A Parent's Short Guide to Virtual Pets Online

Virtual pets have grown in popularity in recent years. Many people of all ages maintain one breed or species of e-pet or another. If your children are interested in adopting one of their own, or if you are looking for a way to teach your little ones about responsibility and caring for a living thing without buying a pet, then read on.

FooPets

FooPets offers a graphically advanced virtual dog or cat. This creates some limitations, such as a single coloration for each breed. Signing up for FooPets is free and will require the usual information (name and email address).

Cost

FooPets can be played without paying a cent. However, if your child wants to breed his or her pet, they will need to purchase FooDollars. These are currently offered at a rate of roughly 10 cents to the FooDollars. Occasionally, sales are offered. There are other ways to earn FooDollars through completing offers but there is no guarantee the FooDollars will be awarded and many of these request information a young child should not be giving out online.


Content

FooPets offers a relatively friendly community with a forum and a way to chat live with your top friends through a web based program called Meebo. They adhere to a strict no foul language policy. The atmosphere is very child friendly.


Realism

Your child will have to care for their FooPets every day. Each pet's health is measured through status bars. Within 24 hours, each bar will be down to nothing. Ideally, food, water and a little playtime should be given to each pet at least once or twice every day. Children can learn to care for their pets and earn FooGems and Karma by doing so.

Chicken Smoothie

Chicken Smoothie lacks the animation and fine pet detail of FooPets, but the creatures here are unique and adorable. They are drawn in a style that is akin to Anime. Unlike other virtual pets, they require no maintenance.

Cost

Chicken Smoothie also has its own currency called Chicken Dollars. These are bought with real money and are used to accessorize pets. The current rate is a little over 6 cents to the Chicken Dollar. This site also offers a "shut off" feature if members are concerned about overspending.


Content

The overall feel of Chicken Smoothie is very child friendly. The rules are very similar to FooPets, and a community exists with a forum for social interaction.


Realism

If you want to educate your children on caring for a living thing, Chicken Smoothie is not a good option. These pets require zero care and there is no consequence for not caring for your pet. On the other hand, if you want a virtual pet that you can visit at your leisure, Chicken Smoothie may be ideal for you.

Show Cattle

Show Cattle is a little different than the previous two because it does not offer a pet that you observe but rather provides tools for overseeing a cattle ranch. Livestock can be bred, sold or shown.

Cost

Show Cattle can be played for free and there is no currency to purchase. However a monthly subscription option is available. The fees are minimal, just under $5 for one month, with options that go up to one year for about $40.


Content

This virtual ranch website may be better suited for older children. Parents may be a little wary of the buying of cattle semen and embryos (although nothing explicit is shown). Also, the site setup would probably quickly grow dull for a young child. There are far less furry, cute creatures and more text and cattle maintenance charts.


Realism

Unfortunately, I have never owned a cattle ranch, so I cannot speak on how true to life Show Cattle is. I can say that from a non-cattle owner's position, it looks true to life in terms of maintaining a herd. However, if you want something that focuses on an individual pet for your child, look elsewhere.

The Elusive Female Gamer

I am an avid female gamer with an affection for MMORPGs. I have played a few, starting as far back as Dark Age of Camelot, moving on to World of Warcraft then Warhammer Online. I currently enjoy Runes of Magic and have learned a thing or two about MMORPGs in general. The information provided won't get you "l33t" gear or rare items, but it will help you coexist in groups and form beneficial bonds with your fellow gamers. You can be the charming tank, healer or DPSer everyone wants in their group!

Virtual Pet Adoption Websites Online

If you are a parent or you have a little one in your life, I'm sure you are always looking for new discoveries and new toys to buy them. Recently I was online looking for something I heard about called a Virtual Pet Adoption or VPA. Honestly at first I knew nothing about these little guys or even what they were, but I was looking for something fun and creative for my little cousin so I thought I would give it a try. I found a few dozen sites on the right virtual pet adoption I was looking for (the others were live pets you could adopt from around the world for a fee) and it sounds really sweet and like a really cute idea!

Here is how it works; you can find a virtual pet website online and you can adopt that pet and do other things with them such as activities, dress them, feed them, you can even send them to school or get them a job! Before all of that however, you will need to register with the virtual pet adoption website and "choose" your animal, these animals include every day domestics such as kitties and puppies on up to other things like monkeys, frogs, lions and rabbits among other animals.

Once you pick the animal you want, you can then do whatever you want with the pet. Just to try this out and see how it worked and to make sure it wouldn't be too hard for my cousin, I adopted a frog named George. I even got to pick what color I wanted him to be so I was a little adventurous and picked a poison dart frog which was aptly colored orange and blue!

On a lot of these sites you won't just play with your animal and dress it, you will also need to feed it, take it for walks and take care of it when it's sick. This really is a superb idea for children that aren't allowed to have real pets or aren't old enough to take care of their own kitty or puppy just yet.

This site isn't just about "play" though, it's also a good chance for the children in your life to get a taste of responsibility as well! This is a nice change from a lot of the other games available online because children can actually learn something from this idea! If you want an outlet to keep your kids busy, think about virtual pet adoption since playing with a pet online will keep your child busy for a long time and you won't have to clean up the mess created by a live pet. I don't know about your little ones, but this sounds like a fantastic idea for my cousin!

This author is a HUGE fan of Virtual Pet Adoption