These Tampa Bay seniors’ robotic pets aren’t real. The feelings they inspire are. 2%
By Lane DeGregory0%
7/21/2026, 4:00:01 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 25 faulty reasoning types, including Post Hoc (False Cause), Confirmation Bias, and Availability Heuristic, with Optimism Bias as the most egregious example at 5.4% saturation with 85 hits. Analysis detected 594 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,586 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 13.1% and a BS Rank of 2% (19,283 of 19,671 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 98.00% of the article peer group.
In the lobby of Clear Bay Terrace apartments, someone set up a fake fire hydrant — a photo backdrop for people and their new pets.
A plastic bench sat beside a tiny dog house.
A sparkling banner proclaimed, “Let’s Pawty!”
The room filled up fast that May morning.
Scores of residents rolling in wheelchairs, pushing walkers.
All of them lived alone.
“Welcome to Adoption Day!”
called Mariah Cruz, who organizes events at the subsidized housing complex in Clearwater.
“We’re going to call your name, and you can pick out your fur baby!”
Bandanas and plastic brushes blanketed a table in front of her.
Behind her, a playpen writhed with robotic animals.
Golden puppies with glowing glass eyes barked softly.
Silver cats with pink tongues mewed.
Residents had filled out forms, ranking their levels of isolation and depression, picking which animal they preferred.
Forty of them were chosen to adopt.
“Sherrie Sanogo!”
Cruz cried, “Come on down!”
A woman limped forward, leaning on a cane.
When she picked up a dog, it blinked.
She stroked its soft fur, cooing, “Oooh, look at this sweet boy!”
“What are you going to name it?”
Cruz asked.
“Chucky!”
Sanogo said.
“For my favorite movie.”
Sanogo, 52, had always wanted a dog.
She couldn’t afford a real one, she said, and couldn’t move well enough anyway to take one on walks.
Easing onto the bench for a photo, she cradled Chucky on her lap.
“C’mon,” she told the dog.
“Show Mama some love.”
The dog cocked its head toward her and opened its mouth, like a smile.
Can a pretend pet really help?
Robo-pets don’t look real.
They’re not meant to trick anyone into thinking they are actual animals.
But when you touch them, they respond.
Dogs wag.
Cats purr.
They turn to follow your voice.
When you hug one, you can feel its electronic heartbeat.
Most of the residents here stay in their apartments and don’t get visitors, Cruz said.
She wants them to have a reason to get up in the morning.
You never have to buy food for them, walk them or scoop their poop.
FurReal Friends debuted in 2002 as interactive electronic cats designed by Hasbro engineers, made for kids.
A robotic puppy walked out the next year, followed by a pony and talking parrot.
Years later, during the pandemic, caregivers found another market for the animals: senior citizens.
“Loneliness is the biggest health problem for older adults,” said Jim Murphy, who helped lead a study on senior needs for Medicare Advantage and AARP.
Loneliness can lead to dementia, high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, even death.
Murphy said the robo-pets provide companionship and inspire interactions with strangers.
Murphy is now the senior vice president for Ageless Innovation, the company that spun off Hasbro to create Joy for All.
Over the last six years, he said, technology and AI have greatly improved the robotic animals.
Hospitals, nursing homes and senior centers order robotic pets in bulk, Murphy said.
States are paying for them with funds from the federal Older Americans Act.
Aging agencies provide grants to buy the $179 dogs and $159 cats.
Medicare Advantage covers them.
Medicaid considers them an “assistive technology.”
More than 750,000 companion pets have been adopted in all 50 states, Murphy said, and in 30 countries.
Florida’s Department of Elder Affairs has bought 12,000.
Chucky’s home
Chucky now lives on a table next to Sanogo’s couch.
“Hi,” she greeted it on a recent afternoon.
“Say hi!”
The dog yipped.
“That’s my good boy,” she gushed, patting its head.
Two months after getting Chucky, she said, it has learned to answer when she calls.
When she snaps her fingers, it sticks out its tongue.
They watch old sitcoms together, the dog in her lap.
She sent her mom a photo.
When her cousin visited, she showed him the dog’s tricks.
She doesn’t sleep with Chucky.
“I don’t want to break him or scare myself,” she said.
Sanogo worked in security in New York, then, after moving to Florida, became a guard at Countryside Mall.
She never married, has no kids.
Has always lived alone.
Now, she said, she finally has someone to talk to.
“He knows all my secrets,” she said.
“So many things only Chucky knows.”
She bent to rub its ears, which set its tail wagging.
“Oh, you like that, don’t you?”
she said.
