Hi, Bill! So a few years ago I adopted a Flareon that was abandoned at my local Pokemon Center. Apparently the previous owner abandoned her after she, as an Eevee, found a fire stone meant for a Vulpix. He apparently degraded her often (I’m told he really wanted an Umbreon). But she has quickly become family to me and my longtime partner, Rye (a Manectric). But she is still very uncertain about herself and her abilities, especially in battles. How can I help her become more confident?

Keep battling with her. I know that seems like unhelpful advice, but the best thing you can possibly do to nurture her confidence is continue to train with her while at the same time giving her positive reinforcement. Have her spar every day (either with Rye or in battles against other friendly trainers), and couple this with focused move practice. Every time she successfully executes a move, say encouraging words to her, and after every battle she fought hard in, even the ones she didn’t win, give her a treat. Most importantly, if she struggles to use a move or loses a battle, speak to her softly and reassure her that she did her best. If she allows it, show some affection as well.

It’s important that you push her (gently, of course) to keep trying. The more she battles and trains and the more she hears you encouraging her, the easier it will be for her to feel both confident and comfortable in her abilities.

Best of luck!

Now I’m morbidly intrigued – what horror stories regarding brown bouffalant are we speaking of, and has anything been done about it?

Well…

For starters, I’m not even sure if the materials used to make Brown Bouffalant is entirely edible. For one thing, as recently as earlier this month, it was found that they use pidove feathers as filler. To give you an idea of why that’s bad, that would be very much akin to humans eating cardboard … which, according to one recall, was also used in their dry foods at one point.

Granted, the cardboard was more of an accidental contaminant, which leads us to the next point that is the fact that Brown Bouffalant frequently recalls batches of its product due to contaminants of one sort or another. Last year, an entire line of wet food was recalled due to contamination with heightened levels of miltank hormones (which trigger dehydration and frequent urination in some species of canine pokémon), but there were also the three separate occasions in the past five years in which one particular type of food or another was recalled due to contamination with listeria, salmonella, and for reasons I would love to know myself, formaldehyde. Even the foods that pass inspection (somehow) aren’t always safe, as people who feed their products to their pokémon have also reported everything from mold in the bottom of dry food bags to unexplained kidney failure.

That is, of course, during and after production (although it perhaps says something about the way it treats its workers if standards had been set that low). When it comes to sourcing its materials, well, let’s just say that if your food is contaminated with pidove feathers or salmonella, those aren’t signs that your food sources are treated well.

Of course, Brown Bouffalant has been in and out of the courtroom over these incidents for at least a decade, which in turn has led to the stricter regulations you might have heard about when it comes to pokémon food production. Still, even with these regulations in place and even with the government’s reassurance that Brown Bouffalant’s production methods are completely up to both health and sustainability standards, you still hear about Brown Bouffalant in the news far too often for that brand to be worth it.

The main reason why it’s still around, though, is in part due to the fact that, ultimately, they’re the cheapest pokémon food brand on the market. The other part is frankly a complete mystery, but I have a sneaking suspicion it has something to do with its parent corporation, Rocket Corp.

Speaking like a true pedestrian, do you recommend any brands of Pokémon-based products that source their goods ethically?

That depends on what you’re looking for, anonymous. “Pokémon-based products” is a term that spans quite a lot of categories, from food and other basic essentials to cosmetics. In some cases, it even covers things you would never think involve pokémon at all, including building materials and electronics.

So allow me to offer a few tips that can help you choose better in general:

For cosmetics and other hygiene products, look for a buneary face on the label. This is a logo that indicates the product is either guaranteed to contain ethically sourced pokémon materials or guaranteed to have never been tested on pokémon (or both). If you’d like a few suggestions for brands to look at in particular, both Flower Veil and Persim carry products that don’t use pokémon at all in their production, and Flower Veil has a commitment to using ecofriendly methods (that it actually upholds).

When it comes to clothing, avoid leather, including faux leather. While actual leather comes from either miltank or cows (and is thus highly controversial for obvious reasons), faux leather is terrible for the environment, so it’s not worth it. Instead, choose ecofriendly fabrics such as hemp or wool. Mareep wool, contrary to what Plasma may have you believe, is perfectly fine as a material. It’s gathered by trimming mareep, not by cutting off their skins, and the mareep are typically treated well throughout the process (as mareep wool must be gathered by hand while keeping the mareep calm and happy to avoid accidentally charging the wool with dangerous levels of electricity). Shearing a mareep is also necessary for its overall health (as it is with the mundane sort of sheep), so buying wool supports not only ethical farmers but also the actual care of a flock of mareep. The same could be said for whimsicott cotton, actually.

