Taking Care of Yourself: Fluffy Intelligence

Happy Thursday, Positive Animal Caregivers! ♡🐾

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the Winter Olympics playing quietly in the background as I worked. It was perfect — a gentle invitation to pause for 30 seconds and follow an event before returning to my task. With the closing ceremony behind us, I’m back to full focus… and in clear need of reminders to breathe. Are you feeling the same?

For the next few minutes, take a breather. This time is yours. Not the animals’. Not the clients’. Just yours.

Animal caregiving is full of peaks and valleys. Let’s pause and check in —

Add a note if you want (I read them all).

Earlier this week, Robert Hart, a tech reporter from The Verge, published a review after living with his AI pet, Moflin, for a few weeks. According to CASIO, its manufacturer — or should I say, breeder? — Moflin is a “smart companion… with emotions like a living creature.” Within 60 days, the pet is meant to respond uniquely to its owner’s interactions and gradually grow attached.

Two years ago, I left the tech industry to pursue my passion for helping animals. In hindsight, I’m also grateful I stepped away before AI in the cloud and robots on the ground began reshaping nearly every job. Animal caregiving, on the other hand, feels different. Could you really entrust a humanoid to care for your precious fur baby?

“I hate my AI pet with every fiber of my being,” Hart wrote — a line that quietly reassured me that real pets aren’t going anywhere. His Moflin, affectionately named Kevin, couldn’t walk and whined at the slightest noise. Its “personality” lived inside a smartphone app, displayed on a tidy digital dashboard. “The app did have one redeeming feature,” Hart noted: “The ability to stop Kevin’s movements and sounds by putting him into ‘Deep Sleep Mode.’” That’s where he left Kevin.

As a kid, I begged my parents for a Tamagotchi. Mine was white, egg-shaped, with a tiny pixelated screen where my digital pet hatched when the device was first turned on. I spent days feeding, cleaning, and training him. You had to feed on time, clean on time, and entertain him on a strict schedule. I no longer remember my pet’s name, but I vividly recall crying when he “died” — the result of neglect during long school days.

The obsession faded quickly. The experience became repetitive: he didn’t bark, wouldn’t fetch my slippers, and certainly couldn’t engage in a spirited game of tug. I carried him everywhere, yet he never responded differently — whether we were at school, on the basketball court, or even on a date at the corner store with my elementary-school sweetheart. As life grew busier, it became all too easy to tuck him into a drawer.

Of course, real pets can be repetitive too. It takes far more than 60 days for an animal to truly understand you, and when life gets busy, there’s no “deep sleep mode” for Fido or Bella. But a real pet offers more than noise in response to your presence. Whenever I arrive, I’m greeted by tails wagging with unfiltered joy. At work, my bonds with the animals deepen every shift — something I can feel without the need for a digital scoreboard. Together, we build shared memories, engage all the senses, and sometimes even help each other through an awkward situation or two.

“The problem,” Hart concluded, “is that CASIO is selling companionship without actually having produced a companion. A companion is more than something that happens to be near you and makes noise in response to your presence.” 

AI pets will no doubt become more sophisticated, carefully calculating and responding to our emotional needs. Like in the movie Her, some of us may even find ourselves drawn toward virtual forms of companionship. But I find comfort in believing that our pets — with their purring and wagging, their two-year-old-toddler intelligence — will always pull us back into real connection. And I’m quietly confident that I’ll have a job caring for real animals for many years to come.

The percentage of pet parents who snuggle with their pets to de-stress.

Add a note if you want (I read them all).

Mark your calendars for these upcoming opportunities to connect with others:

Here are the ways to recharge this week. Pick ONE small thing that makes you smile. You’ve earned it. 

Listen: I recommend the song “Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley. YouTube said: "My dog loves me singing Bob to him. Just hope Bob's community will enjoy knowing that." Comment or reply to share a song that lifts you up.  

Watch: Relax with Outdoors, a gentle animated short film from France about an old woman, a young girl, and a cockatiel. 

Write: Start a gratitude journal. This week’s prompt: The small moments of human-animal connection. 

Appreciate: Set a five-minute timer and appreciate a beautiful piece of art. The art for this week is: Dogs of Cythera.

Try: Explore a new fruit. Visit your local grocery store and choose something unfamiliar — a new apple variety, perhaps — that you’ve never tasted before.

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Thanks for spending part of your day with me and the rest of the Positive Animal Caregivers Club. Take care of yourself this week. Remember - even superheroes need naps. 

– Philip