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If your Sim always dreamed of helping out their furry friends in need, then The Sims 4: Cats & Dogs is the expansion for you. Not only does it let you own your own pets, but those called to help can choose to become a vet, opening their own vet clinic in The Sims 4.
In our guide, we walk you through the basics of owning and operating a vet clinic – while it’s similar to the other owned stores and active careers in The Sims 4, vet clinics are a big investment. Read ahead for help with your five-star rating.
Updated on May 3, 2023 by Gabrielle Castania: So many of us love our animals in real life, and the desire to add feline friends or canine companions carries over into The Sims 4 with The Sims 4: Cats & Dogs. We circled back to polish our Sims 4 vet clinic guide to help you help the critters of Brindleton Bay.
How To Open A Vet Clinic
One of the great things about running a vet clinic is that the initial investment is low, compared to similar options for business ownership.
Your veterinarian Sim can undertake all the required tasks themselves, making it much easier to start making a profit.
To begin, all you need is a plot of land to build your clinic on and a few simple items:
- A vet podium to sign patients in.
- An exam table to perform your assorted tests and treatments.
- A waste disposal item.
Once you've built or downloaded a suitable clinic, to purchase it, click the cash register icon in the bottom right corner and select buy a clinic.
As the owner, you can adjust several things:
- Prices per treatment.
- The staff uniform required on-shift.
- Treatment quality for all your patients.
Upon opening the clinic, you're done! Your clients and their furry friends will begin showing up in now time.
If the flow of customers is too much for you to handle, click the disallow new customers feature to slow it down a bit.
How To Help Pets At Your Vet Clinic
A pet's owner needs to interact with the podium before you can get to work examining their animal. After that, click either pet or parent so you can "greet patient" to begin the exam.
To perform an exam on an animal, interact with the exam table. Choose from a range of procedures, including take temperature, examine ears, and inspect fur.
As you complete each examination, symptoms will appear on the list, and your treatment options will be narrowed down based upon them.
The best way to avoid mistakes is to examine the pet until the diagnosis appears under the symptoms list.
As you examine a pet, they will get stressed - some are even already stressed when they come in.
Keep an eye on the stress level bar at the top left, next to the pets photo, and make sure you are using the "calm pet" option to keep it as low as possible.
Ideally you'll calm the pet when the bar is about half full to avoid being hissed at or bitten.
The Surgery Station
As your skill gets higher by diagnosing and treating, you can also purchase a Surgery Station, which will help diagnose and treat conditions that you can't identify the traditional way.
These cases only start occurring once you can buy the Surgery Station, and once you do, the process of diagnosing is the same.
If a traditional exam yields no results once this is unlocked, move over to the Surgery Station for a second look.
Finishing A Pet's Exam
After administering treatment, you'll see that the pet is cured.
You can then click the pet parent and bill them for your service. They'll leave after paying.
Hire Staff At Your Vet Clinic
The busier your clinic, the more help you'll need, so be sure to hire on some staff members once you can afford them.
They will gain skill as they treat pets, and you can also support them with encouragement and training.
To make their lives easier, you'll need a bathroom and break room for employees, and always be sure the path to the exam tables is clear.
Use Perks To Boost Rewards
Vet clinics also use the perks system, similar to aspiration points, and you can purchase perks to hire extra vets, reduce training costs, increase patient patience, and change your treatment quality.
These will all help you to adjust service quality and markups to boost your success as a vet clinic.
How To Boost Your Vet Clinic's Star Rating
As long as you're regularly greeting and treating patients, your reputation and stars will increase, but you can do a few things to speed up the process.
The growth opportunities you see displayed after each day should help you identify the gaps, but there are also specific categories to build up.
- Keep wait times low by purchasing the Patient Patrons perk, and hiring new vets as you gain more clients.
- Decorate the environment with furniture, art, music, and more to make your space feel more like home. Be sure to keep things clean - you can even use the vacuum if you have the Bust the Dust kit.
- Have a positive staff, both yourself and your employees, ensuring that everyone stays in a good mood - patients can feel when you're tense!
- Share friendly interactions with both pet and owner by calling the patient a "good pet" and by using friendly socials on the Sim that brought them in.
- Keep the pets' stress low by monitoring their stress during the exam. If need be, you can craft a shot in the Medicine Lab that lowers a pet's stress and keeps it lowered.
- Offer a good quality of treatment by ensuring that you and your staff are of high levels of care.
- Don't increase your prices too fast or you'll scare off new customers - instead, raise it slowly the more your rating increases.
Boost Your Vet Clinic Earnings With A Medicine Lab
Once you've got the basics down, there are a couple of other ways to make money at your Sims 4 vet clinic.
If you purchase a Medicine Lab, you'll discover that you can craft all kinds of treats and treatments. We've a;ready mentioned the sedative shot for stressed pets to help them calm down, but you can also make pet treats and animal medicine in the Lab, too.
By putting treats in the medicine fridge, it'll cause the fridge to act like a vending machine, allowing customers to buy treats for their pets from your machine, putting the Simoleons right into your pockets.