Hurt (Trigger)
Hurt is an ability trigger that activates when a pet receives damage.
Some exceptions to that rule are health reduction abilities from 
Skunk and 
Sea Urchin, which reduce health without hurting the pet. This also applies to 
Fried Shrimp. Upon fainting, a Pet will activate it's Hurt ability but only if it was fainted from taking damage i.e., knocked out by an enemy attack/ability or something like a friendly 
Leech/
Hedgehog/
Badger ability.
Hurt abilities will NOT activate if the Hurt Pet is directly fainted/knocked out by an ability. The only instances of which being 
Sleeping Pill and 
Praying Mantis.
See Hurt Pets for a list of pets with hurt abilities as well as pets that especially synergise with them.
Strategy
Pets with hurt triggers benefit from having a lot of health. Use pets that mainly give health, such as 
Duck, 
Rabbit, and 
Orangutan; and foods that mainly give health, like 
Peach, 
Broccoli, 
Cucumber, and 
Orange.
There are some pets that hurt their own friends: the most prevalent of them is the 
Elephant. Before attacking, the Elephant hurts the unit behind it, thus activating their hurt effect. By leveling up the Elephant and keeping it alive, it can offer more triggers out of the hurt pet. Though keep in mind that the Elephant can and will kill the pet behind it if allowed to get an especially high amount of triggers or if the pet behind has poor health..
Another important animal is the Leech: at the end of the turn, it hurts the pet in front of it. Unlike the Elephant, the Leech hurts the pets in the shop, and therefore the stat changes are permanent. A popular and effective strategy is to put the Leech behind a 
Camel and scale the Leech for at minimum +2 attack and +3 health every turn.
Lastly, the Hedgehog deals damage to every pet upon fainting. Multiple Hedgehog's are especially potent when paired with a singular 
Blowfish with high health. Each faint from the Hedgehogs will trigger the Blowfish's ability an additional time which makes 
Mushroom incredibly valuable as it doubles the amount of hurt triggers for the Blowfish per Hedgehog. Levelling up Hedgehogs with this strategy can be risky and care should be taken to reduce the amount of damage the Blowfish takes.
Since the hurt pets get value from staying in the battle for a long time, the best Food Perks to use on them are 
Garlic and potentially 
Lemon. These reduce damage taken with completely blocking all damage taken like 
Melon does and therefore the Hurt Pets can be more protected while also activating their abilities. 
Pepper is also good for ensuring at least one Hurt trigger before the Pet faints - especially on 
Gorilla as it's ability will replace its Food Perk anyway, meaning singular use perks that don't completely block damage are best suited for it.
Certain teams consisting of large amounts of Sniper Pets are somewhat countered by hurt pets, due to them getting value out of multiple small instances of damage. They also get good value from pets with 
Chili or 
Skewer and ultimately Summon Pets as a whole due to their similar "multiple small instances of damage" strategy.
Ultimately, pets with hurt triggers are strong mid-game, but fall off in the later turns. Against 50/50s, Hurt pets can struggle to get more than one or two triggers off. Unless enabled through Leech or Elephant, they won't maintain viability throughout the entirety of a game.
Version History
- 0.27:
- Changed Hurt abilities to still trigger even if the pet fainted as a result of taking damage.
Trivia
- "Armor popping" used to trigger hurt effects