How to Adopt and Remove Pets in Stardew Valley 1.6

  • To adopt multiple pets in Stardew Valley 1.6, you'll need to reach 5 hearts of friendship with your starter pet.
  • Then, read Marnie's letter, purchase bowls from Robin, and purchase animal licenses from Marnie's shop.
  • Pets may sometimes give you gifts and you can place hats on pets to make them extra cute.
  • To remove a pet in Stardew Valley, you need to unlock the sewers, talk to Krobus, and get butterfly powder.

In case you didn’t know, Stardew Valley‘s newest update introduces the ability to have multiple pets on your farm at the same time. So, if you’re a fan of both cats and dogs, you can now have them as a pet at the same time. However, there is one more pet variant that’s equally as cute. Since there is an option to have multiple pets, there is also an option to remove pets if you want to. So, let’s learn how to adopt and remove pets in Stardew Valley 1.6.

How to Get Multiple Pets in Stardew Valley

Your first-ever pet is available during the Spring season of the first year. Marnie will visit you in the morning and drop off the animal you chose in the character creation menu. This part didn’t change. However, you are no longer limited to only this animal.

To get more animals, you’ll need to complete the following requirements. We first list them in brief and then go into the details below:


  • Reach 5 hearts with your original pet;
  • Purchase a pet bowl for a new pet;
  • Purchase the pet license from Marnie.

1. Reaching 5 Hearts with Your Original Pet

To get any new pets, your original pet must love you first. You can achieve this by regularly petting them. Walk up to your pet and right-click them to pet them. This will increase their friendship with you by 12 points.

Moreover, when you fill the pet’s bowl outside, the pet will get an additional 6 points of friendship with you the next morning. The maximum number of points your pet friendship can reach is 1,000, which is 5 hearts.

Once you do reach it, a message will appear above the pet saying that they now love you. Also, the pet’s friendship will never deteriorate, so you don’t need to worry about that.


Animals tab showing your friendship with your pets

If you missed the message, you can always see how much your pet loves you when you pause the game and go to the Animals tab. Here, you’ll see your friendship level with all your animals.


Note:
When you reach 5 hearts with a starter pet, you will get a letter from Marnie telling you that other pets are now available. You need to read the letter for the game to offer you more pets.

2. Buy a New Pet Bowl

The next order of business is to buy and place a new pet bowl. You’ll need to go to Robin’s carpenter shop and interact with it when she’s there. Now, search for the pet bowl, which will cost 5,000g and 25 hardwood. There are three optional variants for you to choose from.


Purchase a pet bowl from Robin

The build is instant and will appear when you determine its location. Furthermore, this step is technically not required, but if you do skip it, your pets will be sad. So, to avoid that, spend some money, hardwood, and space for a new bowl.

3. Purchase the Pet License from Marnie

Finally, it’s time to buy a pet. You can do this by purchasing a pet license at Marnie’s shop. When you finally find her at her shop, the first thing we suggest is to buy the Animal Catalogue book for 5,000g. This will allow you to access Marnie’s shop even when she’s not there. And we all know she’s almost never there.

Once you buy the book, you can use it by right-clicking and you’ll learn a new power. Then, even if Marnie’s not there you can interact with the counter and you’ll be able to access the shop.

Now, click on the Adopt Animals option and you’ll see a license for all pet variants in Stardew Valley 1.6. What you’ll also see is the brand new pet type – green and purple turtles! Also, you can now buy as many pets as you want. You don’t need to level up the second pet for the third pet to be available and so on. Once you reach 5 hearts with the starter pet, you can adopt as many as you wish at once. These are all the pet variants you can have:


  • Orange cat (40,000g)
  • Gray cat (40,000g)
  • Yellow cat (40,000g)
  • White cat (40,000g)
  • Black cat (40,000g)
  • Yellow dog with flappy ears (40,000g)
  • Brownish dog with pointy ears (40,000g)
  • Brown-cream dog with flappy ears (40,000g)
  • Gray dog with pointy ears (40,000g)
  • Chocolate brown dog with flappy ears (40,000g)
  • Green-shelled turtle (60,000g)
  • Purple-shelled turtle (500,000g)


All pets in Stardew Valley 1.6

How to Remove Pets in Stardew Valley 1.6

If you want to remove a pet from your farm, you’ll need to unlock the sewers. This is achievable once you get a rusty key from Gunther, which happens during a cutscene the morning after 60 items have been donated to the museum. Here, you can talk to Krobus, located on the far right of the sewers.

He sells some rare items and one of them is the butterfly powder, which costs 20,000g and is unlimited. You can use this item on your pet to permanently remove it from your farm. You cannot bring that pet back to your farm anymore, so be careful while using it.


Krobus selling butterfly powder

What Can You Do with Pets?

There are three main reasons you should adopt pets in Stardew Valley 1.6. So, let’s go over them right now.

1. Pets Give You Gifts

When you reach full hearts with a pet, they can sometimes give you gifts when you pet them. So, pets provide another way to get items. These items depend on the animal type. So, cats, dogs, and turtles will all have different gifts for you.

Some of the dog gifts include:


  • Clay
  • Bone fragments
  • Stone
  • Driftwood
  • Rusty cog
  • Prehistoric rib
  • Hardwood

Some of the cat gifts include:


  • Bat wings
  • Joja Cola
  • Periwinkle
  • Carp
  • Snail
  • Shrimp
  • Green algae
  • Duck feather
  • Chub
  • Sturgeon
  • Perch
  • Cheese

Some of the purple turtle gifts include:


  • Nautilus shell
  • Sea urchin
  • Coral
  • Rainbow shell
  • Clam
  • Sea jelly
  • Cave jelly

As you can tell, the items these animals give you can differ. So, that’s why the purple turtle is far more expensive than other pets, as its gifts are rarer.

2. Place Hats on Pets

Just like horses and children, you can also put hats on your pets. Select the hat on your hot bar and use it on a pet to equip it. If you use a different hat on that pet, the initial hat will get dropped, allowing you to retrieve it. Then, put a new hat just by right-clicking the pet. Unfortunately, turtles cannot wear hats.


Pets wearing hats in Stardew Valley 1.6

3. Pets Are Super Adorable!

Finally, the most important reason to have pets in this game is that they are just super duper cute! Their animations are fresh and alive and they generally provide a lot of movement to the farm. Not only that but thanks to the addition of more unique variants and the ability to place hats on them, pets are a perfect decoration you cannot really achieve in other ways.

So, that was all you need to know about adopting and removing pets in Stardew Valley 1.6. It is also possible to buy dog houses and cat trees from Marnie’s shop, so you can decorate your outdoor and indoor areas according to your pets. With that said, which pet is your favorite? Share with us in the comments below!