The Dog Island/Enemies

In outside areas, Kunka Ruins and Anc Road you will find dangerous animals who can deplete your health. Interaction with enemies is the only way to lose health, and the only way to get the "Game Over" screen. You can tell which animals are a threat by the emotion balloon over their heads. Non-threat animals don't have this feature and in most cases can be treated just like any other piece of the scenery.

An enemy's emotion starts out as calm, represented by a blue smiley face. As long as you outside its range of sight or you are moving slowly enough, the animal will remain happy and you have nothing to fear. When an animal spots you or hears you running, the emotion icon turns into a green angry face, showing that it is becoming restless. When you see this face, it's a good idea to put some distance between yourself and the enemy before it attacks. When attacking, the enemy's emotion balloon shows a red scary face. By the time you see this face, you'll hopefully be running out of range, otherwise the attack will land and you'll lose some health.

Status effects
Along with taking down your health, some enemies also have the ability to inflict a status ailment. The two statuses are stun and poison. Stun does just that to you, and will only wear off by attempting to move your character. When you get stunned, your hearts in the upper right corner of the screen will turn amber and you will see two lightning bolts on either side of the dog's head. While stunned, you will move much more slowly. Stun isn't anything to worry about if you keep moving, as it will wear off before the animal has another chance to strike and you'll rarely find another enemy close enough to take advantage of your momentary immobility.

The second status effect is poison. When poisoned, your hearts will turn purple and you'll see purple spirals coming off your dog's head. Poison is a much more serious threat, as it drains half a heart of life from you every few seconds. Additionally, poison must be cured, not healed. Using a normal healing item such as the Medicinal Herb or Potan's Medicine will restore your hearts, but the poison remains and will continue to eat away at your life. The two ways to cure poison are by taking Obaba's Antidote and resting either in your bed or at an inn. If you can make it, resting is the superior option, because the antidote only cures the poison, it doesn't restore any hearts.

Fighting
Although not actual combat, you have the ability to stun the enemy with your bark or howl. Pressing momentarily will result in a bark, and holding down for longer periods will result in progressively more powerful ones. When your power is maxed out, your dog will let loose a howl for maximum damage. While barking can stun an animal for a few seconds, a howl will last much longer. The duration of the knockout has to do with the amount of time the enemy is on screen. For a full howl, any enemy will be out of commission for one minute while you are watching it. If you move away, you can come back at any later time and the animal will still be unconscious.

You may have noticed while playing the game that some elements, such as enemies, bugs or other dogs seem to "pop" into existence as you get close to them. In order to reduce system load, certain objects aren't kept in memory as "live" elements. Enemies are one such element, and when you walk away from one, its knockout timer and object position get stored until you bring it back into your field of view, at which time it is "reactivated." This is easiest to see with Vultures in Dry Valley and Rune Canyon, where you can walk up to the perimeter of the circle they fly in and watch them disappear on the far side. Wait as long as you like, then approach the Vulture again and when it pops back into existence, you'll see it won't have moved from the position at which it stopped.

Green Snake
Green Snake - 1/2 heart damage - sensitivity: 0 - howl: 1 to 1 1/2 days Green Meadows (4) Treely Woods (2) Zoomy Lake (2) Hoya Plains (2) Boar - 1/2 heart damage - sensitivity: 1 - howl: 1 day Green Meadows (2) Hoya Plains (2) Brown Bear - 1 heart damage - sensitivity: 1 - howl: 1 minute Green Meadows (1) Hoya Plains (2) Gola Highlands (2) Gorilla - 1 heart damage - sensitivity: 1 - howl: 1/2 day Treely Woods (2) Gola Highlands (1) Alligator - 1 heart damage - sensitivity: 0 - howl: Zoomy Lake (3) Chiro Caves B3 (1) Anc Road (1) Blue Snake - 1 heart damage, plus poison - sensitivity: 0 - howl: 1-2 minutes South Sandy Desert (5) Purple Cobra - 1 1/2 heart damage, plus stun - sensitivity: 1 - howl: 1 minute North Sandy Desert (8) Yellow Cobra - Same as purple cobra Dry Valley (4) Vulture - 1/2 heart damage, sensitivity: 2 - howl: n/a Dry Valley (4) Buffalo - 2 heart damage, sensitivity: 3 - howl: 1-2 minutes Dry Valley (2) Gray Cobra - 1 heart damage, plus stun - sensitivity: 2 - howl: 1 minutes Rune Caverns (1) Orange snake - 1 heart damage - sensitivity: 0 - howl: 1 minute Gola Highlands (2) Orange Snake with spots - 1 heart damage, plus poison - sensitivity: 0 - howl: 1 minute Chiro Caves B1 (1) Chiro Caves B2 (1) Chrio Caves B3 (1) Bat - 1/2 heart damage - sensitivity: 1 - howl: n/a Chiro Caves B1 (1) Chiro Caves B2 (4) Anc Road (3) Polar Bear - 2 heart damage - sensitivity: 2 - howl: 1 minute West Chilly Field (5) East Chilly Field (5) Pink Cobra - 2 heart damage, plus stun - sensitivity: 3 - howl: 1 minute Kunka Ruins 2F (3) Kunka Ruins 1F (7) Anc Road (1) Red Cobra - 2 heart damage, plus stun - sensitivity: 3 - howl: 1 minute Kunka Ruins B1 (5) KUnka Ruins B2 (5) Ancient Monster - 3 heart damage, plus stun: wasting time floor stomp - sensitivity: n/a - howl: n/a 1 heart damage: impact Kunka Ruins B3