, Downtown Colorado Springs, Arapaho Caravan, Broadmoor Heights, Ghost Town, Union Station, Machine Commune, Yuma County Speedway

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
Rabid Bite (inflicts Poison)

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 2

Locations Found:
Ranger HQ, Downtown Colorado Springs, Arapaho Caravan, Garden of the Gods, Broadmoor Heights

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
None

Note: I believe they've nerfed the boost the cat provides in a recent patch. I think it's now halved, becoming 3% > 6% instead of 6% > 12%.

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 1

Locations Found:
Garden of the Gods, Denver Ruins, Snowed Inn Resort, Toaster Repair Academy

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
None

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 1

Locations Found:
Ranger HQ, Garden of the Gods, Broadmoor Heights, Bizarre Exterior, Gett Family Homestead, Union Station, Snowed Inn Resort, Aspen, Little Hell, Yuma County Speedway, Scar Collector Mine, Godfisher Windfarm

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
None

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 1

Locations Found:
Ranger HQ, Garden of the Gods, Clown Museum, Bizarre Exterior, Tellurium Mine, Union Station, Machine Commune, Paint Mines, Aspen, Little Hell, Yuma County Speedway, Godfisher Windfarm

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
None

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 5

Locations Found:
Hoon Homestead, Bizarre Exterior

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
Leg Bite (inflicts Slowed)
Howl (inflicts Terrified)

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 4

Locations Found:
Ranger HQ, Clown Museum, Warrens

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
None

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 4

Locations Found:
Gett Family Homestead, Union Station, Denver Ruins

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
Has a chance to inflict Stun

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 4

Locations Found:
Machine Commune, Department of Energy Site, Santa's Workshop, Aspen, Yuma County Speedway, Godfisher Windfarm


Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
None

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 6

Locations Found:
Ranger HQ, Machine Commune, Aspen, Yuma County Speedway, Scar Collector Mine, Godfisher Windfarm

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
None

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 5

Location Found: Denver Ruins, Department of Energy Site

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
Has a ranged attack that inflicts Poison
Damages attacker when attacked with melee

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 7

Locations Found:
Snowed Inn Resort, Aspen

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
Roar (inflicts Terrified to nearby enemies)
Maul (inflicts Damaged Armour)
Has 20+ natural Armour

Animals you can discover in your travels that typically have an interesting quirk or are only obtainable once, and cannot be found again once removed from the area and promptly dismissed or killed. Does not cover named but otherwise generic animals, just the one-of-a-kind real deals.

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 1

Locations Found: Ambush Site

Major Tomcat is found at the end of the Ambush Site tutorial / intro just after the big fight, perched on top of a stack of rebar, pipes and concrete - he's hard to miss, but is missable if you don't grab him there. To acquire his services you need to either have a party member with Animal Whisperer 1 or save Jodie Bell and question her about him, so she can give you the cigarettes required to coax him down if you lack the necessary skill.

While unique thanks to his hat and dialogue, he's pretty much identical to a basic cat.

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
None

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 1

Location Found: Hoon Homestead

You can only acquire Billy and Jean if you choose to help the Hoon Homestead instead of the Arapaho Caravan - the Homestead will be sacked and Billy and Jean presumably dead if you don't. It's located around the back of the homestead in the garden, and unusually for a goat type companion it only requires Animal Whisperer 1 to charm.

It has a higher base health than other animals typical for the level it is currently at, which it will need if you intend on going for the "Double the Fun" achievement, which requires you to have Billy and Jean in charmed and in your party when you complete the game!

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
Stomp (inflicts Stun)

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 4

Location Found: Bizarre Exterior

Polly is acquired by finding Six-Fingered Larry at the Bizarre and buying him for $200, or $150 with a Barter 5 skill check. You can also obtain him for free with an Animal Whisper 7 skill check too. When or if you dismiss him though it gets a little weird. You can speak to him again and he'll act like he's still with Larry, letting you pay $200 or $150 to recruit him once again. The skill checks for recruiting him for a discount and for free are reduced too, to Barter 3 and Animal Whisperer 5, for some reason - you can only use Animal Whisperer 5 to get him for free once though, and if you used either option when first obtained from Larry before dismissing him once, those options will be gone.

None of this really matters though because you can just use any character with Animal Whisperer 4 to simply charm him like any other animal you meet anywhere else. Also worth noting, you can't interact with Polly once initially acquired until you transition between areas, not sure why. Probably so you can't just charm him out from under Six-Fingered Larry or something.

