Taming the Wild Beast in Wurm
Yesterday I mentioned how I wanted to start a pig farm for various reasons including the fact that they are easily tamed. Pigs are one of the best animals to skill up taming because they eat almost anything and they become pets pretty easily.
Animal Taming
Skilling up animal taming gives you the ability to tame a variety of animals in Wurm including pigs, dogs, horses, and chickens. You can even get skilled enough to tame hostile creatures like wolves and bears.
Taming is pretty easy to do too – simply activate a food item that the animal will eat, click on the animal and select tame. It takes a bit of time and like everything in Wurm, does not always work. Be prepared, because sometimes when the taming fails, the animal will turn hostile and attack. I've had a couple of dogs attack and a pig – it is really surprising to see the outline of your desired pet turn red and the combat panel pop up. You can try to tame them while they are attacking, but usually, I just run through a fence or into a house if available or into water as I did not want to kill the poor critters.
Getting Better at it
A look at the Wurmpedia, provides the suggestion for using a pig to skill up taming quickly as they are one of the easiest animals to tame. When I first started on the server, the village had a cave pig. We called it that because it got stuck in our iron mine and no matter what we tried, we could not get it out. Taming and leading with a rope made no difference – the pig was stuck in the mine. As suggested on the wiki, I made a cauldron and worked on grinding up my taming skill – I made it to 3.38 before I took a break and never got back to it. But with that level, I've been able to successfully tame dogs in order to lead them home, and horses as well as pigs.
Man's Best Friend
Dogs have been particularly good pets, as in real life. I've been saved by a tame dog many times, and whenever I go out exploring, I always try to either take a dog or some cooked meat to tame them with. They will fight creatures that attack you and if you need to run, the attacker usually targets them so you can get away easier.
With my pigs all dead for whatever reason I still have not been able to figure out, I do not have the easy taming skill ups mentioned in the wiki. I do have a few dogs though, and I really should get back to raising my Animal Taming as I would really like to tame and ride a unicorn some day.