What pokemon would be good for someone with different kinds of OCD?

Unlike other mental conditions, service pokémon associated with OCD are often more physical in nature. That is, whereas someone with depression may need a pokémon with Sweet Scent or a psychic-type to go about their daily tasks, someone with certain types of OCD may need something a bit more tangible—something that can touch them. The reason why is because many of the issues typically related to OCD—repetitive behavior, dermatillomania, and so forth—need immediate intervention and therefore can’t be solved by the less intrusive methods other service pokémon offer. For that reason, oddly enough, the traditional service growlithe and houndour tend to be the most popular, as they’re trained to recognize these behaviors as not being standard for a human (as it were) and can therefore paw at their owners when they happen to interrupt. Eevee are also popular for this, especially given that they evolve into espeon, who can detect the beginning of these behaviors before they happen.

For the less physical symptoms of OCD, such as anxiety and intrusive thoughts, pokémon with Sweet Scent and psychic-types are indeed used as well, as described in my earlier post on them. (Click here to read that, if you wish.) This would be why some people prefer to use espeon, rather than the traditional growlithe or houndour, but others prefer the comfort of a pet-like pokémon over the comfort of the aura projected by a psychic.

Finally, of course, there is also the fact that OCD is often treated with medication, at which point, many patients with OCD prefer a service pokémon that can also remind them of when to take their next dose. Service growlithe can indeed be trained to do this, but other humans may wish to pair their growlithe with a hoothoot trained to hoot certain patterns (often just loud enough to force their partners to act to get them to stop) when their internal clocks “strike” the moment their partners need to take their medication.

As always, it’s best to work with both your doctor and your local service pokémon agency to figure out what you would need out of a service pokémon. Given that OCD describes a number of different symptoms (some of which may not be solved by a pokémon alone), you may need one or more service pokémon trained to do specific tasks, so it’s best to communicate with the agency and your doctor to find out what symptoms would work with your specific case and treatment plan.

So I think a ghost Pokémon is reaching out to my friend. He says whenever he crosses a specific bridge he tastes wheat and peaches in his mouth and the wind blows really fast. What should he do about that Pokémon??

Well, anonymous, the first thing you should do is verify that your friend is encountering a ghost pokémon. It’s entirely possible that the bridge is over a windy area, and your friend just really likes peach-flavored oatmeal.

To determine whether or not this is a haunting, take a pokémon that knows Foresight to the bridge. Have that pokémon scan the area, and if a ghost pokémon appears, have your friend connect with it. If it hasn’t stolen your friend’s soul by now, then it’s likely that it’s not entirely malevolent. If your friend is willing to capture it, encourage him to do so and communicate with it later. If he isn’t willing to catch it, ask it what it wants. It may help to use a psychic-type or another ghost-type to serve as a liaison. Once you figure out why it’s haunting your friend (or the bridge, whichever the case may be), you may be able to figure out what to do from there—or whether or not you should do it.

Additionally, should you have no desire to interact with this ghost as soon as you uncover it, it would be wise to get your friend a cleanse tag to protect him as he crosses the bridge. Either that, or encourage your friend to find an alternate route to avoid the bridge altogether.

If, however, there is no ghost … talk to your friend about his love of peach-flavored oatmeal. There are just far better flavors of oatmeal out there.

Hello there Bill, I was wondering what to do with my Sandslash’s old spikes? Every year my Sandslash sheds a few of its spikes and I’ve kept them as mementos but I’m wondering if I should just get rid of them or recycle them somehow?

Most sandslash trainers simply throw them away, yes. Sandslash spikes are much like your fingernails. They’re largely made of keratin and soil, and thus, they’re not actually suitable for much besides composting. Other, more creative trainers do as you do and make jewelry or art pieces out of them. Quite honestly, it really depends on your taste, but I would recommend adding them to your compost bin if you have one. They make excellent fertilizer.

Why is gyarados a flying type

Excellent question, anonymous.

