In the six years since The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a Twitter account called "@CanYouPetTheDog" has exploded in popularity simply by cataloging whether or not dogs in various video games are pettable. In Breath of the Wild, unfortunately, the answer was no.
You cannot pet the dog in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild pic.twitter.com/04bvlkI5Ui
— Can You Pet the Dog? (@CanYouPetTheDog) March 5, 2019
And, even more tragically, the answer to whether or not you can pet the dog in Tears of the Kingdom is... still no.
Dogs in Tears of the Kingdom function exactly the same way they did in Breath of the Wild. You can approach them and stand in their vicinity for a short while to trigger a small heart animation above their head, and you can feed them to get them to lead you to treasure. But that's it. Dogs tend to be found around stables throughout Hyrule, so there's no shortage of good boys and girls. But there's no petting whatsoever.
It feels like a very strange oversight in a game that gets so, so, so many other little details right. Especially given that after Breath of the Wild came out, numerous players pointed out the lack of petting on social media, and in the ensuing years multiple developers have added petting dogs to games specifically to be featured as a part of the account.
Fortunately, there are tons of other things you can do. If you're an animal lover, for instance, you can import your horses from Breath of the Wild to join you in Tears of the Kingdom. You can check out our review of Tears of the Kingdom, which we called "an unfathomable follow-up to one of the greatest games ever made, somehow improving upon it in nearly every way." And for help getting started, take a look at our Wiki guide to everything you could ever want to know about making your way through Hyrule.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.