Social networking for pets

Dwarf Hamsters in their wheel

Social networking is the new “It” thing. Everybody’s doing it. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn – I’ll bet that almost everyone you know has a page or a presence on at least one of these services. But, did you know that there are also social networks for pets?

These social networks are not just for the pet owners, but for the pets themselves. Some have been around for years, others are new and hoping to gain the popularity of the social networks for humans.

These networks work basically the same as Facebook and Myspace. On most, you can create a profile page for each of your pets, collect friends, play games, decorate your page, add pictures, send gifts, and write blogs. Just like the social networks for humans, each pet network has its own format and functionality. If you join a site, or sites, you’ll want to experiment to see which one is right for you.

Here are some social networking sites for pets:

Dogster – The original social networking site for dogs and their owners. Dogster was created in January of 2004.

Catster – The sister site of Dogster, created in August of 2004. This site is for cats and their owners. My cats each have their own pages on Catster. Max’s page is here, and you can find Buddy here.

Hamsterster – Believe it or not, there’s a social network for hamsters and gerbils. Not having one of these animals, I don’t know much about this site, but there seems to be quite a few hamsters and gerbils who belong to this site. Not affiliated with Dogster/Catster.

Petster – This is another site that’s not affiliated with Dogster/Catster but is playing off the popularity of those sites. Petster is a site for all types of pets. On the front page of the site, they list the top 5 types of pets listed on Petster – dogs, cats, birds, rabbits and hamsters. Looking through the pictures of new pets, besides the top 5 types of pets I also saw horses, fish, reptiles and even a crab. So, if you have any kind of pet, you might want to check out this site.

Other sites that welcome all pets are Youpet, Yeepet, and Cute as Hell. These sites are all relatively new sites, but are growing quickly in the number of members joining daily.