animals keep stealing my things somehow

[Lycan]

So I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if dwarves are dropping items but animals called macaque (and another name I've forgot) keep stealing items somehow, I keep getting popups "A macaque has stolen a spear" or a hammer or a set of ladders yet my fortress has cages/doors and is deep underground. Is there a way to prevent thieves that I am missing?

[kheftel]

Thieves can sneak, try chaining a wardog by the entrances

[Lycan]

Originally posted by kheftel:

Thieves can sneak, try chaining a wardog by the entrances

chaining? How do I chain a wardog? Though I don't own any war dogs, would regular dogs do?

[Haethei]

Regular dogs work. You don't need to chain them up either, a regular pasture works fine.

Not sure how thieves are taking your stuff. Doors and cage traps usually do a good job blocking them. Are there dead enemies or dwarves outside your fort where they dropped all of their gear on the floor and you haven't brought it back inside yet? They could just be taking those.

Macaques are small monkeys, they have legendary climbing skill but they tend to flee when they're approached. Seems unlikely that they'd get all the way into your underground fort without being scared off or attacked

[Lycan]

Originally posted by Haethei:

Regular dogs work. You don't need to chain them up either, a regular pasture works fine.

Not sure how thieves are taking your stuff. Doors and cage traps usually do a good job blocking them. Are there dead enemies or dwarves outside your fort where they dropped all of their gear on the floor and you haven't brought it back inside yet? They could just be taking those.

Macaques are small monkeys, they have legendary climbing skill but they tend to flee when they're approached. Seems unlikely that they'd get all the way into your underground fort without being scared off or attacked

That's what I thought but it's been a year+ now and the game is still popping up randomly "a spear was stolen, a stepladder was stolen, a pigtail bag was stolen" etc when there's literally nothing on the surface besides some cages and double sets of doors which block passage into a hill where my stairs leading to my inner base is, it's very strange.

[Haethei]

Originally posted by Lycan:

Originally posted by Haethei:

Regular dogs work. You don't need to chain them up either, a regular pasture works fine.

Not sure how thieves are taking your stuff. Doors and cage traps usually do a good job blocking them. Are there dead enemies or dwarves outside your fort where they dropped all of their gear on the floor and you haven't brought it back inside yet? They could just be taking those.

Macaques are small monkeys, they have legendary climbing skill but they tend to flee when they're approached. Seems unlikely that they'd get all the way into your underground fort without being scared off or attacked

That's what I thought but it's been a year+ now and the game is still popping up randomly "a spear was stolen, a stepladder was stolen, a pigtail bag was stolen" etc when there's literally nothing on the surface besides some cages and double sets of doors which block passage into a hill where my stairs leading to my inner base is, it's very strange.

Go full paranoia mode and see if a line of cage traps directly blocking the path to your items will catch any sneaky monkeys passing through. Just place them as close to the stockpile as you can, right next to the door or inside the hallway that leads into the room. Dwarves don't trigger your own traps so you can just fill the place with them.

[McFuzz]

Originally posted by Lycan:

Originally posted by Haethei:

Regular dogs work. You don't need to chain them up either, a regular pasture works fine.

Not sure how thieves are taking your stuff. Doors and cage traps usually do a good job blocking them. Are there dead enemies or dwarves outside your fort where they dropped all of their gear on the floor and you haven't brought it back inside yet? They could just be taking those.

Macaques are small monkeys, they have legendary climbing skill but they tend to flee when they're approached. Seems unlikely that they'd get all the way into your underground fort without being scared off or attacked

That's what I thought but it's been a year+ now and the game is still popping up randomly "a spear was stolen, a stepladder was stolen, a pigtail bag was stolen" etc when there's literally nothing on the surface besides some cages and double sets of doors which block passage into a hill where my stairs leading to my inner base is, it's very strange.

Doors don't block pathing. By anything. Do the chain trick - you can chain up anything, even a chicken, people just suggested war dogs cuz they're good fighters.

If a creature isn't spotted or scared by another entity on the path to your stockpiles, then they can quite easily steal your goods.

[Ayame Musashi]

I know this is an older post, but as it was first result when searching for "monkeys stealing without being seen" ... I thought I would add to this.

All of the items that were stolen by monkeys, from me, had ( ) around them, and from what I have read, anything with parentheses around the name of the item, means it came from off map.

So all of the items that were stolen from me, actually were from dead goblins that had not been fully looted by my people yet. The parentheses ( ) is a clear indicator.

[Ottfried]

yeah. had that problem a few times. stockpiles to small, dwarfs stop picking up the items from the dead and stuff gets stolen by keas xD

[Quack]

Macaques are proficient thieves irl too.. Best solution is having many hunters so that they take care of such creatures automatically.
But if you're sealed off and the question is more about how are they getting in, I wouldn't know, apart from they can surely climb so you should check if you're sealed on all z levels with no holes