The Dog Collar is a rare recyclable item in ARC Raiders, and it's the sole requirement for training Scrappy — your pet rooster — from level one to level two. Once upgraded, Scrappy passively gathers basic crafting materials every time you go topside, whether you extract successfully or not. That makes the Dog Collar one of the most important early-game pickups, yet many players burn through multiple raids without ever seeing one.
Quick answer: Search drawers, cabinets, suitcases, and loose surfaces inside Residential-tagged areas on the Buried City and Blue Gate maps. The Grandioso Apartments and the Village are the highest-density spots.
Why the Dog Collar is hard to find
ARC Raiders uses contextualized loot, meaning items only appear in locations that thematically match their category. The Dog Collar is classified as a Residential item with rare (blue) rarity, so it competes with a large pool of other household objects — cat beds, remote controls, kettles, water purifiers — inside the same containers. You can technically stumble across one on any map, but the drop chance outside dedicated Residential zones is extremely low.
Best Dog Collar locations on Buried City
Buried City offers the densest cluster of Residential points of interest, all concentrated in the southern half of the map. Prioritize these three areas:
- Grandioso Apartments — the largest Residential zone on the map and your best overall bet. Multiple floors of drawers, cabinets, and loose loot surfaces give you the most rolls per visit.
- Santa Maria Houses — a mid-sized neighborhood with several lootable homes packed close together.
- Red Tower — the smallest of the three, worth checking if you still need the collar after sweeping the apartments and houses.
Smaller unmarked buildings scattered between these landmarks can also contain Residential loot, so open every drawer you pass on the way.
Best Dog Collar locations on Blue Gate
Blue Gate is a larger map, but its Residential zones are spread across the northern and southern edges. Focus on the north side first:
- Village — located in the northwest, this cluster of homes has the highest container density on the map. Many players report finding their Dog Collar here within a couple of runs.
- Raider's Refuge — another solid northern option with multiple searchable interiors.
- Ruined Homestead — a small settlement in the south, northwest of Ancient Fort. It has fewer buildings, and many are partially destroyed, but there are still enough drawers and containers to justify a sweep if the northern zones came up empty.
Dam Battlegrounds — Ruby Residence
While Buried City and Blue Gate are the primary farming maps, the Ruby Residence apartment complex in the northwest corner of Dam Battlegrounds is a popular alternative. Several players have reported finding a Dog Collar on their very first visit there, either inside a container or sitting loose on a surface inside one of the apartments. If you're already running Dam for other objectives, it's worth a detour.
How to track and protect the Dog Collar
Step 1: Open the Workshop menu and select Scrappy's training option. Click the Track button on the Dog Collar requirement. This adds a small diamond icon to the item card, making it much easier to spot in your inventory when you finally loot one.
Step 2: Once you pick up a Dog Collar during a raid, immediately move it into your Safe Pocket. Items in the Safe Pocket are preserved even if you die or fail to extract, so you won't lose your hard-earned find to an ambush on the way to the escape channel.
Step 3: Back at Speranza, open the Workshop, select Scrappy, and hit Train. The upgrade consumes one Dog Collar and promotes Scrappy to level two.
What Scrappy does after the upgrade
At level two, Scrappy returns roughly five to seven units of each basic gray-rarity crafting material every time you come back from a raid — regardless of whether you extracted alive. He can stockpile up to 50 units of each material, so you don't need to collect from him after every single run if your stash is already full. Later upgrades require different items (lemons and apricots for the next tier), but none of those subsequent training levels unlock until the Dog Collar upgrade is complete.
Tips for improving your odds
Running raids during Map Modifier events like Night Raids or Electromagnetic Storms increases the chance of rare loot across the board, which includes the Dog Collar. Night Raids in particular tend to have better drop rates for blue-rarity items.
If you're using a free loadout, you risk nothing by dropping into Buried City, speed-looting the Grandioso Apartments, and extracting early. Repeating this loop is one of the fastest ways to cycle through Residential loot rolls without burning valuable gear.
If you happen to find a spare Dog Collar after upgrading Scrappy, it can be recycled into eight Fabric and one Metal Parts, or salvaged for five Fabric. You can also pass extras to squadmates who are still hunting for theirs.
The Dog Collar hunt can feel frustrating because of the wide Residential loot pool, but sticking to the high-density apartment and village zones on Buried City and Blue Gate keeps the grind as short as possible. Once Scrappy hits level two, every raid starts paying dividends — even the ones that go sideways.
