Today, robot pets still remain as clumsy battery-powered animal
looks alike objects. The best one commercially available is
the
Sony Aibo. They are either
cheap and lousy, or very expensive. Robot pet is not widely
accepted as a replacement for real one. Psychologically, people
still prefer a real animals then robots. Furthermore, robot
dogs and cats are indeed a very long way from being self-aware.
Another limiting factor is that, robot pets are not being able
to deal with outdoors.
But bear in mind that the whole
idea of a true artificial pet, after all, is that it's a pet
for people who can't have, or don't want, to have a real one
for reason such as constraints in living area. In addition,
robot pets can perform computing tasks such as recording and
playing back sound and video, playing games, and many others.
These all have justified the existence of robot pets.