However, if you’re looking for a simpler solution than looking at the materials tag, anything that calls itself fair trade is usually a good bet. Offhand, Valerie Aino is perhaps the most well-known designer brand that commits itself to sourcing its materials ethically and using sustainable and humane (that is, to its human workers) practices.

For food, look for anything labeled with “free range,” “organic,” or “soft gathered.” The latter term refers to the practice of soft-gathering, or keeping a pokémon calm and gathering products or materials from it with its permission. This is particularly important for tropius fruit, but it’s also often used in reference to combee honey and moo moo milk too. Surprisingly, ShuppepsiCo is among the brands on this list, as is, of course, Moo Moo Farms.

For items for pokémon, you’ll want to look, yet again, for a logo. In this case, a togepi stamp usually indicates that the product meets the standards for ethical production. This is particularly important for pokémon shampoos (to indicate they weren’t tested on pokémon or use ethically sourced berries) and pokémon food (to indicate that any pokémon-based ingredients was collected humanely). Staryu & Charmander and Leppa Brand are both among the larger brands out there, but there is quite a list. Just about the only one I would never recommend is Brown Bouffalant, which has quite a few horror stories attached to where its materials come from.

As for the more … obscure categories under the “ethically sourced pokémon-based products” category, standard labels vary from country to country, but generally speaking, if it says “inspected by [insert your government body of product inspections here” followed by “cleared [date],” that means it met the standards of production.

I’m a trainer working at a Foster Center, (We help abandoned/unadopted Pokemon find people who will care for them) and its my job to tend to Pokemon we receive. Recently, a very timid Abra appeared at our Center, and I’ve been helping take care of it for a while. It’s very sweet, but anytime anything unpredictable happens- I drop something, a new Pokemon shows up, etc- it teleports to me. Even when I’m not at work. I was hoping you might have some advice, so I could help it get comfortable.

When it comes to new pokémon, as a separate tip, you may wish to introduce this abra to them in the same way you would with any skittish pokémon: slowly, in a comfortable environment, and individually or alongside pokémon she’s already comfortable with. You may also wish to introduce her to the other handlers in the same manner, for that matter, as that may help minimize her tendency to make such a jump to you, as opposed to anyone else in the immediate area.

Beyond that, you’ll need to work on her confidence. That is to say … train her. It may be challenging due to the fact that most abra start off knowing only Teleport, but if you’re creative with using just that, you may help her gain enough battle experience to accept moves taught to her via the TM/HM system, move tutoring system, or even by herself after evolution. The stronger you can get her, the more confident in herself and her abilities she may become, which in turn will help her feel less scared of her surroundings.

However, that’s not enough. If you only do that, you’ll simply arm a scared pokémon, rather than teach her how to be comfortable with everything around her as well as herself. If her surroundings aren’t comfortable enough for her, you’ll need to figure out what could be improved. Perhaps it’s not the right temperature, or maybe she doesn’t have enough bedding. Maybe she needs a few adjustments to her diet.

Once you figure out the right balance for her surroundings, train her to be comfortable. If it helps, try this method: have her touch your hand, either with her nose or her psychic abilities. Then, feed her a treat. Do this a few times until she understands that touching things leads to a treat…

…and then introduce the rest of the shelter in this method.

Now, when I say “the rest of the shelter,” I actually do mean that, so this may be a time-consuming thing that can’t be done in a single day. Start with your coworkers and inanimate objects (cleaning supplies, dishes, anything that could be dropped or that might make a startling noise). Have her touch or interact with each, and when she does so in a positive way, give her a treat. When she feels comfortable with that, move on to the other pokémon in the shelter. Do this even if she feels comfortable with them already. Eventually, she should begin to associate each person, object, and pokémon in her immediate surroundings with a positive experience, and that, in conjunction with the confidence fostered by the battling, should help her grow less scared of her surroundings and thus less likely to be startled by them. Once that happens, you should notice a sharp decrease in teleportations.

Best of luck!

Hiya! I’d like your opinion on something. Hypothetically speaking, what pokemon do you think would benefit the most from a new move that it cannot normally learn? In terms of battling/strategy. This is all hypothetically speaking of course, so no pokemon are harmed, it’s for a role-play I’m in. It’s not allowed to be a legendary move so unfortunately that rules out Spacial Rend Bidoof. (Which, quite frankly, would have been amazing.)

