hello again!
back with another suggestion
Suggestion: raise the pet's fatigue stat as it levels and the other stats with prestige. for example:
level up -> +5 to max fatigue
prestige -> +50 max fatigue permanently, +1 dirtiness, +1 affection, +1 hunger
Reason: in all sorts of games with a level/exp mechanic, it's pretty normal for the character/pet to gain stats. while bumping up dirtiness/affection/hunger every level would be a little overkill, raising the fatigue stat with level won't have any negative effects and will give at least a bit more incentive to level and prestige. there's not enough reward mechanics in place for levelling or prestiging despite how much work prestiging takes
my understanding of prestiged pets taking longer to run away is that there's some shadow stats involved, but it'd be nice for those stats to actually be visible effects of our hard work
thanks for coming by!