Hello everyone! This is my first guide on Steam.
This guide is going to be an overview of the game Dog Sled Saga. It's currently incomplete because I only got the game the day before the day before I first created this guide which was a product of my inability to sleep at almost 1 am on January 8th 2019, and I've been a little busy since my last updates almost a year ago.
I'll update this guide as I learn more about the game and how it works.
Hopefully since the developers of this game seem to have ditched us this guide when complete will be final.

Contents:

• Introduction – YOU ARE HERE
  
• Getting to Know The Dogs – This is about the dog breeds, their personalities and aptitudes.
  
• Getting to Know YOUR Dogs – This is about your dogs skills, faults and favourites.
  
• Breeding – This section is about how to breed dogs in the game.
  
• Achievements – Your guide to all of this game's achievements.
  
• Tips, Notes, and Future Updates – This includes things I picked up while playing the game that may or may not be helpful to anyone, tips about what to do and what NOT to do, and what I'll do in later updates of this guide.

Disclaimer: This guide contains quotes and images from in-game (as well as pictures of the achievements) and I don't own any of that stuff! My reasoning for bringing all that in-game dialogue here is purely for the sake of your convenience, all in one place however, these are technically spoilers, so read at your own risk. Any text found in this guide resembling that of others is not stolen, it is just pure coincidence that I managed to discover things about the game myself like this, I'm sorry!
Anyway, hope you enjoy!
– Green.

There are 12 breeds of dogs in Dog Sled Saga, don't be alarmed though as the dogs' breeds don't change how well they'll do in a race whatsoever. Note: The dogs' descriptions are the same as those found in game.

The available breeds are:


Next we have the personalities and aptitudes. There are 3 personalities which will play a part in the aptitude of your dogs. They aren't always exact so there's a chance you may not get your dream dog. What you are aiming for is a dog that has a Natural aptitude for a certain position, however, as long as a dog hasn't got a Struggled aptitude you should be fine regardless. After a few races in a position, said position will become the dog's speciality (as long as their aptitude is Able or Natural).

The aptitudes are:

• Struggled - If a dog doesn't specialise in a certain position after running over 10 (maybe less) races, it may have this aptitude for a certain position, I strongly suggest you put them in a different position. That particular dog will be unable to specialise in its current position. Note: My Brown Husky, Chicken, ran ~46 races as Wheel before I realised he had a Struggled aptitude for Wheel as a dog with an Obedient personality.
  
• Able - If a dog has this aptitude for a certain position, the dog is doing just fine where it is. Of course it's not 100% ideal, but it will do.
  
• Natural - If a dog has this aptitude for a certain position, that dog and the position it is in were made for each other.

The following table will illustrate which personalities can specialise in what.

Away from all this about personalities and aptitudes we have faults and the opposites of faults are skills. Faults are things that negatively impact your dogs. Each dog has its own unique fault. There are 8 faults. Skills on the other hand, are things that positively impact your dog(s). There are 7 skills.






There are also things called Favourite Things, or for those who use American English, Favorite Things. These are things that increase your dogs' happiness.

Once you have at least 5 dogs, you'll be able to breed your dogs – make sure you have enough dogs to run races!
The two dogs you select to breed will not be back in your kennel until the new puppy is born.

This process is time consuming, taking 4 weeks (28 days) in game for your puppy to be born, then another 4 weeks for your puppy to mature and join your team; this also uses up $3000 each time you breed dogs.

Here are 3 key things to note:

• The puppy has a 50% chance of being male or female.
  
• The puppy has a 50% chance of looking like either of the parents (100% chance if you're breeding two dogs of the same breed).
  
• There is no inbreeding (related dogs cannot breed).

When breeding your dogs, you get the opportunity to condition the new puppy’s attributes 3 times with a one week (7 day) wait in between.
You can choose to condition their aptitude, skill, fault or favourite thing.
For each of the attributes, there will either be normal potential, high potential or super potential.
Normal potential: attributes neither parent dog has.
High potential: attributes one parent dog has.
Super potential: attributes both parent dogs share.

