I've seen a lot of forum discussion and confusion about how the stats in Domestic Dog Simulator work. This is a basic guide that will teach you everything you need to know.

In order from left to right on your screen, you have:

- Sleep
- Water
- Food
- Poop
- Happiness
- Fitness

Over the course of the game, the stats will go up and down depending on what you're doing. The key to your dog living for a long time is to always keep THREE of your stats maxed/near maxed. As long as three stats are always at the maxed/near maxed level, your dog will always be in healthy (green) status.

It is easiest to keep Water, Happiness and Fitness maxed. I will explain more in the next section.

Sleep
Sleeping is really the only stat that doesn't have a direct effect on any of the other stats. If your sleep meter gets too low, your dog will just fall asleep in the middle of doing something. It can get a little annoying at times, so try to get your dog back to your house at some intervals to catch up on some z's.

Water
Water affects your dog's urine (ctrl), which is your primary attack. The more urine you use, the faster your water levels go down. Simply revisit your house to fill up on water. If you do not use urine, your water levels will go down extremely slowly.

Food
Your food stat affects your poop and fitness stats. The more you eat, the lower these stats go. To counteract over-eating, simply take a poop outside near a hydrant and go dig some holes for fitness. Once you run out of food, you can buy more at the pet store for $100, but I HIGHLY recommend to never eat, unless you need explosive poop (chocolate). You actually do NOT need to feed your virtual dog. As I said previously, as long as you keep 3 stats maxed/near maxed, your dog will always be healthy.

Poop
The more you poop, the quicker your food stat will deplete. This is actually one of the easiest stats to keep maxed/near maxed.

Happiness
This stat is pretty well affected by your fitness and overall what you do with your dog. If all your pet does is sleep, eat and poop, they're not going to be very happy. Dig some holes, and your happiness will skyrocket.

Fitness
This stat is lowered by over-eating and by spending too much time playing arcade games. Play some frisbee or dig some holes, and it will go up very quickly. This is another stat that is very easy to keep maxed/near maxed.

You only need to keep three stats maxed/near maxed to keep your dog healthy. Any stats will do. Easiest are water, poop and fitness; the latter which will also cause happiness to be maxed.