Item Slots for Animal Companions

Question

Animal companions can have barding and horses in particular have access to magical horseshoes, but are there any rules stopping me from making custom magic items for other possible slots?

For example: Magic collars for wolves & dogs could act like rings & amulets. Magic caparisons for horses could act like magic cloaks.

Answer 1

The Pathfinder rules only explicitly state the slots available for humanoid creatures. However, there are two possible leads on an answer - this Paizo thread quotes an old 3.5 "Rules of the Game" article allows up to 12 slots, but the ruling in Living Greyhawk games was only slotless, animal specific, barding, and amulet (collar). I personally would go with the latter but I hate Christmas tree syndrome.

Answer 2

Something to remember is that an Amulet of Mighty Fists specifically states "This amulet grants an enhancement bonus of +1 to +5 on attack and damage rolls with unarmed attacks and natural weapons." It also lets you add weapon special properties to unarmed and natural attacks. Animals have Natural weapons, so it would stand to reason than any animal would be able to use such an item. The problem with animals and some items is that they cannot (for obvious reasons) activate magical items, so any items they could use would have to be of the "always on when worn" variety. You could argue that an item had been specifically designed to be activated by an animal, but you would need to use one of the animal's tricks to teach it how to use it, and then command the animal to turn it on or off.

Also note that unless your playing in a world where Druids and Wizards are constantly outfitting all of their animals with these things, finding magical equipment for an Animal is likely to be a rare thing. Players may need to commission the construction of these specialty magical items, something that requires time (finding a person who can create a masterwork item of the required type, finding the person who can enchant it, negotiating with these people, plus the time required to craft such things) and raw resources the players may or may not not have. If your Druid/Ranger wants magical items for their pets, this could easily become a quest in and of itself.

I do like the 12-slot list given by mxyzplk. I think it would give a character many options for outfitting his animal companion.