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
None (they should have given him the Demoralise ability..)

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 10

Location Found: Massacre Site

The Honey Badger is found at the Massacre Site, which itself is found in the South East corner of the map, I'm not sure what level of Radiation protection you need to survive in this area but if you've dealt with Valor you should have enough upgrades to travel to the Department of Energy Site just North of the Ranger HQ and grab the Rad Shield utility item (requires the Morningstar AI to use) which at that point should maximise your Radiation protection, allowing you to survive even if you need maximum protection, giving you earlier access to the Honey Badger.



The Honey Badger is tough! He has a massive health pool, at least 4 times as much health as any other animal companion scaled to the same level (at around level 20 with the Animal Training perk, he has around 8000 HP whereas a Growler Cub has around 2500 HP in comparison) and hits up to five times a turn for 150 - 250 damage, with critical hits of 600+ damage. He can also inflict bleed on enemies with his "Red Fang" ability. His staying power in combat is unmatched!

It's not all fun and games, though. DoT abilities in this game inflict % based damage based on a targets maximum health, which if not carefully managed can kill even the Honey Badger as quickly as it would kill a Rabbit. Especially watch out for Poison (-5%) Bleed (-12%) and Fire (-15%) as these are increasingly common as the game progresses and can nullify your Honey Badgers main strength - his titanic health pool - entirely.

On the plus side, healing is also based on % of a targets base maximum health, so even a humble Med Dart can heal in excess of 2000 HP on him in a single use even with the bare minimum First Aid 4 requirement. Look after your Honey Badger, and he'll look after you!

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
Red Fang (inflicts Bleed)
Honey Badger don't give a shít!

Animal Whisperer Requirement: 9

Location Found: Knox Bison Ranch

The Bison is a reward obtained at the end of the "Hard Knox Life" quest. This quest and location will not appear on your map until you've dealt with Victory, and possibly only if you rescue Hardee Knox from the fire pit at the start of the Little Hell area too (you've got no reason not to save him, so you may as well do it, even if it's not necessary) The ranch itself is located just North and a tad West from the Massacre Site where you find the Honey Badger.

You need to pass an Animal Whisperer 9 skill check in dialogue to obtain the Bison, siding with either the Ranchers or the Scar Collectors, make sure when the skill check comes up you take it and at the end of the quest they'll give you the Bison as a companion. The only difference in method is you ask the Scar Collectors before handling the main part of the quest, or you ask the Ranchers after handling it instead, the outcomes are identical - you'll have a young bison temporarily named "Bodacious" join your party.

Worth pointing out that when you obtain the bison it will be automatically charmed to your character even if they have an animal companion already, giving you the rare opportunity to have two animals following the same character at once (seems to me it attaches itself to whatever party member is closest to it when the conversation ends, but it might also just be random)

The Bison has the same health pool as a Growler Cub, hitting around 3500+ HP with your party in their level 20's and also has 30+ natural armour too for extra toughness. In combat it otherwise hits very similar damage to the Honey Badger, 150 - 250 damage with critical hits of 600+ damage. It also possesses a very handy and for some reason explosive stomp attack that stuns everything in a large radius around it, which is useful - but watch out, it can stun friendlies too.

Perk:

Enhanced Perk:


Other Abilities:
Stomp (inflicts Stun to everything nearby)
Has 30+ natural armour

These don't provide any perks and notable effects, but are part of a collection miniquest all the same. Find them, and if you have the required level of Animal Whisperer you can convince them to join you. The Animal Whisperer requirement varies between each Cyborg Chicken but the highest you need is 5, it seems to drop by 1 if you recruit and then dismiss it again for whatever reason.

Locations:

• Ranger HQ, inside the chicken coop
  
• Garden of the Gods, near the mass grave
  
• Sans Luxe Apartments, inside Apartment 1
  
• Broadmoor Heights, inside the Church closet
  
• Old Survivalist Bunker, beyond the alarmed door to the left, up the stairs

Return them to the Ranger HQ chicken coop and you'll get a surprise...just as soon as you finish dealing with Valor and Victory, anyway. Once you've done that, and you trigger the Scar Collectors attack, you'll witness the Cyborg Chickens combine into...

Poultron!

