Lots of news came out of Quakecon this week, but one of the nicest has to be that Fallout 4’s Dogmeat is actually based on one of the development teams own dogs named River.

Of course, animators use real life references more often than not, but River belongs to Level Designer Joel Burgess, so the dog spent a lot of time in the office, running around doing dog stuff.

Dogmeat is my copilot. Literally. #BE3 pic.twitter.com/tNUq2vFuKj

— Joel Burgess (@JoelBurgess) June 15, 2015

So good! #Fallout4 #artteamisamazing #lookatthoseeyebrows pic.twitter.com/k3YEREugOv

— Michelle Burgess (@MichelleBurgess) July 8, 2015

Todd Howard said that it was important for River to be around the office, in order to help the team with animations and behaviors. One of these according to Todd is that whenever the player is doing something, the team wanted to know how Dogmeat should respond. They also showed a reel of River doing dog stuff like catching frisbees and running around the office… for reference material of course.