Sims Pets have come a long way...

This new expansion pack is great, the pets have come such a long way in what they can do. They have a life cycle with their own motives, they can be trained, hold jobs, breed, and they can interact with the world around them.

Ways to get a pet
Birds, Fish, and Womrats

Bird cages, fish tanks and Womrat habitats can be purchased in Buy section. Once you have purchased and
placed the item, click on it and select Stock. Wombats
and birds may be customized.

If you no longer want one of these pets, there are interactions on their items to remove them.

Cats and Dogs

There is four ways to get a dog or cat without breeding them.

1) Create the pet. If you have the university expansion pack you can merge households to add pets to existing families after creating them. Otherwise, you'll have to create the pets at the same time as your human family (or create them in a placeholder family and then give the pet up for adoption).

2) Adopt a pet. Just like with a baby, you can now adopt a pet from the phone. For a fee based on the training the pet has, you can adopt an animal. Also when you take care of strays and develop a good relationship with one you can click on them and adopt them but the option will only appear if your relationship is good enough.

3) Buy a pet from a pet store.

4) Purchase one from another sim.

If you have too many pets also you can choose the adoption option on the phone and give up a pet and they will come take your pet from you.

Life of an animal
The animals in the Sims 2 Pets also have life cycles and therefore will die at old age.

They start out as kittens and puppies. Their appearance will change as they get older because they will mature and get different markings. The kitten and puppy stage lasts for four days. During that time you will want to discourage them from doing certain things but they can not be taught commands. The adult stage lasts 24 days for smaller dogs and cats, and 21 days for bigger dogs. Adult pets may have jobs and may also breed. The elder stage for a pet lasts about 5-10 days. They can then collect a pension or continue working their job.

Breeding
Only pets of the same kind or the same breed can have babies. You must have a good relationship with your pets and your pets must have a good relationship with the other pet in order for the breeding to work.

You click on the pet you want to breed and select try for kitten or puppy with... and then that pet will go up to the other pet and they will go woohoo in the pet house. A song plays if it was a successful breeding.

Pets are pregnant for about 2 days. When she is ready to have her babies she will lay down somewhere and music and sparkles will appear on the screen and I have had anywhere from 1-4 pets be born. Their coats will pretty much be similar to the parents or a variation of the parents, you will know what the pups will look like when they get to be adults.

Miscellaneous stuff
You can train your pets to do anything, stay off furniture, house train, come here, shake, roll over, play dead, etc. Pretty much like a real house pet.

Pets can hold three types of jobs, security, service, and show business. Based on how they do at these jobs and their promotions they can unlock fur colors, and collars.

Your pets can also become werewolves.

There are lots of new items, obviously all the pet items are new. But there are also space themed furniture and wall hangings available now.