UO Animal Taming Skill Guide
Animal Taming allows players to control wild creatures and powerful beasts. It is a core skill for pet-based gameplay and is used for both PvM and PvP. Taming becomes increasingly powerful with high skill and synergy with Animal Lore and Veterinary.
Animal Taming is a taming skill in Ultima Online, rated as Hard difficulty to train. This guide walks you through everything you need to raise Animal Taming from 0 to grandmaster, including the most efficient training methods, the targets and items to use at each skill range, and the gains you can expect along the way. Whether you are building your first character or optimizing a finished template, the breakdown below will help you train Animal Taming as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Below you will find an overview of what Animal Taming does, a step-by-step training guide, recommended skill ranges, any bonuses Animal Taming provides, and the templates that pair well with it. If you would rather skip the grind, UO King can deliver a ready-made character or the gear you need to support a Animal Taming build on your shard.
Animal Taming is the skill that lets you bond wild creatures to your character and command them as loyal pets. On Stratics the skill is presented through a Taming Difficulty calculator: you enter your current Animal Taming and Animal Lore values and the tool sorts the roster of tamable animals so you can see, at a glance, which ones you are ready to work on and which are still out of reach. Higher taming skill unlocks progressively tougher and more powerful creatures, from barnyard animals all the way up to dragons and other rare mounts and battle pets.
Taming gains come from attempting to tame creatures. Failing still gives gains, so taming creatures slightly above your current level is optimal. Patience and macro support are essential, as taming is one of the slowest skills to GM.
| Skill Range | Suggested Creatures |
|---|---|
| 0.0 – 30.0 | Train from an NPC Animal Trainer |
| 30.0 – 50.0 | Rabbits, Cats, Dogs, Cows |
| 50.0 – 65.0 | Great Harts, Timber Wolves, Snow Leopards |
| 65.0 – 85.0 | Bulls, White Wolves, Ridgebacks |
| 85.0 – 100.0 | Dire Wolves, Gaman, Bake Kitsune |
| 100.0 – 120.0 | Nightmares, Cu Sidhe, Greater Dragons, Rune Beetles |
0.0 – 30.0
30.0 – 50.0
50.0 – 65.0
65.0 – 85.0
85.0 – 100.0
100.0 – 120.0
Taming leans heavily on a small group of supporting skills, and pairing it well is what turns a hobbyist tamer into a battle-ready one:
- Animal Lore — required alongside taming; it reveals a creature's stats and is factored into how reliably you gain and control pets.
- Veterinary — lets you heal and cure your pets in the field, keeping expensive tames alive.
- Magery or Spellweaving — useful for resurrecting fallen pets and supporting them in combat.
- Music, Discordance or Provocation — frequently combined with taming so you can weaken or turn dangerous targets before committing.
- Animal Taming
- Animal Lore
- Veterinary or Healing
- Magery or Spellweaving
- Resisting Spells (optional)
Every tamable creature has a minimum taming requirement: the skill floor at which you can even attempt to tame it. Attempts below that threshold simply fail, while attempts far above it succeed easily and stop granting skill. Real gains happen when a creature sits near the edge of your current ability, which is exactly what the sortable calculator is designed to help you find. The sample below shows the shape of that difficulty ladder.
| Creature | Minimum Taming Skill |
|---|---|
| Chicken / Rabbit / Cat / Dog | 0.0 |
| Timber Wolf / Grey Wolf | 0.0 |
| Black Bear / Brown Bear | 0.0 |
| Pig / Sheep / Goat | 11.1 |
| Llama | 11.1 |
| Horse | 29.1 |
| Grizzly Bear / Polar Bear | 41.1 |
| Walrus | 41.1 |
| Desert Ostard | 53.1 |
| Panther / Snow Leopard | 53.1 |
| Scorpion | 53.1 |
| Giant Serpent | 59.1 |
| Dire Wolf | 59.1 |
| Frost Spider | 59.1 |
| Forest Ostard | 71.1 |
| Bull | 71.1 |
| Ridgeback | 71.1 |
| Savage Ridgeback | 79.1 |
| Drake | 83.1 |
| Frenzied Ostard | 89.1 |
| Unicorn | 90.1 |
| Dragon | 93.9 |
| Nightmare | 95.1 |
| Ki-Rin | 95.1 |
| White Wyrm | 96.3 |
| Cu Sidhe / Hiryu | 98.7 |
| Rune Beetle | 100.9 |
Values are representative reference figures for the classic difficulty scale; exact numbers can shift with publishes and creature variants, and paragon or region-specific versions run harder.