You see, gyarados is a river spirit pokémon. Specifically, it occurs when magikarp get so strong they become capable of using Splash to leap great distances into the air. When they leap high enough (old wives’ tales specify that the height must be at least that of a waterfall), the evolutionary energies that surge through them draw in elements of the wind and air and imbue the magikarp with its secondary type. Hence, the resulting gyarados is a flying-type and not a dragon-type—even if it looks like a dragon—simply because the element that is drawn into its body upon evolution is related to wind, not mystic dragon energy.

That and scientists have noticed that gyarados faint faster than most pokémon when struck with Thunderbolts for science.

How is it that two dittos cannot breed, two magnemites cannot breed, but a ditto and a magnemite can? The one thing I can think of is that ditto can somehow create ‘clones’ of regular pokemon in an egg and they can reproduce alone so there’s no need to breed with each other. What is your answer?

Actually, ditto can’t breed because they lack reproductive organs in their original forms. Instead, they reproduce via budding, so technically, all ditto are really the exact same organism genetically.

However, ditto do not create clones of regular pokémon, although this is an interesting theory. What actually happens is that a ditto assumes the form of whatever pokémon they choose to mate with, but there’s an asterisk to this concept. It’s true that on the battlefield, ditto become exact copies of their chosen target, but off the battlefield, they can actually assume whatever form they want. (They simply need a visual example in order to create an accurate copy.) What this means is that ditto gain the reproductive organs of whatever pokémon they choose, but they can only do so when transformed. At the same time, while on the battlefield, ditto assume the exact form of the pokémon in front of them because it’s quicker, off the battlefield (such as in a breeding pen), they can sometimes get “creative” by assuming the form of a member of the opposite biological sex. For example, on the battlefield, a ditto may transform into a male charizard because a male charizard is the closest example and thus the quickest thing to turn into, but in the breeding pen, a ditto may attempt to create female charizard reproductive organs instead to coincide with the male’s.

On that note, pokémon such as magnemite or staryu or other so-called genderless pokémon actually employ a wide variety of reproductive methods. After all, they need some level of breeding in order to maintain their wild populations. It’s just that they don’t lay eggs in the wild—or they don’t as we know it.

Take the staryu and starmie, for example. These are actually biologically fascinating pokémon, as they are capable of breeding one of two ways, depending on how stressful of an environment they’re in. The most common method is by fission, or the act of splitting themselves neatly through their core to produce two genetically identical specimens. This tends to be quicker, as it requires no gestation time, and the resulting staryu (the children are always staryu, making this a very rare case of deevolution) are capable of fighting immediately. Unfortunately, as one can guess, this reverts the parent to a heavily weakened state. The process essentially resets its genetic code all the way back to its preevolved form, and the resulting children each need to retrain their bodies to use the most powerful attacks their parent knew. Still, it’s the preferred method because the other method, spawning, requires a gestation period and thus can only be performed in situations wherein the parent staryu or starmie are capable of defending their offspring. To summarize this method, keep in mind that staryu and starmie are actually hermaphroditic, not truly genderless. That is to say, all members of this evolutionary family possess both male and female organs, and when breeding, these organs send out clouds of both eggs and sperm to mix with another staryu or starmie’s eggs and sperm. The resulting dust settles on the ocean floor and begins its slow march towards forming new staryu … assuming no hungry magikarp stop by, anyway.

Meanwhile, voltorb reproduces by electrical sporogenesis. When in contact with either eggs laid by ditto or metal and plastic debris (empty poké balls seem to be preferable), voltorb discharges spores containing a mix of its own genetic material and electrical energy. This fertilizes and jump-starts an egg, but when in contact with debris, it draws the material together via static, melds it together, and animates the resulting object to form a new voltorb specimen.

Then, of course, you have porygon, which simply create their own offspring exactly as you think they would (that is, by copying their code and writing their own young into existence).

Hopefully, you get the idea from there.

Where ditto come in, meanwhile, is quite simple. Oftentimes, asexual reproduction is the more costly method to use, especially for trained pokémon. Imagine, for example, that your beloved starmie, who you’ve trained for years, suddenly split itself into two staryu, and you had to start all over again with two new pokémon. Trainers prevent this by pairing their pokémon off with a mate: ditto. By encouraging them to fertilize eggs ditto creates (by manifesting egg-laying organs that are capable of generating eggs that are compatible with these species, as mentioned above), genderless pokémon may relieve their natural drives to reproduce, thus preventing them from, say, splitting themselves in half to form new entities.

