The way Paleo Pines works is that you take care of your dinos to keep them happy. There's various active things you can do to boost their happiness, which reset each day– stuff like petting them. There's also various passive things you're expected to do, which helps maintain contentment so if you look away for a minute they don't go THIS SUCKS I'M OUT– stuff like giving them a pen biome they like.
The intention is approximately that your friends are content unless someone pooped in the pen that morning, at which point you go clean it up to return them to happiness.
Instead, the way it works for my desert birdthings specifically is that Blueberry (left) is ALWAYS happy. EVEN IF someone pooped. Riptide (just above trough) and Ocean (big) will be cranky about it... but only until I walk into the pen, at which point they light up and I get the "they're happy now!" toast notifications. When I haven't even solved the problem by scooping yet!
Mechanically I know this just means I stacked so many Happy passives that dinopoop's Unhappy debuff can't take them below neutral. But in my heart these fuckers are a bunch of cats: they don't ACTUALLY care about the problem, they just just want me to pay attention to them. And then get underfoot while I try to clean up. Love you too guys....