Dogmeat is a recurring character in the Fallout games. He appeared in the original game, where he'd join you if you wore a jacket like Mel Gibson's from The Road Warrior. However, he was scripted to die late in the game, which is a pretty mean thing to do to a guy's dog.

But you can't keep a good character down, so Dogmeat reappeared in Fallout 2. I'd been told he was in Fallout 3. However, in my first play-though of the game, I didn't find the little guy. I aim to fix that this time.

Read the heartwarming story of a boy and his dog after the jump.

I was told by a friend who'd finished the game that Dogmeat was in a junkyard (appropriate!) to the northeast of Vault 101. After stumbling around, I eventually find the Scrapyard three grid squares to the east, and then four grid squares to the north of Vault 101.

I'm not sure what to do once I get here, but after a little wandering through the stacks of smashed cars, I hear shots. Following the sound, I come across five dead raiders and one very friendly dog. It doesn't seem like I need to do anything special to recruit him. We have a little chat, which consists of me, the murderous psychopath who decimated the Republic of Dave, chatting with a dog who barks and whimpers. By adroitly avoiding dialogue entries such as "Shut up, you stupid mutt" and "Go away", I successfully recruit him as a companion.

There are a couple of cool things about Dogmeat. The first is that he serves as an early warning system, taking up the slack for my low perception score. Whenever I hear him growling, I know there are hostiles nearby. Of course, he's handy in a fight, even if it's just to distract one of the enemies from attacking me. I do worry, however, about how tough he is. I can feed him if he gets hurt, but I'm not sure how we'll fare once we start going up against things like Deathclaws and Fire Ants. Dogmeat seems awfully eager to jump into the fray and I hope it doesn't get him killed.

He's also handy as a drug sniffing dog. I can ask him to fetch different types of items, including ammo, food, and chems. Since I'm relying heavily on drugs during combat, as soon as I recruit Dogmeat, I test him by sending him to find chems. He scampers off into the piles of junk and comes back with two bottles of Nuka Cola. Hmm. I was hoping for something a little, uh, stronger. You know, like Buffout, Jet, or Psycho. We'll have to work on that one, Dogmeat.

As we're heading back to Megaton to sell the stuff I've salvaged, we come across a raider outpost in a ruined elementary school. Me and Dogmeat easily dispatch two raiders on the ground floor, but there's a third raider up in the ruins, sniping down at us with a rifle. I'm a bit worried he's going to shoot my dog, who goes scampering off somewhere -- looking for more Nuka Cola? -- while I trade fire with the sniper. My small arms skill isn't high enough for me to get a good shot and I don't have enough ammo to fire in real time, so I'm ducking behind a wall as my action points refill and then popping out to take whatever shots I can. My best chance against this guy is getting a few lucky hits using the VATS aiming system.

After nearly a dozen shots that have only scratched the raider, I pop out again and see him is frantically firing at something right next to him. What's going on up there? Zooming in, I see that Dogmeat has managed to work his way up to the third floor of the ruined elementary school and is now attacking the sniper. How about that? A dog who can pathfind his way up to the third floor of a ruined building! That's not something you see every day.

Dogmeat, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.