In other words, ditto reproduce by budding, most other “genderless” pokémon employ any of a variety of reproductive methods (that don’t use eggs as we know them), but together, they lay eggs because ditto is mimicking them on a genetic level but conceiving of an egg-laying structure that can produce something for them to fertilize.

Except porygon, anyway. It seems all ditto and porygon do is write code together to create an artificial egg. It’s quite entertaining, actually. They’re far better at quality assurance than I am, and it’s a shame the Pokémon Association won’t let me hire them as actual system administrators.

How do Ghost Type Pokemon breed? Some of them are supposed to be spirits of the dead so how do they make more dead spirits?

Think of them less like ghosts from traditional ghost stories and more like reincarnations, anonymous. While, yes, in some cases, they are spirits inhabiting tangible bodies (shuppet and banette, for example), many more have actual bodies with real organs—including, well, reproductive organs. They’re simply imbued with a spiritual energy and the memories of their most recent lives (as well as, in some cases, the ability to become intangible), so they’re not literally ghosts.

So yes, ghosts simply reproduce the way most other pokémon do. In the cases of shuppet, banette, or any other pokémon possessing a body, they do this by manifesting the organs they need to perform. Putting it another way, the bodies that shuppet and banette inhabit didn’t originally look the way they do as pokémon. Rather, the spirits that control them change them to suit their needs—including reproduction.

Should you be wondering, yes, this also means that pokémon such as yamask or phantump (those that are very clearly spirits of the dead, in other words) are indeed born from eggs that are laid by other spirits of the dead. In truth, these pokémon have … interesting reproductive cycles and social structures. Yamask, for example, hatch from eggs, masks and all. Scientists aren’t quite sure how; there are, after all, plenty of mysteries surrounding this world, including and especially what exactly happens when we die. It’s just known that yamask don’t acknowledge their yamask “parents” as their true parents. In fact, yamask tend to be independent after birth, and while they sometimes congregate into groups, they largely begin taking care of themselves after birth, save for a period in which the parent yamask console the newly reborn and help them embrace their new forms.

Phantump, meanwhile, reproduce two ways. The first occurs exactly how you’re told it occurs: when a child dies in the woods, its spirit possesses a stump and becomes a phantump. However, the other way occurs when phantump in general grow old enough to be trained or mature on a mental level. Once a phantump reaches adulthood (in this body, anyway), it becomes capable of mating. As with shuppet and banette, phantump also have the ability to change their bodies and manifest whatever they need to function so long as they remain, ultimately, spirits in a stump. This includes reproductive organs capable of laying eggs. (It’s thought that phantump choose this method of reproduction because they understand that pokémon lay eggs but might not understand … well, how humans do things.)

In other words, it’s very simple, anonymous. Ghost-types reproduce, by and large, by laying eggs just like those laid by any other type of pokémon. Some ghost-types simply need to take a few extra steps before getting to that point.

My cousin recently stayed with me and apparently left a shiny stone on accident and my floette came in contact with it. The problem is when I first saw my new florges I didn’t know she was mine and yelped. Well this hurt her feelings and now I think she thinks I’m not happy with her new form, which isn’t the case at all! What should I do?

Do your best to show her affection, anonymous. Give her a gift of a new toy or a treat, apologize, and offer to help her train. You’ll be surprised at how easily a pokémon will trust the sincerity of a trainer they love and respect if that trainer apologizes to them. The important thing is to reach out to her now, as the longer you wait, the more she’ll think you really don’t like her new form, which will make it a bit harder to apologize later.

I have a big dragon house for my dragonite to sleep in and he keeps sneaking in and taking and hoarding my jewelry in it. Why he is doing this?

Although it’s not often spoken of, most dragon-types have a tendency to hoard. What this means is that most dragon-types collect certain things. What that thing is tends to depend on the individual dragon. Some like to collect flowers. Others like to collect round objects. Some even collect stamps. Most tame dragons try to stick to hoards that they can easily collect, but the urge usually drives them to obtain whatever “feels right” to them. The latter happens rarely, however, and keep in mind that not all dragon-types do this—as in, it’s very easy to own a dragon-type and never notice this behavior, either because your dragon has elected to collect something you might pass off as standard litter about its living space or because it simply doesn’t have a hoard.