This game has 12 achievements. This section is split into 3 parts. Of these achievements, half of them are related to getting into certain leagues in your mushing career. A third of the total achievements relate to your dogs and their surroundings i.e. the kennels. The last two achievements? Well... They relate to your rival.

For the following achievements I suggest you stay in a lower league until you save up enough money to be able to move on to the next league as there's always a somewhat significant jump.

• Reach League 2
  Qualify for and join League 2
  
  
  
  
• Reach League 3
  Qualify for and join League 3
  
  
  
  
• Reach League 4
  Qualify for and join League 4
  
  
  
  
• Reach League 5
  Qualify for and join League 5
  
  
  
  
• Reach League 6
  Qualify for and join League 6
  
  
  
  
• Reach League 7
  Qualify for and join League 7

• New Dog on the Block
  Hire your first new dog
  This achievement is quite easy to get. After winning a bunch of races and getting a whole lot of money the game will ask you if you would like to hire a new dog. Click "Yes" to hire your new dog. If you click "Not now" you can always click the "Quick Errands" menu then press "Hire Dog" to hire a dog from there.
  Note: Before hiring a new dog (especially the first time) make sure you have enough money to be able to afford to keep the new dog.
  
  
  
• Dog Gone It...
  Take a dog off your team
  To get this achievement you can go to the "Quick Errands" menu and click "Manage Dogs". From here you can select a dog to remove from your team.
  
  
  
• Build-a-Dog
  Breed your first puppy
  Breeding your first puppy is easy (well, as long as you can afford the $3000 breeder's fee). Go to the "Quick Errands" menu and click "Breeding". Select two dogs and click start. When breeding your dogs you can't use the two dogs you selected for 4 weeks. After those weeks are up you'll get a new puppy and this achievement.
  Note: To get this achievement you have to have at least 5 dogs, the two you pair together will become unavailable for 4 weeks, so make sure you've got enough dogs for your team. Once again, make sure you have enough money to afford to pay your dues.
  
  
  
• Space Upgrade
  Expand your kennel
  All you have to do is get enough money to afford and wait the 14 days for the kennel expansion ($8000 for the kennel expansion, but you must remember to have enough left over to pay your dues).

• Beat That Jerk
  Win a race against your rival
  This is pretty easy to do. I would suggest staying in a lower league and do plenty of races until your rival's there. Hopefully by then you'll have good aim and good enough dogs to beat that pesky rival of yours!
  
  
• WARNING! THE FOLLOWING IS THE SECRET ACHIEVEMENT!
  If you can’t beat em…
  What you have to do is hire your rival to work from you. There'll be a story entry saying that your rival has made a claim that if you can beat him he'll be available for you to hire (it is the 26th story entry out of 28, so it's definitely a late game thing).

This area is for tips I have for all of you.

• Don't hire a new dog if you won't have enough money left.... It's sad to say goodbye so soon, I made that mistake myself early in the game. Good news is you can hire them again later. But it's better to wait until you've saved up some money.
  
• I know I say it a lot through this guide but the repetition is necessary... Don't do things if you won't have enough money to pay your dues.

December 18, 2020
I'm rewriting a couple of parts of the guide! Took me long enough... I'm trying to fix the images but the quality still isn't terrific. It'll do though.

December 20, 2020
I still haven't unlocked one of the items under Racing in the journal in game (the 3rd one), I'm not exactly sure what it is... or why I can't unlock it? So if anyone knows what it is, that'd be great.

January 21, 2024
So it's been years and I'm yet to finish this guide.... I'd like to fix the images soon so I might just redo all of them now that I'm not very busy with my life.

This area is for you to know what I will add to this guide later on.

• The section on breeding
  
• A section about racing(?), training and caretaking