Do you wish you could have a pet but you’re allergic? Does your landlord prohibit pets in your building? Are your children persistently asking you to get a pet but you don’t think they are prepared to take proper care of a living creature? Consider registering for free to adopt a virtual pet at Neopets.

The brainchild of Adam Powell in 1997 and officially launched as a website in 1999, at Neopets you can create your own virtual pet and earn points to take care of the pet and help it grow. You can choose from a variety of animals such as birds, dragons, rabbits and tigers and then select the pet’s name, color and personality. Your Neopet is assigned statistics about its strength, health and movement and your Neopet is officially born online.

By playing games, you can build Neopian fortune to spend on the care and feeding of your Neopet to help it thrive. When you fail to care for your Neopet, it goes into a suspended state of dying (the pet never actually dies) until you return to care for it again. In order to make your Neopet thrive, you need to earn a lot of points through the website activities.

Neopets is entertaining and fun for all ages. I would discuss Internet safety with my children before allowing them to adopt a Neopet and have them review the safety page at the website. However, children can learn about earning points (much like money) and earning interest, taking care of a creature, maintaining a web page for their pet and even a bit about how the stock market works at Neodaq. If you become a real Neopet enthusiast, there is real merchandise that can be purchased on the website to show your level of dedication to your virtual pet.

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