That having been said, in your case, your dragonite has either followed an urge to collect jewelry or views yours as easily obtainable. You may perhaps wish to secure your valuables a little better within your home, but if that doesn’t work, train your dragonite to collect something else by offering alternatives (toys, for example) and positive reinforcement whenever he accepts the replacement hoard item over your jewelry.

As a Shinx and Luxio, my Pokémon could sleep in my lap and on my bed relatively well (he’s was a big luxio) but as a Luxray kind of crushes me. I don’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him he can’t lay on me anymore but I fear for my body if this keeps up. Please help!

Certainly, anonymous.

Your first step is to find a pokémon bed that would be comfortable for him. Given how he likes to drape himself on you, he may prefer a firmer bed with plenty of comforters and blankets to simulate your warmth. You may even wish to give him a body pillow if he finds comfort in snuggling up to something your size and shape. (Yes, really, anonymous.)

Once you set this bed up (preferably in a corner somewhere or in a place that your luxray can feel enclosed within—hiding in such a corner makes feline pokémon feel protected), you’ll need to employ a little reinforcement. Every time he goes over to his bed or lays down in it, give him a treat, a toy, or some form of affection. Conversely, any time he tries to climb into bed with you, try to get up and out of it again, then show him where his bed is without scolding him. Feed him a treat if he follows you (or pet him if it’s close to the time when the two of you are meant to go to sleep).

In other words, you don’t necessarily have to tell him in a straightforward manner, anonymous. Rather, give him a place where he would enjoy resting and train him to sleep or lie there instead.

You can also employ these methods during the day to keep him from crawling into your lap. If he tries, get up if you can or block him from doing so. If, however, he merely sits down on the floor next to you, reward him with affection or a treat. This way, he begins to associate sitting on the floor (and not your lap) with something good, which means he’ll be far more likely to do it than attempt to crawl over you again.

Best of luck, anonymous!

I adopted my Chansey after she trained to be a medical Pokémon. I got her to help me with my hypochondriac tendencies, and she’s been amazing for my mental health and helping me get over my issues. But I just recently caught the flu and was throwing up and she had me bedridden, and was taking care of me. This was great and helped me recover fast but since then she’s been trying to keep me bedridden, even though I’m okay now. Is this normal? What is going on?

Considering the fact that you’ve mentioned hypochondria, I feel it’s necessary to begin by making it clear that everything you’ve mentioned is completely normal, from the symptoms you’re describing (as exhausting as they are on a physical level, given that it takes effort to, well, throw up) to the way your chansey is behaving. It’s good to hear that you’re recovering, anonymous, and I have no doubt you’re well on your way to complete recovery, even if your chansey is being extra cautious on your behalf.

That having been said, although the most severe symptoms of the flu subside within a few days (which is likely what you’re experiencing), it actually takes the human body a bit longer to recover—up to two weeks, in fact. It seems like you had a rather exhausting bout of the flu as well, judging by the vomiting, so you may actually need those extra days to fully heal. During this time, although you may feel fine, you may still be contagious, and chansey, who are often trained to work in hospital settings, understand the risk to that. So in a way, keeping you bedridden is her way of keeping the disease contained—or, in other words, she’s quarantining you. Additionally, she may also be observing you and forcing you to rest so she can be certain your body has healed properly. Complications from the flu are extremely rare, but a good nurse chansey will always be do her best to keep a lookout for them and help her charges avoid them, so to speak.

My best advice, as odd as it is for me to say this (according to my colleagues’ opinions, anyway), is to let her treat you. Take it easy for the next few days and get plenty of rest, even if you feel ready to get back to your usual routine. If she continues this behavior past two weeks, then it would be a good idea to show her that you’re all right and to establish with her clearly that you’ve gotten over the flu days ago. More than likely, however, she’ll let you get up and about as soon as two weeks have passed.

In other words, anonymous, I wouldn’t worry about it for now, no.