To feed your pet in World of Warcraft: Forever, cast Feed Pet from your spellbook (open it with P) and then click a food item in your bags that your pet’s diet allows. Do it out of combat and keep doing it, because WoW Forever keeps the original Hunter pet happiness and loyalty systems, and Blizzard fixed a beta bug so that happiness keeps draining even after your pet reaches maximum loyalty.
Blizzard has not published a WoW Forever page that walks through Feed Pet itself, so this guide is honest about which parts come from Blizzard’s beta notes and which come from earlier versions of the game. Here is where Feed Pet comes from, how to find your pet’s diet, what happiness and loyalty do, and the mistakes that make a pet run off. Checked October 30, ahead of launch on November 4 at 3:00 p.m. PST (6:00 p.m. EST).
What Blizzard Has Confirmed About Pet Happiness
Blizzard’s September 24 beta development notes include this fix: “Fixed an issue where Pet Happiness was not decreasing once your pet was at max loyalty.” That one line tells you three things:
- Pet happiness is in WoW Forever. It is not a modern-WoW-style pet that never needs care.
- Pet loyalty is in WoW Forever too, with a maximum level your pet grows into.
- Max loyalty does not end feeding. Happiness was meant to drain at max loyalty all along, and the fix makes sure it does, so even a pet you have had for 50 levels still needs food.
The other pet changes Blizzard announced are about power, not upkeep: pets now gain stats from your gear and can no longer receive player buffs that raise their stats, per the Hunter and Druid class deep dive.
Where Feed Pet Comes From
You do not start with it. In earlier versions of the game, Feed Pet was taught along with Revive Pet and Beast Training at the end of the level 10 Hunter taming quests, and beta players describe the same chain in WoW Forever. If you have a pet but no Feed Pet in your spellbook, you stopped the chain early: go back to a Hunter trainer and finish it. Our guide on how to tame a Hunter pet walks through the whole quest.
Step-by-Step: How to Feed Your Pet
- Summon your pet and stand close to it, out of combat.
- Open your spellbook with P and drag Feed Pet to an action bar so you never have to dig for it.
- Press Feed Pet. Your cursor changes, waiting for a target item.
- Click a food item in your bags that your pet’s diet allows. In earlier versions, the pet then ate over a short time and gained happiness as it did.
- Watch the happiness icon beside your pet’s portrait. Keep feeding until it shows the happy state.
On a controller, Blizzard added pet control and pet spell flyouts for Hunters in a September beta build, and the pet bar no longer replaces your bottom gamepad bar, so Feed Pet can live on a flyout there.
How to Find What Your Pet Eats
Every family has a diet. In earlier versions there were six food types: Meat, Fish, Bread, Cheese, Fruit and Fungus. Bears and boars ate almost anything, cats wanted meat or fish, and wolves ate only meat. You can check it two ways:
- Hover over the happiness icon on the pet frame. In earlier versions the tooltip showed the pet’s current happiness and loyalty.
- Open the pet tab of your character window with C, which listed the pet’s diet in earlier versions.
Food level matters as well. In earlier versions, food far below your pet’s level gave less happiness, and very low-level food was refused outright, so a stack of starter-zone meat stops working as your pet levels. Buy fresh food from innkeepers and food vendors as you move to new zones, keep the meat that beasts drop, and use Cooking and Fishing, which every character can learn without using a primary profession slot. Our camping guide explains what Cooking adds in WoW Forever.
What Happiness and Loyalty Do
In earlier versions of the game, happiness had three states, shown by the color of the pet frame icon:
| Happiness | Icon | Effect in earlier versions |
|---|---|---|
| Happy | Green | The pet deals extra damage and gains loyalty over time |
| Content | Yellow | Normal damage |
| Unhappy | Red | Reduced damage, and loyalty starts to fall |
Loyalty rose slowly while the pet was kept happy, from a rebellious new tame up to a best friend. Let a pet stay unhappy and its loyalty dropped, and a disloyal enough pet would abandon you for good. Happiness also fell over time and took an extra hit when the pet died. Blizzard has not published WoW Forever’s exact numbers for any of this, and our news on the beta’s class changes shows how much tuning moved in the final weeks, so treat the table as the shape of the system rather than exact values.
Tips Most Hunters Miss
- Feed right after taming. A brand new tame starts with low loyalty in earlier versions, which is exactly when an unhappy streak costs you the most.
- Carry two food types if your pet’s diet allows it, so a vendor that sells only bread or only fish never strands you.
- Feed before long dungeon runs. Pet deaths cost happiness, and you cannot feed in the middle of a pull.
For the rest of the Hunter picture, see our best class for new players and the race picks in best race and class combos. Every WoW guide we have is on the World of Warcraft hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have to feed your pet in WoW Forever? Yes. Blizzard’s beta notes confirm pet happiness and loyalty, and that happiness keeps decreasing even at max loyalty.
Why don’t I have Feed Pet? You likely stopped the level 10 Hunter taming quests early. Finish the chain at a Hunter trainer to learn it.
What happens if my pet is unhappy? In earlier versions, an unhappy pet dealt less damage and lost loyalty, and a disloyal pet could run away. Blizzard has not published WoW Forever’s exact numbers.
How do I know what my pet eats? Hover over the happiness icon on the pet frame, or check the pet tab of your character window with C.
Can Warlock pets be fed? No. Demons do not use happiness. Feed Pet is a Hunter spell.