“You’re just right, aren’t you?
Yes, you are.”
When she had to go to a luncheon in the lobby, she kissed Chucky’s head and said goodbye.
She doesn’t take him out, not even in her building.
“I don’t want anyone to think I think it’s real.”
Elvis has left the apartment
Rob Coons named his dog Elvis.
But when a neighbor told him she wanted a dog, he traded for her robo-cat.
She’s Priscilla, to honor Elvis’ true love.
In his apartment, Priscilla has her own pillow, royal blue, tucked into the edge of Coons’ sofa.
“She loves attention,” he said.
“If you pet her, she’ll start purring.
She purrs so hard she makes the whole couch vibrate.”
Coons, 80, worked the front desk at the Ramada Inn in St.
Petersburg for more than a decade.
His wife died years ago.
Kids, grandkids and “three greats” all live in Mississippi.
He used to play guitar, sing Elvis and Roy Orbison at bars.
But his hands can no longer finger the strings and he can’t stand without a walker.
“All I got left is karaoke,” he said, pointing to a microphone by the TV.
He hasn’t sung to Priscilla.
Yet.
“I don’t really talk to her much.
She just sits there looking at me,” he said.
“But she’s a cutie.”
Coons had cats most of his life but can no longer take care of one.
Priscilla reminds him of the cat he left in California.
“She was a silver Persian, too.”
Priscilla looked up and licked its paw.
“Just don’t get up and walk,” he told it.
Then he shook his head.
“Look, now I’m talking to her.”
While Coons watched the news with Priscilla, his niece popped in with groceries.
She hugged him and smiled at the cat.
“When Dad had dementia, his home had one of those,” Cherene Morrall, 66, told her uncle.
“He thought it was his and stole it.”
She had to order him one of his own.
“I don’t know if he knew it wasn’t real,” she said.
“But that cat was very calming.
Comforting.
I think it took away some of the loneliness.”
When Coons headed to the lobby for the luncheon, he left Priscilla behind.
‘Who’s to say if that’s right or wrong?’
Is it pathetic — maybe even unethical — to give elderly people pretend pets?
Can a “synthetic companion” make up for a lack of human connection?
“Early on, people said we were trying to fool seniors into thinking these pets were real,” Murphy said.
“If they want to believe that, who’s to say if that’s right or wrong?”
Studies show that robo-pets calm anxiety and ease depression.
A recent, yearlong project at Sarasota Memorial Hospital concluded that they soothe dementia patients, keep heart rates from dropping, shorten hospital stays and help patients go home instead of to nursing centers.
The feedback from family and staff was overwhelmingly positive.
Stephen Samuels, vice president for innovation at the Volunteers of America, heard about companion pets two years ago at an electronics show in Las Vegas.
His nonprofit had just commissioned a study to see how technology could help people in their low-income housing complexes.
Humana gave the Volunteers of America $30,000 to fund a pilot with the pets.
“The Florida Project” started at the Clear Bay apartments and at a nearby complex called Creekside.
Every three months, staff will meet with residents to see how they are interacting with their fake fur babies.
And ask, “Do you feel less lonely?”
A Buddy trip?
Dwayne Allen, 65, got his robo-dog in May, when he lived at the Creekside apartments.
He moved to Clear Bay in early July.
On his first day there, he brought Buddy to the luncheon in the lobby.
“Look at him!
He’s something else,” he laughed, pointing out his pet.
“That’s my dude.
My dog.”
He bent to face the dog, who was riding on his walker.
“What’s up, Buddy?”
It yipped and lifted an ear.
“Look at that face.”
Allen sold cars and insurance, stocked grocery shelves, raised a daughter, a German shepherd, a couple of collies.
His last dog wasn’t really his.
He babysat his daughter’s cockapoo.
He hadn’t lived with a dog since 1985.
He and Buddy watch TV together.
“His favorite show is ‘The Dog Whisperer,’ ” Allen said.
“I’m learning to be a real good pack leader.”
Allen hadn’t finished unpacking, but he had folded a blanket on an armchair to make a bed for Buddy.
He chose the name because it sounded gentle and kind and because that’s what he wanted most.
He hopes to take Buddy on a road trip across Route 66, all the way to Texas to see his daughter.
He doesn’t have a car, but at least now he has a companion to ride shotgun.
Is his robo-pet helping?
“Sure, yeah.
It’s a mental thing,” Allen said.
When he scratched Buddy’s head, his pet looked up at him and nuzzled his hand.
He knows the dog isn’t real.
“But I can trick myself into believing.”
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