uncut furnace
I finally unlocked the free puppy on my second acct. At lvl 52 I think, was finally able to get a 3rd wrangler skill to unlock naturalist and the pet house.
Anyway, the dog is totally inadequate for t2 areas let alone t3. I think it should have been left at the start with the little dog house. It could serve in place of Nick's dog. Otherwise, by the time you complete all the requirements you have access to t2 pets and its bye bye dog.
I propose it be moved back to the beginning. If the concern is giving access to a fully functional pet early on (I mean it really isn't that useful) then make it funtion like Nick's dog on the quest. Runs around and barks during battles but doesn't assist or take injury. You could feed it to grow and "train" it but then after that it just works as a tracking only dog. Starter pet vibes with limited funtion.
Once you get the naturalist quests you can have the option to keep the dog as a decorative ranch pet, perhaps even letting it "guard" by alerting you to the location of bandits more quickly. I know its a popular opinion from other players that you be able to keep the free dog rather than being forced to release it.
Older players would need to have the option to build the doghouse and find the dog since it didn't exist a year ago, and everone that had the dog released it as soon as the pethouse was built and the dog moved in there.
Otherwise I would just eliminate the dog because its pretty pointless to lock it up behind t2 section and all the requirements that make it inaccessible while still in position to use it. As it is the current wrangler track tasks system is really weighted against new players and entirely too heavy in successfully competing in costly competition.
raw lynx
real sky
fervent quail
fair wagon
shadow raft