Uh, yeah. That's about it. It's a chrome mech shaped like an egg with a Cyborg Chicken as an integrated pilot, along with four other Cyborg Chickens taking up the elbow and knee joints. Yup.

You're stuck with it too, by the way. It won't leave your side until death takes it, you can't interact with it to dismiss it or anything. Best of all, it occupies your animal companion slot even though it functions more akin to a regular companion than an animal one, as it doesn't even provide you with a perk. Better hope it doesn't decide to follow your dedicated Animal Whisperer, or if it does that they already have an animal following them - and that they never lose it!

It has a nice chunk of armour, 40+ or so while also packing around 4000 health, and in my game hit around 200 damage with each attack initially, but this dropped to about 15 damage later on for some reason (bugs, I guess). It's otherwise completely unremarkable with fairly slow combat animations and doesn't have a ranged attack or any other special abilities.

Not necessarily considered animals, but they function more or less the same anyway. I figured I'd add this section because it pretty much fits with the rest of the guide, really. You don't need any particular skill set to recruit these, but some of them require more work than others and some are locked behind quests with multiple choices.

Unlike animals you recruit using the Animal Whisperer skill though, there's no limit to how many of these you can get to follow you at one time. Collect them all!

The Clone is acquired as one of the potential rewards from completing the quest "Don't You Be My Neighbour", taking place primarily in the Sans Luxe Apartments.

As the quest progresses towards its logical conclusion, you'll eventually meet a character named Irv. Spare him at the end of the quest and offer him a place at your Ranger HQ and he'll move in along with his cloning machine right into your medbay, and the next time you show up he'll offer to create a clone for you.

When the Clone perishes in combat, be sure to loot his corpse and acquire the Pink Goo item, which you need to produce another Clone by returning back to the Ranger HQ and giving it to Irv again - by this method you can obtain essentially infinite Clones if you so please, limited only by your enthusiasm.



The Clone is completely naked and blue for some reason, and fights with his fists. He's fairly tanky but generally not a common target for aggro, unfortunately, but can provide some laughs and sometimes does suck up excess attacks when the game feels like it. His health scales to your party and usually vastly outstrips what one of your party members could have by end of the game, however he appears to have a quirk that his melee damage gets stronger as he lives longer and your party levels up with him present. He'll start out doing paltry damage but if you keep him alive for 10+ level ups, he seems to start really being able to dish it out.

Bugs or not I can't tell, but in my experience when he dies and you resurrect him, he retains his scaled health but loses his damage scaling and reverts back to doing awful damage again. Your mileage here may vary, but at the end of the day the Clone is more of a fun joke companion to have around for the comedic aspect more than the strategic, in my opinion.

The Provost is a returning character from Wasteland 2, and retains his unique personality of being mysterious and speaking riddles in Latin. He's found in one of the frozen rooms beneath the Bizarre in The Warrens, which you'll explore and likely discover The Provost while doing the "A Nightmare In The Bizarre" quest, and will pretty much join you automatically - whether you like it or not - the moment you free him from his confinement.

He's a fairly competent companion with moderate health and enough AP to fire his revolver at least twice per turn in combat, seemingly with a high chance to score a critical hit, dealing anywhere between 25 - 200 damage. He's very adept at finishing off enemies close to death (and stealing the XP, too) and is typically either found loitering way back out of combat or aggressively rushing into the front lines depending on his mood. As a little bonus, he can also damage enemy armour too.

He has a quest attached to him, of course. He'll follow you around not doing much until you reach the location "Snowed Inn Resort" and repair the Toaster there, which requires Toaster Repair 7, inside which you'll find an "Owl of Minerva" coin, and once acquired will prompt him to speak to you, adding a marker pointing towards an undiscovered location on your world map. Visiting this location with him in tow will unlock an achievement for you and remove him from your party.



If you want the achievement and also want to keep The Provost, your best bet is to simply save before entering the location to obtain the achievement and then reload your save, I guess.

Party Pal is a robot that will join your party as a neutral companion after the completion of "The Zealot" quest branch (specifically, "Reagan Reborn") if you side with the robots at the end when dealing with the Cybernetic Transfer Module and Reagan's AI. This means not working with the Gippers or the Godfishers (or betraying them at the final moment) which might cause conflict depending on who you're choosing to side with or how you are role playing the game.

