Pets are proven to reduce stress and bring joy to your life. Now you can boost your office mood with the Pet Extension, adding a loyal friend to your virtual workspace! 

This article will explain how to add pets to your office and how to interact with them. 

In order to enable the Pets Extension, you'll need Mapmaker access. You can review user roles and permissions here. 

Add a Dog

You can only have up to four pets in your space. If you add more than four pet beds, pets will not show up on the additional beds. 

First, you need to enable the Pet Extension in the Mapmaker. To do this, open the Mapmaker. Select the hamburger menu, then choose Extension Settings. 

From here, you'll see the list of available Extensions. Select Pets, then click Activate Extension, followed by Apply Changes. 

Close the Extensions window. Next, you need to add a pet bed into your space. While in Mapmaker with the Objects tab selected at the top, click More Objects to open the Object Picker. 

In the Object Picker, scroll down the categories on the left to the Extensions, labeled with a puzzle piece icon. Select the Pets extension and choose the Pet Bed (Husky) object.

Click Select, and place the pet bed on the Map. Select Save in the Top Navigation Menu.

Pet the Dog

While standing next to one of the dogs in your office, you can press 'x' on your keyboard to pet it. Your new loyal friend will then follow you around the office until you refresh Gather or someone else pets it to steal it away from you!

Add a Cat or Custom Pet

Take your virtual office pet policy to the next level by adding custom pets!

To do this, you'll need a sprite sheet, which is a set of images that combine to create moving characters. Here are some examples of cats -- feel free to use these by saving each sprite sheet image, or follow the specs below to create your own. 

Sprite Sheet Specs

• .png file
• 128x160 pixels 
• Custom sprite sheet: 5 rows with 4 frames per row: idle, walk east, walk south, walk west, walk north
• Custom normal image: the sprite sheet (or single image) for when the pet is not actively following anyone. If you do not upload a custom normal image, the idle sprites from the Custom sprite sheet are used. 

Uploading Your Custom Pet Sprite Sheet

To upload your sprite sheet, open the Object Picker and select the Pet Bed (Custom) object.

In the Object Details panel, upload your files. Choose Select and then place your custom pet bed on the map. Your custom pet will then show up on the bed and interact the same as the dog.