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Finally, a Skyrim mod that lets you pet the ruddy dog

It's time to go to town on some of Skyrim's best boys.

A Skyrim player pets the dog

Skyrim is an old game. It initially came out in November 2011 and has, partly, been kept afloat by a passionate community of modders. Some mods offer small renovations to things like melee combat, while others might as well be expansions of their own. After all this ruddy time, though, we’ve only just got a mod that lets us give Skyrim’s best boys a pet.

JaySerpa’s Pet the Dog mod lets you do just that. Walk up to a pupper while you have no weapons, magic, or fists equipped – it isn’t polite – and a short petting animation will play when you interact with them. JaySerpa says he’s packed this one with three different animations for optimal petting scenarios: one for when the dog is sitting, another for when the doggo is standing, and a third for when the pupperino is lying on the ground. The dog may swap animations when you pet it, making you look foolish. Just ignore that, though. It’s fine.

“I realize this might seem like a joke mod given the date (April 1), but I assure you it is not,” the modder declares. “After ten years, we’ve seen all sorts of, ahem, interesting mods, but there is one key aspect that was always missing, so I made it happen.

“Dragonborn, take off your iron gauntlets, for today is not the time to be dauntless. Forget about the greybeards and the voice, your duty is now only to rejoice. Yes, you heard it right: Tell Alduin to put the apocalypse on hold, for I am proud to announce: ‘Yes, you can pet the dog!'”

In case you’re curious, the mod was released on April Fool’s day, which is why JaySerpa makes reference to the date.

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Naturally, this mod came to the attention of the Twitter account Can You Pet the Dog?, which chronicles these essential things (thanks, PCGamer). It’s good and important work that they do.

Anyway, Skyrim mods – they’re great. If you fancy seeing a list of the best of them, all you have to do is follow that link. I shall demand that this mod make that list immediately.