Is your apartment too small to own a pet? Do you love animals but dread the thought of running behind them everyday now and then? Wondering how difficult it would be to maintain the house with the presence of a pet? Well fret not, for all the people who love animals but think that having a pet is a truly daunting task, there is a convenient option of adopting virtual pets. They're also known as desktop pets or computer pets are a great way to have your own pet in the virtual world.

Virtual Desktop Pet Adoption

Remember the funny looking office assistants that appear in MS word? Well just like a virtual assistant, the technological advancements have made it possible to have a virtual pet as well. For people who are still alien to the concept of virtual pets, let me tell you that they're nothing but digitally designed graphical pets, which you can see on your computer and interact owing to the several interactive features incorporated in them.

These pets are nothing but animated characters, which can be treated as 'virtual pets' for as long as the user wishes to. There is a wide range of activities that you and your online pet can indulge in. You can feed your pet, groom and even take it for a walk in the virtual world. There are some websites that allow you to create a virtual image of yourself and then allow you to get your own virtual pet as well. You can choose the kind of animal or character that you want as a pet, name it and modify the appearance according to your own wish.

The options are not limited to virtual dogs, cats and fish but offer you almost all the animals that exist in this world. There are also graphically generated robots or other animated characters that can be adopted as virtual pets. You can name these pets, feed them, give them medicine, take them for a stroll through the online park and even play with them. Technically speaking there are three types of virtual pets - downloadable, online and dual.

The downloadable virtual computer pets can be downloaded once from the website. Once downloaded you need not be connected to the Internet to interact with your pet. The online virtual pets are however accessible only when a person is logged onto the Internet. Whereas the dual virtual pets are stuffed toys that come with a coded printed on them, which allows the user to log into the respective virtual pet websites in order to feed the pet or give medicines to the pet. According to your convenience and preference you can choose any pet that you wish and have a lifelong virtual companionship with.

Before Adopting a Virtual Pet

The first thing that you need to keep in mind is the safety of your computer security. Internet downloading is convenient but poses a major risk to your virtual security. So, before downloading any virtual pet or related software, ensure that you have adequate virus protection as well as protection against spyware and adware. Virtual pet adoption is possible via paid as well as non-paid adoption or downloading sites. The paid sites can be considered relatively safer as compared to the non-paid ones, which are a fishier as far as virus and spyware attacks are concerned.

The second thing to look for is the space that the virtual pet will occupy on your system. Adopting them can be quite fun, however in case you are planning to adopt an online pet, care should be taken that it is not against your company policies to download personal software at your workstation. Virtual pets can be delight for children and adults alike, however while comparing real world pets to these computer-generated pets you must remember that virtual pet adoption comes nowhere close to the 'real deal'.