This week, I became a proud parent. My new son’s name is Ingredient, and I dressed him up to look like a big dork:

Ingredient is my beloved dog in the open beta of Dog Online, a semi-new browser game that’s like an MS Paint-drenched, dog-themed version of Neopets. It’s a deceptively simple game with different locations that let you go fishing, tend to a farm, shop for clothes, adopt pets, cook recipes, make trades, explore an enemy-filled dungeon, and sell your wares when the economy’s right, all while leveling up a dog (or two, or three). While there’s no chat feature, Dog Online also lets you send gifts to friends and show off your favorite items on your Dogpage (here’s mine).

But Dog Online is also fairly mysterious. Despite being a former Webkinz freak and therefore this game’s exact target audience, I didn’t hear anything about it until this week, over six months after its open beta release. Even then, I struggled to find the actual game, which has a comically un-Googleable name and no real social media presence other than a small Bluesky account that reposts the occasional piece of fanart. As far as I know, Dog Online has really only grown through word of mouth.

I briefly chatted with lead developer Mimi, who told me that Dog Online ’s small team got started a little less than a year ago, launching the game’s public beta this past April Fools’ Day. Over the past two weeks, however, Dog Online has had somewhat of a sudden renaissance, surpassing 10,000 users and forcing its development team to scramble to upgrade the site’s servers.

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