FurReal Pets

Around Christmas of 2005, I was seeing all sorts of FurReal Friends in the stores. They had dogs, cats, kittens, puppies. We had bought my daughter an used animatronic cat that she really liked, but it was really beaten up and soon, he was malfunctioning. Seeing that the FurReal pets were only $12.99, I felt the price was right for a toy that could interact with my daughter. I was also hoping to use the toy as a "starter" pet for her, so that she could learn how to properly play with a real animal. We'd had some issues with her wanting to be a little too rough with real dogs.

I ended up buying the FurReal Friends Newborn Puppy (Brown and Tan). Unfortunately, most of the animals don't have real names and some, including the puppy I bought, don't tell you want kind of breed the dog is supposed to be. The puppy I purchased looks a bit like a brown and tan bulldog. The newborn puppy acts a lot like a newborn puppy. It sleeps a lot, makes whimpering noises if you don't play with it, and to wake it up you need to pet it. Being a robotic puppy, it doesn't feel like a real puppy. It's easy to feel the plastic battery box under his stomach. He is interactive, but not as much as I was hoping for. Despite his lack of actions, my daughter really did like him and learned how to "pet nice". Since learning on him, she's been much better with real animals, so I feel it did serve the purpose I bought it for.

All FurReal pets come with an adoption certificate, which is cute and fun for a child. Each pet comes with one or more items, as well, such as a brush, bottle or a leash. FurReal pets are meant for children 4 and older. There are more than just newborn puppies on the market, and perhaps I should have gone with a dog or a cat, something that would interact more with a child. It seems the newborns are limited in their actions simply because they are meant to be newborns. The other FurReal pets are priced above the $12.99 that I spent, but there is more variety to what they do. For example, if you pull on a FurReal cat's tail, it will get angry and hiss at you. A dog will bark and sit, lie down, give you his paw, and beg. While I do feel that the newborn kittens and puppies are realistic, they just aren't as much fun as the pets that do more (yes, I played with the newborn puppy).

I should mention that at Christmas time, Toys R' Us was well-stocked with FurReal pets. After the holiday, the selection at any store (Target, Walmart, K.B. Toys, etc.) was VERY limited. The best place to buy one of their interactive pets is directly from Hasbro.com. I notice that I don't see any of the cats that I had seen in the stores and it seems that new pets are replacing others on the shelves and online. I believe Hasbro noticed that the newborn were more popular and better sellers, which is why it's very hard to find a cat rather than a kitten on store shelves.

FurReal pets are not just limited to domestic animals, either. Chimps, polar bears, tiger cubs, baby bears, baby bunnies, and a more interactive dog, their line of Scamps My Playful Pup. They even have a pony named Butterscotch. There are a lot of options for animatronic pets in the FurReal pet line. The lowest price is $12.99 for newborns (including a newborn chimp) and as high as $49.99 for the Scamps line of dogs. A chimp will run $29.99, which isn't bad for a toy that can clap his hands and have different facial expressions. Finally, the pony, Butterscotch, is almost $300. With the exception of the pony, all the pets are pretty affordable, very cute, and they actually do things. Overall, I'd have preferred to have bought one of the other pets that do more than make puppy noises, but for the price and my daughter's happiness over it, I think $13 was a very good price for this type of toy.