Stormy Dog

Stormy Dog
Unit information
Introduced in	Age of Empires II: The Conquerors
Type	Animal
Civilization	Gaia
Training
Cheat code	woof woof
Statistics
Hit points	1
Speed	1.32
Line of Sight	7
Ability	Fly

Stormy Dog is a non-interactive Gaia animal in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors.

If the player enters the cheat code "WOOF WOOF", all birds on the map are replaced by flying Stormy Dogs, clothed in red capes. This has no effect on gameplay, and is only a visual change.

History

According to developer Matt Pritchard, Stormy Dog was named after an unwanted puppy that he rescued from a storm drain on January 15, 1997. The cheat unit was coded in under four hours and the art was made by Duncan McKissick. The real Stormy Dog passed away in May 2008, at the age of 11.

“	Aww. I guess I would have to find the time to sit down and maybe add a wiki entry or something. Stormy was a rescue as a pup. Someone nearby we think had dumped several puppies into the sewer to get rid of them. I was crunching on the original AoE in January 1997 when my wife at the time reported hearing a faint occasional bark noise while around the house. For a day or two we weren't sure if there really was one, and then I heard it when walking into the house after arriving home late at night. I figured it was the storm drain on the street next to our house. Opening the drain lid and looking in, something ran away up into the tiny pipe and wouldn't come back. So I went to the 24- hour walmart and bought a little dog bed, a bowl, and a lantern and some dog food. I came back about midnight and went down into the storm drain, and set up the dog bed with a little blanket and food bowl, and left the manhole cover off to the side. When i got up in the morning, I went out a quickly jumped down into the drain and found Stormy in the dog bed and got him before he could run away. He was about 6 weeks old then. We took him to the vet to get him ok, and kept him ever since. He was about 11 years old and with me when I was going though my divorce, when he started slowing down, and then passed a few weeks later. He was with me all day his last day, under my desk at work, and then at home when he expired. I eventually scattered his ashes in the ocean. Like all dogs, their lives are too short, but he was good dog, and had a good life and was good companion and there with me while the Age games were originally made.	”
—Matt Pritchard in a reddit comment about Stormy Dog

Trivia

• Unlike birds, Stormy Dog can be selected in-game, so that it is controllable after using the cheat code "natural wonders". When deleting it, Stormy Dog instantly vanishes without a death animation, but can be heard whining in the Definitive Edition.
• In the Definitive Edition, Stormy Dog's icon depicts its cape in the player's color, which is gray in the case of Gaia. Despite this, the dog generally wears a red cape.

Gallery

Stormy Dog in the HD Edition.

A photo of the real-life Stormy Dog.

Stormy Dog in the Definitive Edition