Pet Companion

The Pet Companion is optional and works on iOS and Android. On Home, the Meet your companion card offers one: tap Choose a pet, pick a lion cub, pup, kitten, donkey, or lamb (the pup and the kitten come in several coats), give it a name if you like, and tap Adopt. A short intro then shows how its hearts fill, how your streak opens up hats and room items, and how to decorate; tap Next through it, or close it to skip it. If you chose Not now, bring the offer back with Add Sections while editing Home (press and hold an empty space on Home), or turn on Pet in Settings → Preferences → Home Screen. To hide the pet, long-press its card, choose Edit Home Screen, and tap the gray minus on it, or turn off Pet in Settings → Preferences → Home Screen. Hiding keeps your pet, its room, and its keepsakes; turn Pet back on and everything returns. You have one companion at a time.

A new pet starts with 3 of 5 hearts, or 4 if you were active the day before you adopted it. Each day you're active in the ministry adds one heart, up to 5. A day counts when you log time (including marking that you shared in the ministry, even with 0 minutes), save a visit (a conversation, return visit, or not-at-home), or make a new plan (editing a plan doesn't count). Visits that came with a contact someone shared with you are theirs, so they don't count. One heart a day, however much you did; hours don't matter. When 10 days pass without an active day, your pet loses half a heart every 3 days. At half a heart it falls asleep, and after 60 days without an active day it dies (it's shown greyed and lying down). Kingdom Publishers go by the month instead, as they report: an active day fills all 5 hearts (a pet adopted in a month you've already been active starts with all 5), and they stay full through the next month, so marking once a month that you shared keeps your pet happy. If a whole month passes without an active day, its hearts start fading 10 days into the month after, as above, and an active day fills them right back up. Tap a sleeping pet (or, if it died, Tap to wake) to wake it with 1 heart; the next active day adds hearts again. Patting it (tap it, or drag across it to rub) is just for fun and never adds hearts. Hearts are worked out from your records each time, so they're the same on every device and come back if you restore a backup.

The lamp is your Service Streak. It burns brighter as your streak grows, from unlit at 0 to its brightest once your streak reaches 30. For Kingdom Publishers the streak counts months, so it is brightest at 12. If you turned off Show streak in Settings → Preferences → Streaks & Badges, the lamp keeps a steady medium glow and no streak number shows anywhere.

Tap your pet's card on Home anywhere except on your pet (tapping your pet pats it), or long-press the card's name and choose Hat & Room…. Pick a tab (Hat, Window, Wall, Floor, Bed, Shelf, Light, or Sign) and tap a picture; the room at the top changes right away and the change is saved. Live window follows your clock and the season where you are (from your region; seasons are reversed south of the equator); turn it off to choose a time of day and a season, each of which can also stay Live. The sign on the wall can show your hours this month, your hours this service year, the months you shared in the ministry, your next plan, or this month's conversations and return visits, or nothing. Some items are open from the start. Each of the others opens up the first time your streak reaches the number on its flame: from 1 to 120 kept planned days for pioneers and other roles that log hours, or from 1 to 12 months in a row for publishers. Hats follow their own numbers (see the question about hats). Once an item opens up, it stays open, even if your streak ends later. If you turned off Show streak in Settings → Preferences → Streaks & Badges, or you log hours but haven't made any plans, one more item opens up instead for each month you're active (any day with logged time, a visit, or a saved plan) since you adopted your pet, in a set order, and a locked item shows the month it opens up. Items that are already open stay open either way. Some items are secrets, which follow neither your streak nor the months; see the question about secret items. When something you just did opens up an item or a hat, a small card with it slides in at the top of the screen (from version 1.45.0): tap it to see the item in your pet's room, then Try it on or Decorate Room to come here, or swipe the card away. An item that opens up while WitnessWork isn't open, or whose card you don't tap, waits in the notification bell on Home; opening Hat & Room clears it.

Your pet can wear a hat, or none: 12 to start working toward, and secret hats you find along the way (see the question about secret items). Tap your pet's card on Home anywhere except on your pet, pick the Hat tab, and tap a hat; it's saved right away, and your pet wears it on Home, in its details, in shared pictures, and in the Home Screen widget (iPhone and iPad). The 12 open up with your streak like room items, on their own numbers: the first three come quickly, at 3, 5, and 9 kept planned days (or in your first month for publishers), and the rest take longer, up to 120 days (or 12 months). If you turned off Show streak, or you log hours but haven't made any plans, the first three open up in your first active month and the rest one month at a time. A locked hat shows the number or month it opens up at, and once a hat opens up it stays open. Your pet takes its hat off while it rolls over or lies down. Your buddies see your pet without its hat.

Besides the hats and room items that open up with your streak, every tab but Window and Sign has secret ones. Until you find one, it shows only as a dark shadow with a question mark and ??? for its name, and tapping it says only that it's a surprise. Each secret opens up on its own milestone as you keep going in the ministry and care for your pet; which one is part of the surprise. None depend on hours, none need a buddy, and none can be missed for good, so you can find any of them later. The first time you see one after it opens up, it says New; then pick it like any other item. Secrets you've found stay open, sync with your pet like other items, and come back from a backup. If a secret you expected hasn't shown up, open your pet's details again after your records sync; secrets are worked out on each device from what's stored there.

Yes. Tap your pet's card on Home (anywhere except on your pet) to open its details, then tap Rename or Change pet; or long-press the card's name for Rename… and Change Pet…. Rename lets you type a name of up to 20 characters; clear it and save to use the animal's name instead. Change pet picks another animal or coat for the same companion: it keeps its name, hearts, hat, room, and keepsakes. Names are yours and are never translated.

Tap your pet's card on Home (anywhere except on your pet) and tap Share, or long-press the card's name and choose Share…. Its share card shows your pet in its room with its name and hearts, a few facts (your Service Streak once it reaches 3, unless you turned off Show streak in Settings → Preferences → Streaks & Badges; how many days you've been together; and how many hats it has opened up), and the WitnessWork name at the bottom. Tap Share to send the card as a picture with any app in the share sheet. Nothing is sent until you choose where it goes, and the picture holds nothing else about you or your records. If sharing fails, a message says so; try again, and if it keeps failing, close and reopen WitnessWork.

On iPhone and iPad, yes. Long-press your home screen, tap the + button, search for WitnessWork, and choose Pet Companion. Small shows your pet; medium adds its name, hearts, your streak, and what its wall sign shows; large shows its whole room with its name and hearts. The widget moves through the day on its own, and opening WitnessWork refreshes it. Until you adopt a pet, it asks you to choose one in the app. Android doesn’t have WitnessWork home screen widgets.

Your pet, its name, hat, room, the hats and room items it has opened up, and keepsakes sync between your devices with Device Sync, a Supporter feature, using the option you choose in Settings → Device Sync: Cloud Sync, which also syncs between iPhone and Android, or iCloud (Google Drive on Android). They're included in WitnessWork Backup (Settings → Account) and in backups from Settings → Backup & Restore too. Its hearts aren't stored: each device works them out from your records. With Buddies, your pet's kind, coat, and name are shared (not its hat) with your buddies, end-to-end encrypted. To stop sharing them, turn off Pet in Buddies Settings; the switch shows once you have a pet. Nothing else about your pet, and none of your records, is shared.