Hmmm, I'll go through my hacks and see if I can find the culprit. Thanks!

Yes, it was the phone hack. I had the same problem until I removed it. Fortunately, there's a new version under 'Pets' in the Hacks Directory.

I read somewhere that there should be an option to change a pet's appearance via the mirror (for adding collars, etc), but when I click on the mirror, there is no such option for this. Is this another bug, or am I just smoking crack?

What expansion/stuff packs do you have? Many hacks are only compatible up to OFB. If you have Pets installed, this could be causing your problems.

That's just weird. Bestial voyeurism? No worse than actual pet breeders, I guess. They do all kinds of nasty things to their animals. I've seen documentaries on the subject that just about turned my stomach.

At the risk of seeming incredibly stupid: Are the wolves the ones with glowing eyes? They seem very tame, so I wasn't sure if they were wolves or just dogs with glowsticks where their eyes should be. 

EDIT: added smiley

Yes, but I didn't realise it was in my shoe until I put my foot inside. Needless to say, I promptly bleached my foot. Still, I felt reasonably safe wearing the shoe again after washing it several times in hot water. I think I'd have to buy a new pillow after finding a gutted squirrel on it. OK, you win the nasty pet-gift contest. Bleurgh!

I always have to install my expansion/stuff packs at least twice, because the product registration causes errors. Just another bug courtesy of the fine folks at Electonic Arts. Ah, don't you just love 'em? Yes, I am being sarcastic.

I only WISH my cats would 'disappear' their prey. I once found a skinned mouse in my shoe. Ewwwwww!!!!

Personally, the townies never really bothered me. One has only to visit the local shopping centre to see that most people in this world are not particularly good-looking, nor are they particularly well-dressed. That said, I did use Christianlov's hacked clothing rack to dress all my townies in medieval clothes. The only problem is that it charges your sims per outfit, like when they go shopping, so unless your simmies are rich, this may not be the best option. I don't normally resort to using money cheats, but I must admit to using 'kaching' a few times in this instance. After all, it was for the greater good.

So, are you going to fix the broken link to the zipfile?

*crawling back under my rock now*

Then there are the dutchies, who don't even capitalise 'proper' nouns, such as the names of languages and months. For example, 'oktober' would not normally be capitalised when writing in dutch, nor would 'dutch' for that matter. Also, in Germanic languages, words are run together, so that what in English would read as 'car insurance company' would be written as 'carinsurancecompany' in a Germanic language. Speakers of these languages often work around this by hyphenating (car-insurance-company) when translating into English. Try to keep these things in mind when judging reading other people's posts, as not everyone here is a native english-speaker 

I think the REAL problem is that humour, particularly sarcasm, doesn't translate well over the internet.

[/soapbox rant]

EDIT: The above problem is nothing that can't be fixed by adding LOTS OF SMILIES 

You misspelled laziness. Even I know that, and English is my second language!

You can't input the dashes. You can only put the alphanumerics, because there is only enough space in the field for them alone.

When I first started playing the catlady's house, her older cats would scratch her furniture (all Maxis EA of course), but I had her immediately begin training them not to scratch, and none of her furniture got damaged. If you allow the pets to run amok with no supervision, they will ruin the furniture, but if you discourage this behaviour from the beginning, it is a moot point, regardless of CC.

EDIT: fixed punctuation error

Hmmm, my sims do get bitten when they perform the 'Play . . . Wiggle Fingers' interaction with the cats. Heh, it serves them right! I understand the annoyance, though. It was very irritating when the welcome wagon showed up at the catlady's house and the neighbours kept pestering her cats. My cats normally just hide from visitors. Run away!!!!!! Run awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!

Ahem, sorry. Must be channelling Monty Python or something 

EDIT: fixed stupid typo.

Well, this isn't necessarily for the sims, per se, but there are some really cool features, such as the ability to build octagonal and diagonal rooms without having to place each individual wall separately, and the ability to invite entire families to your sim's house all at once. Supposedly there are also new Lifetime Aspirations for family sims, but I haven't played enough to have seen them yet. To me, these things are worth buying the game for, regardless of pets.

EDIT: You can also grab and rotate floor tiles with the hand tool, or rotate them as you're placing them, in order to make patterns, and there's a new sledgehammer tool that you can use to demolish anything, whether it's from build mode or buy mode. You just click it and start bashing away. Nifty!

It said they can't have cats and dogs, but they can have fishtanks and caged pets, such as birds.

A million thanks! I hate when I'm changing a sim's facial features and the damn thing keeps flashing that goofy smile, so I can't see what their new face looks like *does happy dance*

For a while I ran a brothel as a home business with the electrono ticket machine (money thingie) in one of the townhouse lots in Downtown. The townhouses work perfectly for such an enterprise because the layout is so conducive to business downstairs, living upstairs. The ticket machine was placed outdoors, near a desk (with a phone on it) and a chair. This is where the Madame sat, so she could easily stand up and dazzle her customers, or call sims to come over who would then stay, while the brothel-workers stayed in the 'rec room' just off the garage, which had a bar and dj booth, along with several of Shaklin's lovebeds and a couple of bathtubs. In the garage was a poker table, and in the backyard a hot-tub. I didn't really mind that the visiting sims would woohoo on the lovebeds and then wander off to play poker or soak in the hot-tub, because as long as they stayed, the Madame made lots of money. The 4 brothel workers lived permanently on the lot, along with a servo and the madame, and would rotate as dj, bartender, etc. The ones not working as dj or bartender would dance and perform woohoo as needed. It worked really well, and the madame achieved her lifetime goal of reaching $100.000 before the business even reached level 7. Once you get them playing poker, they never want to leave!

I use Squinge's mod rather than noplayableshoppers, because I like my playable sims building relationships when they visit other sims' businesses. I always have my playables interact with each other, because I'd rather them have relationships with other playables than with random townies. But that's just my own personal preference...

There are medieval default maternity replacements on MTS2, which I use for a medieval/fantasy neighbourhood. The files are huge, though, so I remove them when not playing that particular NH. Just do a search on MTS2 for 'tommytiger' and you'll find the correct thread.

I use Hosting Revolution http://hostingrevolution.com for my webhosting needs. They have a plan that costs only $10 per YEAR that includes lots of features you'd only expect from higher-priced hosting services, such as unlimited email accounts.

For domain registration I use GoDaddy, but beware that 'automatic renewel' is a misnomer, meaning that if you have your account(s) set up to 'automatically' renew at the end of the term (a year or two, depending on what you've purchased), it does not 'automatically' renew, and you lose your domain name. Fortunately, this only happened with a non-crucial website that I was considering cancelling anyway, but it could be a real problem for a business. Now I know not to disregard the 'your account will expire in X number of days and you must renew your account immediately' emails. Otherwise, I've been very happy with GoDaddy...

I avoid this by not allowing dormies in my dorms - I can't stand the buggers! I move in enough playable sims to inhabit all the rooms, or turn one of the rooms into a study room, art room, or whatever (removing the 'Myne' door of course). Works great for me

Well, I've already got that, so what's a few dozen more .package files among friends?