Dog's Life/Gameplay

First, make sure that you have a game card with 125MB free space in Memory Card slot 1. Then, make sure that everything is plugged in. Next, turn on the PS2, and insert the Dog's Life disk. When the swinging cloth with the Dog's Life logo on it appears, press the start button. Before you start playing, you have the option to go to the options menu by pressing the select button.

The Kennel Enclosure
The first time you play the game, you can enter any of the three kennel enclosures to start a new game. You can load previously saved games from the kennel enclosure by selecting a dog kennel with a floating bone on top, with the number of bones you currently have in that game. Choose a kennel enclosure, and press psx: X to start a new game, or if there is already a saved game there, you can continue on that game or press psx: C to start a new one.

The Options Menu
There are three different ways to get to the options menu. First, before you go to the kennel enclosure, you can press select, and during game play you can press start and then select, or just press select during game play to go straight there. In the options menu, you can toggle the sound, speech and music on or off, and decide whether to have the paw print mini hint display come on when you go near something you can interact with. You can also choose the language for the game, or quit the game if you want to choose a different game or start a new one. Quitting the game is the same as resetting the console, and you will loose any unsaved data.

Bones
Bones must be collected to advance through the game and they can be obtained by digging them up, by beating other dogs in a variety of challenges, by completing tasks given by human characters, and by collecting special smells.

Locations
The game is divided into three areas: Clarksville, a rural town; Lake Minniwahwah, a ski resort; and Boom City. These are then divided into smaller areas such as districts or farms. In every area are humans willing to give missions in exchange for bones. Bones can also be found buried underground, hiding under objects, or inside places.

Smells
Certain smells picked up through the game's 'Smellovision' will activate challenges against a local dog. In each small section of the game there are four challenges, two of which are to find eight smells of the same colour and compete against a local dog. These missions include races, obedience trials, tug-of-war games and a territorial game where the player must run around urinating in marked areas to obtain territory. Once these dogs are beaten, the player is able to take control of that dog and use their special abilities to find other bones. There are also dangers in certain areas, such as dog catchers. The player must also keep the dog healthy by feeding it, allowing it to defecate and coax people into giving you snacks by growling and barking or performing tricks unlocked by doing the obedience trials. Jake is able to do a range of tricks including begging, sitting, lying down, urinating and defecating.

Salons
There are also salons in some levels where Jake can get his coat cleaned and brushed. He also gains a shiny new collar with a silver 'J' at the front. Each time you load the game, however, his collar returns to the red one with a yellow 'J' on it.