For more than a month, the same ad has appeared every time I open my weather app. “This cute and realistic bunny robot toy is perfect for Easter,” it says. It pictures a tiny white rabbit resting in a man’s hand. The rabbit has pink ears and a pink mask around its eyes. Precious, for sure.
The bunny got me thinking about the “robot dog” that belonged to my grandparents, who– as far back as I can remember–only ever had one real dog. She was a rat terrier mix named Sparkle and was the most hilarious dog ever. Example: Granddaddy would snap open a brown paper Safeway sack and lay it on the ground. Then he’d whistle for Sparkle. She would run straight into that sack and let Granddaddy fold it closed and carry it all over the neighborhood while she thrashed around inside. Then he’d let her out and they’d do the same thing over and over again until they were both happily worn out.
But back to their robot dog. It was brown and white and looked not like a rat terrier, but like a little bitty Saint Bernard. The dog had batteries in its belly and could walk all the way across the living room without stumbling. Then it would sit, bark two times and do a perfect back flip. Grandmother kept the dog on the shelf of the coat closet and used it to entertain children who came to visit, including my three, but I’m certain she didn’t consider it a pet.
Simpler times, those. Robot animals have come a long, long way in the decades since.
In addition to the aforementioned palm-sized bunny, which can hop, twitch its nose and wiggle its ears, other robot pets are readily for sale on the internet. Penguins. Goats. Pandas. Baby monkeys. Sloths. And many breeds of dogs. These animals come in a wide price range, from $8.97 at Walmart to hundreds and even thousands of dollars.
Cats appear to be the stars of the robot pet industry. The most interesting one I found is a “Metacat,” which retails for $189. It’s featured on a site catering to caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients and is billed as an appealing, low-maintenance alternative to a live pet. That’s clearly true. No food or water required. No need to spay or neuter. No fleas. No litterbox. No jumping onto kitchen counters or shredding the sofa upholstery just for fun. No interminable yowling in the middle of the night.
The Metacat has a loving face and soft hypoallergenic fur. It meows quietly at unpredictable intervals, moves its head, blinks its eyes and will sit in a person’s lap and purr for hours at a time. As an added bonus, it has rechargeable batteries. For those whose life challenges include dementia or PTSD or loneliness or allergies or landlords who don’t allow pets, a robot pet might well be the perfect companion.
I was visiting my Colorado grandkids when I wrote this column and asked what they thought about such things. Their conclusion? A robot pet would be fun and super-easy to take care of, no doubt. All you have to do is keep the battery charged. The downside? You can give the robot pet love but it can’t give love back to you.
All of which made me harken back to the biggest reason I’m not a fan of robot pets. It’s something that, years ago, scarred me forever and always: the terrifying Mechanical Hound in “Fahrenheit 451,” the most prescient dystopian novel of all times. Ray Bradbury’s weaponized robotic dog hunts down and destroys individuals suspected of possessing or reading books. Obviously, the Hound symbolizes the suppression of intellectual freedom and dissent.
As I write these words, that’s exactly what’s happening right now in these United States of America. And the powers-that-be aren’t even using robot pets to do it. Not yet, anyway.
(April 19, 2025)