When I started out on Xbox with Skyrim, the "Bring Meeko to Lod" mod was one of the first mods I added. It is such a great idea and so heartwarming! I would go by Falkreath just to see him hanging out with Lod and it always made me smile.

But I was sad to notice that he was left alone outside at the forge at night when Lod went to sleep inside. So when I installed the beautiful RedBag's overhaul of Falkreath and needed to make a patch, I decided to also tweak it so Meeko spends the night inside.

                                                                      - What these patches do -
> Allows Meeko to go inside Lod's house. When Lod accepts Meeko from you, Meeko is given a house key. Yup, a key. Otherwise, when Lod goes inside, Meeko can't, in many cases.
> Keeps Meeko with Lod at all times... he follows him when he isn't hanging out at the forge during the day, or inside Lod's house at night.
> Places a custom treat bowl and a rug near the forge. Lod clearly loves dogs and would want to be ready for his new best friend. I also placed  some dog lie-down idle markers around the forge for when he is sandboxing. The JK's Skyrim does not add a rug, as there is already one there placed by that mod. 
> Lastly, the Redbag's Falkreath patch is slightly different, it makes Lod a persistent ref again. This does not edit his NPC record so it is safe to use with any replacers. He was initially through USSEP, but for some reason the overhaul removed that flag. In order for Meeko to follow him correctly, that flag needs to be set. (I am relatively new to modding, so this may not be the case.. but SSEedit threw an error when he wasn't marked persistent.)

Technically the vanilla best friend patch would work just fine on the Cities of the North Falkreath.. but since the bowl and rug need to be placed in the right spot, there is a separate patch for it.

If you have any issues with the actual quest to give Meeko to Lod, please refer to Bring Meeko To Lod and its troubleshooting tips. All this patch modifies is adding a key to Meeko's inventory. FYI, in my testing, even with the NFF ignore token in his inventory, he was still included in the NFF framework, and I had to dismiss him to get him to stay with Lod. But it worked every time.

UPDATE March 18, 2024: I have added a patch for the wonderful A Dog's Life mod and RedBag's Falkreath. ADL includes the mechanism for giving Meeko to Lod in it, and having him follow him; my patch modifies it to give him a house key. It also moves the ADL sandboxing marker for Meeko to match the new forge location and provides the custom bowl and an ADL dog bed.

I want to express my gratitude to AndrealphusVIII for the original Bring Meeko to Lod mod, and all the joy it has given me. I also want to thank RedBag for his Falkreath overhaul, which got me started on this quest. Also, thanks to DarkFox127 for the great A Dog's Life mod and for permission to make the patch.

And a VERY emphatic thank you must go out to my friend and mentor Hanshotfirst01, who spent several hours to help me get my broken Creation Kit set up and edit the script. (without having to teach me, it would have taken her about 5 minutes)

Miscellaneous info: Lod is from the NPC overhaul Pride of Skyrim. Meeko's rug in the pictures is from the mod RUGNAROK. The treat bowl I designed myself, using Photoshop Elements, Paint.net and Nifskope.

I give definite permission to Tricky3614 to port any of my Bring Meeko to Lod Best Friend Patches to the XBox platform, thank you so much for offering to do this!

100% of the donation points from this mod are going to charity.