Robot Dogs Can Attend Playdates And Parties At This Café

On every Sunday, owners of robot dogs can take their special pets to a meet up at this coffee shop called Penguin Café in Tokyo, Japan. A story from BuzzFeed News gives us a closer look at this special event and the attending people who have a special love for robodogs. Who knows, it might be possible that in the future, animal lovers might go for mechanical pets instead of mortal ones.

The weekly event called “Aibo World” is named after the famous robot dog line of Sony. The company launched this line in November 2018. Just a few months later, Nobuhiro Futaba, the owner of Penguin Café got his own Aibo.

When BuzzFeed came to this coffee shop to attend one of the meetups, there was a birthday celebration going on to celebrate the birthday of two robot dogs. The coffee shop was so popular that day that the owner had to turn those customers who came without robodogs away.

The attendees when asked by BuzzFeed as to why they decided to buy an Aibo instead of a real dog, the reasons include long working hours, a lack of space, and a concern that barking sounds might disturb their neighbors. But as BuzzFeed reported, the main reason is that the owners of Aibo don’t want to deal with the death of their pets.

One attendee said that by giving her love to a robot dog, she wouldn’t have to worry about grieving if a dog died.