Magikarp.

{In all OOC seriousness (because I get the feeling you’re asking this out-of-character and not from the perspective of an in-universe person asking about roleplaying pokémon … which would admittedly be some pretty rad Inception stuff, but still), I’m admittedly bad at this kind of thing, partly because most of the movesets I build are very strictly game-based (that is, I don’t really keep wishlists) and partly because I’m terrible at remembering who learns what (hence point the first). So a lot of my knowledge on the subject of who knows what tends to be pretty limited unless it’s incredibly obvious or otherwise meme-worthy. Like, for example, why can’t Kyurem learn Ice Punch?

But memes aside, I think my favorite examples are when the anime messes up, because some of these examples just sort of make sense, both in general for the pokémon and strategically speaking. For example, my favorite? Scizor and Shadow Claw. You would think scizor of all things would learn Shadow Claw, and in terms of battling, it does have the stats to support that kind of move. Granted, yeah, it receives no strategic benefit from using that over, say, U-Turn, but still, you would think that the thing with claws and a hefty dose of Attack would learn Shadow Claw, especially if it learns things like Night Slash. Yet nope, it does not.

Same thing could be said with politoed and Jump Kick (which actually kinda would make sense as a counter for magnezone) and literally anything on that list with Tackle, but honestly, the scizor example makes the most sense imo.

Also, not to parrot Reddit, but gengar and Nasty Plot. Let’s be real.

Not sure if any of this helped, but good luck either way!}

What is your favourite Pokémon inspired food and/or beverage?

Admittedly, I’ve always been a bit partial to Zubat Cola. It’s terrible for you, but it’s quite delicious. Also, to be fair, it doesn’t give you as much of a dose of caffeine as, say, Shuppepsi.

As for food, that’s quite difficult, but there’s a traditional treat in Johto made of mochi and red bean that’s shaped like pokémon heads (usually ones like squirtle or bulbasaur, but solosis and ditto are quite popular nowadays too). Normally, I’m not one for sweets, but those are extremely addictive. I spend more on that every time I visit my family than I care to admit. (Don’t tell my mother, but sometimes, I bring my younger sister along just so I’d have an excuse to buy them.)

Doesn’t your mother read this blog? —LH

…. —Bill

Hello! I think dear dunsparce got herself a mate, but it’s a female Arbok. I know they both can’t breed due to gender and egg group, but dunsparce is still furious about that. How can I calm her down before she hurts herself in her rage?

Ah yes. This can be a rather awkward dilemma.

And the answer is … adopt an egg. Believe it or not, anger like this doesn’t stem from the physical inability to produce a fertilized egg but instead the lack of an opportunity to raise young as one’s own at all. Luckily, there are plenty of possible solutions for most pokémon, but in a dunsparce and arbok’s case, the easiest and least risky one would be, simply, egg adoption.

Best of luck!

(As an added note, I’m aware you’ve asked for tips on calming your dunsparce, but honestly, unless letting them raise young is unviable for reasons other than sex and egg groups, let them raise young. They sound like they would be wonderful parents.)

Is… Is it normal for a Hawlucha to be overzealous about eaing berries? I basically have to have two bags of berries at this point and mine acts like a kid (albeit a cute kid) in a candy shop when he sees one.

Many pokémon can be addicted to berries, actually. The taste is especially appealing to them, and many berries have certain properties that are beneficial to their health. It’s just that you’ll need to make sure you keep an eye on your hawlucha’s diet. As a carnivorous fighting-type, he needs protein berries alone can’t provide. Don’t let him overeat on berries, and make sure he gets meat every day.

Is it dangerous to be near a pokemon using Perish Song? Assuming you’re not the intended target, of course.

Only if you’re a pokémon (or partly one). For pokémon, yes, you will need to ensure the safety of everyone on the battlefield. If a wild pokémon uses it, have your poké ball on hand, as well as perhaps an empty one if the user would be put in danger by fainting in the open.

For humans, however, it’s just deeply annoying. Think nails on a chalkboard both during initial use and briefly when the move is supposed to take effect.

Why do all species of pokemon lay eggs?

There’s actually a simple answer, anonymous: it’s a lot more energy efficient in the long run. Giving live birth is not only a far more exhausting process, but also, it consumes a lot of energy to nourish and protect a developing fetus. Doubly so because battling itself consumes a lot of energy as well. It’s simply easier and safer for both the mother and the young to lay eggs and allow the fetus to develop outside of the womb.