Ability to restrict food that can be used for training pets

[Kagemusha12]

It would not only be very nice, but actually necessary, to have the ability to restrict the types of food your animal trainers use for training the pets.

Many (if not most) players separate the food for their colonists and the food for their pets (by making special food for pets (like hay of kibble) available and restricting the anmals from entering the fridge.

Having an animal trainer give human food to the pets can wreak havoc on those plans.

I currently have a good example in my current game:
My 3 dogs have huge amounts of Kibble available (made with hay and human meat gained from the corpses of invaders).
Well, at one point I gave the order that one of my dogs should receive training in hauling.
Afterwards I wondered why  the vegetable stores in my fridge drained at a higher rate than usual.
Well, it turned out that my animal trainer used the vegetables from the fridge to reward the dog ... and not the masses of Hay or Kibble I had in store

Being able to restrict the food used for training wuld be very helpful in order to prevent this

[BlackSmokeDMax]

+1

Great idea!

[Hans Lemurson]

Everybody knows that a Raw Potato is immensely more rewarding for a dog than a hunk of pemmican.

[Aerial]

+1

Especially since half the time the animals get food poisoning from the "training" food.

[b0rsuk]

Current situation punishes the players who take the path of stockpiling food for winter instead of making a roofed solar lamp and growing stuff all year round. Maybe I have tight vegetable / meat balance. My trainer decides to train with berries, and suddenly I can no longer make fine meals. I can occasionally get more meat by hunting, but not vegetables in winter.

When player defaults to building a roofed sunlamp, all biomes end up feeling the same.

[Ford_Prefect]

Yeah.  The ai should be fixed a bit on meals for training animals.  I saw a pawn hauling a lavish meal to feed a chicken (that had lost its leg) instead of the hay and kibble stored in the same room as the chicken.   (I quickly drafted the pawn and had the chicken executed)

The pawns should use prefer kibble > hay> food paste> simple meals > raw ingredients > Fine & Lavish meals.  For training animals.

A pawn should never grab a lavish meal to train a pet ... not when there are simple meals and kibble available in the same room where he/she picked up the lavish meal. 

[SpaceDorf]

+1 to every comment.

It could be as simple as the medical tab ..

[Wishmaster]

Have a look at my mod "Smarter food selection".
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=30708.0

[b0rsuk]

For people saying meat is more rewarding for a dog than some potatoes, yes, I see the point, it's cute and even realistic. If you wanted to implement it in that way, make it a slider on animal's Health tab:

"feed with cheapest food" -- X -- X -- X -- "feed with tastiest food".

And you could make that tastiest food makes training more effective. In times of food shortage, in the preharvest, you may want to feed with anything. When times are rich, use fancy food to speed up training and keep animals happier.

[SpaceDorf]

Well .. in times of food shortage I stop training completely and untrained animals are on the shortlist for tomorrows lunch

[nccvoyager]

Of course, a trainer that has bonded with a pet would refuse to feed the pet food below a certain "quality" unless food at or above that quality is unavailable right?