To this end this also means you need to avoid failing the test the Machine Consciousness will perform on you when you meet it, so you can be given the option of allying with the Machine Commune in the first place. Do not make too many hostile actions against the machines while you are there, and if you are able to do so, help them. It's fairly obvious how to make nice towards the machines, but here's a few pointers:

• Don't hack Greet-O
  
• Talk to SAL as if they were human, not a machine
  
• Have sex with The Sparrow. Yes.
  
• Help Pico overcome his programming
  
• Talk to Indigo Rouge as if they were human, not a machine
  
• Play along with Vendomatic 2000! and then help fix his issue
  
• Talk to Tinker and use Kiss Ass to put the past behind you
  
• Find and save the Morningstar AI instead of the weapon
  
• Help October-11 achieve freedom
  
• Have at least one cyborg party member
  
• Helping Vivisecto and V.I.C.I seems to have no effect

You can make some mistakes along the way, however. In my playthrough, I killed October-11 and convinced Tinker to move to a quiet area before also killing it, and the Machine Intelligence Tower determined that I did, in fact, "have a heart" and let me help them. Even if it determines you are a "monster" you can still pass a high Hard Ass or Kiss Ass skill check to achieve the same result, provided you aren't outright hostile with the Machine Commune itself.

Once you've passed the test, you'll be given the Cybernetic Transfer Module that you seek. You'll know you're on the right track when on the way back to Denver Ruins, as SAL will interrupt you and introduce you to Party Pal along the way. Return to the Gipper HQ and proceed with the questline as you see fit, and then when you're deciding where to transfer the Reagan AI, select the option to transfer it to the Machine Commune. Once done, Party Pal will suddenly zoom into the room and join your party from then on.

As far as his abilities are concerned, he's a fairly average combatant with high health and a mediocre attack, but has the ability to use Med Darts on your team members each turn which can be really useful or really useless depending on the circumstances, considering sometimes he likes to use them on characters with 100% HP instead of the ones at 50%, but alas. It may be able to inflict Blind on nearby enemies when it does its disco party move like the Discobot in the Nightclub, but I'm not sure about that since he likes to do it randomly and often when no enemies are anywhere near him. Overall a fun companion, though.

Note: if at any time you become hostile towards the Machine Commune after acquiring Party Pal, he will immediately leave your party and turn hostile towards you too.

Ah, The Brave Little Toaster got himself some bling!

Courageous is a golden toaster companion that you unlock for finding all of the associated golden toaster pieces hidden inside Toasters all across Colorado. These parts and their location and requirements are as follows:

Molded Gold Toaster Case:

Location: Hoon Homestead, inside the main building
Toaster Repair Requirement: 1

Gold Insulated Power Cord:

Location: Broadmoor Heights, inside the Wesson family home
Toaster Repair Requirement: 4

Gold Infused Mica Sheeting:

Location: Paint Mines, on the ground near the RV
Toaster Repair Requirement: 7

Gold Plated Nichrome Wire:

Location: Aspen, on a table inside the room with the bridge control terminal
Toaster Repair Requirement: 7

Bi-Metallic Gold Alloy Filament:

Location: Knox Bison Ranch, West side up a ladder near some tool benches
Toaster Repair Requirement: 8

When you acquire your fifth and final piece - in any order - you'll proceed to assemble the components into a shiny brand new Golden Toaster! Yay! It's now worth $10 even though the constituent parts were valued at $5000! But the real value is the friend we're literally making along the way!



You'll also be notified of a new location on your world map. Visit this location and place the Golden Toaster on the altar and it will ascend and gain sentience, permanently joining your party from hereafter - and I do mean permanently, Courageous is functionally immortal to all forms of damage and cannot be dismissed by any means, remaining by your side for the remainder of the game.

Which is a bit of a shame really because once the novelty wears off you'll quickly come to realise how annoying an immortal companion with a weak attack that misses 9 times out of 10 and blocks your path in combat truly is!

Советский Робот - literally "Soviet Robot" - is one of those little turret type floating robots you've been seeing across the game, and is functionally identical to them other than scaling to your party as you go about your business.

This little Communist comes late into the game, as you find him chilling out in the Scar Collector Mines, in the computer room area. It requires fairly high Sneaky Shít to enter the room without turning all the robots inside hostile, and then you'll need either high Nerd Stuff or Weird Science (I forgot which, sorry!) in order to figure out how to interface with the computer there. When you do, you can activate the robots and have them regard you as a friendly instead of an intruder, at which point they'll wake up and begin cleansing the area of Scar Collector lives.

