Gene (Fallout 4)

“Nice dog! But he looks lonely. Don't you think he could use a playmate?”— Gene's initial dialogue if the Sole Survivor's companion is Dogmeat

Gene is a dog breeder wandering in the Commonwealth in 2287.

Background

Gene wanders the Commonwealth to sell dogs he raised himself, albeit begrudgingly, stating that he "feels blue for a week after selling a dog."

Interactions with the player character

Interactions overview

Interactions
	This character is a merchant.	Sells: dogs

Other interactions

Gene is a character that the Sole Survivor may meet in the Commonwealth as a random encounter. If the Sole Survivor is able to pass a Charisma check of 5 or higher, he will offer the junkyard dog for 250 caps. However, he seems reluctant to do so, asking the Sole Survivor multiple times if they are certain they would like to purchase his dog.
Gene can be encountered multiple times in random encounters, and he will be willing to sell a new dog on each new encounter.

Inventory

Apparel	Weapon	Other items
Flannel shirt and jeans	Pipe gun or Pipe bolt-action or Pipe revolver	-

Encounter locations

In front of Collegiate administration building, near the local Red Rocket.
East of Starlight Drive In, near/under the red train bridge.
Outside Outpost Zimonja
In Sanctuary Hills
At Thicket Excavations
Near College Square
Northwest of Forest Grove marsh
South of ArcJet Systems
Southwest of County crossing near bridge
At Sunshine Tidings co-op
At Tenpines Bluff
Outside the Museum of Witchcraft
Outside the Red Rocket truck stop
Outside Longneck Lukowski's Cannery
West side of Fairline Hill Estates on the road
At Oberland station
At Bedford Station
At Concord
Between Somerville Place and Suffolk County charter school, sometimes walking across or through the tracks
At Abernathy Farm, wandering to and from Concord
At Boston Police rationing site
At Graygarden

Notes

Often spawns outside Abernathy Farm during the day time, near the grave behind the farm. If the grave is to the west, he'll routinely spawn immediately north of the grave, slowly walking eastward.
Gene's dogs can not be equipped with clothing items like Dogmeat can. However, these dogs can loot dead enemy attackers and auto-equip dog-related gear such as wraparound goggles, bandanas, dog chains, etc., however, their inventories are inaccessible without the use of console commands.
Gene has unique dialogue if the Sole Survivor is using Dogmeat as a companion.
If Gene is dead, or when the Sole Survivor cannot find Gene, but still wants a Junkyard dog in their settlement the console may be used to spawn a dog. At any settlement use "placeatme 00176337 1" to spawn a random Junkyard Dog and then use the workshop to send him to a settlement. The console cannot be used to spawn Gene due to his unique state in the game.

Here is a method to add Gene back to the random encounter pool if he has died in your game (PC only):

Open up the console and type in the command "tcai". This will disable the games combat AI (you will understand why if you don't before using the next command).
Type in "coc REHoldingCell". You will now be in a room that contains some random encounter NPCs (if you did not use the former command all the NPCs will begin shooting a few of the other NPCs). If Gene really is dead then he should not be in this cell (if he is, then he is still alive and you don't need to continue through these steps).
Type in the command placeatme 00194334 to spawn Gene into this cell.
Type in the command coc tenpinesbluff (or a different location of your choosing) to teleport somewhere in the Commonwealth as you cannot fast travel from this room.

After doing this, Gene has now been re-added to the random encounter pool and you will now encounter him again in the Commonwealth. This may work with other NPC random encounters that have died that you wish to revive (although some random encounters exist in different rooms so it is important to verify if they were in this room to begin with!)

Appearances

Gene appears only in Fallout 4.

Bugs

Xbox One If the player character interacts with Gene, he may only respond with "yeah" or some other generic dialogue, and the option to purchase a dog may not be made available. The option to purchase a dog may be fixed if you choose every other dialogue option. ^[verified]