In Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, you don’t start with a dog like in most other games of the series.
Instead you have to buy your own pets, and you can have up to 5 total pets living on your farm at once.
These pets can be bought from Van’s Pet Shop in Rose Plaza, which opens every 15th day of the season.
This page will explain the basics of how to unlock Van’s pet shop to start buying pets, and how to take care of them.
Accessing Van’s Pet Shop
Van is the moustached traveling merchant that visits Mineral Town every Wednesday to sell his goods.
He arrives in the village as a reward after you offer a total of 30 liked gifts to the Harvest Goddess.
On Wednesdays he will open up his usual shop on the second floor of Dudley’s Inn.
But on every 15th day of each season, Van will be at his stall in Rose Plaza from 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM.
This is where he sells pets, and the pets he sells can vary depending on the season.
Buying Pets
Van will offer a total of 10 pets for sale across 4 different types, and you can only have one of each type. These types are:
- Cats (sold in Spring)
- Penguins (sold in Summer)
- Dogs (sold in Autumn)
- Capybaras (sold in Winter)
You can visit our page on Van’s Pet Shop if you want a full list of pets with pricing, but here is a quick table of the pet styles you can buy:
| Pet List | |
|---|---|
| Cats (Spring) | |
 American Shorthair |
 Bengal |
 Calico |
|
| Penguins (Summer) | |
 Penguin |
 Navy Penguin |
| Dogs (Autumn) | |
 Mineral Dog |
 Black Shibu |
 Papillon |
|
| Capybaras (Winter) | |
 Capybara |
 White Capybara |
But Van has some requirements before you can buy a new pet:
Each pet that you already have on your farm must have at least 8 friendship hearts, including your horse.
If you don’t have the required friendship level with all of your existing pets, Van will refuse to sell you anything else. You can check your current friendship status by visiting the Pet Relationships menu.
Also note that you can only buy one pet at a time, and it’s impossible to get pets that are off-season.
Van will also stop selling you pets after you have a total of 5 on your farm.
Pet Care Guide
After your new pet arrives on the farm, it will become fully grown after 60 days.
Luckily you don’t need to feed them or give them water.
They’ll just exist and live independently on the farm, and you can interact with them as much as you want.
To earn friendship points with your pet, you can do any of the following activities once a day to get +1 FP:
- Talking/interacting with them
- Whistling to call them
- Feed them Pet Treats (can be bought from Van for 1,000 G each)
- Throwing the Ball to play with them
Getting Pet Toys
You can play with your pet using the Ball on your farm, or by using the Disc at the beach.
This is a great way to boost your relationship with all of your pets.
The Ball can be used at any age and can just be used as a toy to play on the farm.
The Disc requires your pet to be fully grown. And you can only play with the Frisbee by interacting with the sign on Mineral Beach during Spring-Autumn.