One robot, this one, will scan you and then decide to protect you from then on - joining your party - until it is destroyed.



It's possible you need a certain key item from a nearby locker, a "Soviet Sec Pass", in order to pass the scan so that the robot will join you, so you might want to grab that before accessing the computer, just in case. I'd already cleaned the area of goodies before messing with the computer when I acquired this companion, so I can't say for sure what happens if you don't have the pass card.

The robot itself has fairly low HP but uses fairly strong Energy based ranged attacks with quite a lot of range on them when in combat, so it is a useful companion for the short amount of game there is left at this point, it will be helpful for the upcoming major battles, at least.

• All of the information in this guide was compiled on the "Ranger" difficulty setting. There's probably going to be differences if you're playing a higher or lower difficulty setting, but hopefully the fundamentals are accurate across them all.
  
  
• A character can only have one single animal companion following them at any one time. You can still have 6 Animal Whisperers roaming around with a companion each though, for a total of 6.
  
  
• You can't have multiple animals of the same type in the party I.E no giving a Cat to everyone for the +6% / +12% Critical Chance bonus for every member of the squad. You'll have to decide who needs what bonus more.
  
  
• Other than the three dogs in the East side of the map and the huge amount of cats you can get as a quest reward mid-game, most other animals listed as showing up in the Ranger HQ are extremely skittish, functioning more like random events than any guaranteed spawn - even with 10 Wasteland Whisperer and 10 Sneaky Stuff, they'll still immediately bolt off the map the moment you enter their line of sight. Charming them might be very tricky.
  
  
• Animal companions are very suicidal and care not for their little lives, and they also draw a lot of aggro. It may be handy to keep a stock of medical supplies handy, especially Med-Darts for inside combat, if you wish to keep them alive. It is very easy to have them die from stacked DoT effects - burning, bleed and poison - all the bane of the Animal Whisperer.
  
  
• Animal companions appear to level scale to the party, gaining additional HP and damage. This is boosted further with the Animal Training perk as well as the characters Animal Whisperer skill level. Their damage and health will vary based on your parties level when you find them (and will continue to grow as your party levels up) so don't expect some of the information about their stats to be 100% accurate from my game compared to your game.
  
  
• The Spirit Animal perk, available at Animal Whisperer 5, doubles the passive bonus from the perk they give you. This can be quite strong with certain perks, depending on your character and playstyle. This perk seems bugged (like everything else in this game really) and will sometimes award the enhanced perks to other party members with animal companions even if they don't have the perk themselves or even Animal Whisperer 5. It's consistent but not uncommon, go figure.
  
  
• The Vengeful Bond perk, available at Animal Whisperer 7, grants +50% Critical Chance and +2 AP when your animal companion reaches 25% HP and will remain until your companion is healed above 25% HP, or until the next area transition if your companion perishes. Despite the name of the perk, it's entirely possible to reduce their health to 25% with friendly fire and gain the benefits of the perk in more controlled circumstances - if you can live with yourself, anyway. This doesn't seem to cause any animal companions or nearby neutral NPCs to turn hostile towards you either.
  
  
• It doesn't seem possible to store Animal Companions at the Ranger HQ for use later on. Most recruited animals vanish from the area they were left in, including the Ranger HQ, if you leave the map without having them in your party I.E because you dismissed them. It might be possible to return an animal you charmed to its original location and then dismiss it to prevent it from vanishing from the face of the Earth when you leave, but I never tested that.
  
  
• Animals appear to be finite. Taming an animal and then leaving the area with them removes that animal from the zone and they don't seem to come back, at least not immediately. I'll admit, I wasn't interested in thoroughly testing this, but I did notice animals being missing from zones I'd picked them up from after dismissing them later on. Some may return though, such as the dogs in the Ranger HQ - but don't quote me that!

So, I can't respond to any comments made on this guide anymore, so it's probably not worth leaving a comment / question on it. On the off-chance that you do make a comment and don't see a reply, my apologies! I'm not ignoring you, it's because of this:

https://gyazo.com/c3c16ffd33bead3c195d2dcf68e51361

so...yeah. They didn't even respond to my appeals.

Goes without saying that if they add any animals in future DLC or patches I won't be covering them, as I've lost any desire to support this developer anymore.

Sorry for not being able to reply, anyway. Have a good one - and thanks all the same for checking out my guide!