Got myself a canine companion last night. It’s the only part of the game I’ve gone looking for spoilers about, after finding out about the dog from an unspoilered comment in a forum thread. (Mind you, it seems that the dog was a big part of the prerelease information the developers released, so I can see why its mention wasn’t deemed spoiler-worthy. Where do you draw the line?)

After getting the dog I headed back to DC to find the sewers I needed to go down to test out my stick of mole rat repellent. I got enough for the main objectives easily enough, but haven’t found enough to get the optional bonus. Annoyingly, I’ve found several mole rat corpses lying around in the sewers. I seem to have exited the sewers now and am in the subway system, which is populated by raiders. I hope there’s a place with more mole rats in down there, otherwise I’m going to have to return to the surface and wander the wastes around Megaton hoping that some will come and find me.

As for the dog, I’m not sure how useful he is. He won’t jump up or down, so some routes I could otherwise take through the city are blocked off to me. He’s good at showing me where bad guys are and does some damage to them, but I’m not sure whether or not he’s hindering my sneaking.