MGA Rescue Pets Review

My son loves his Webkinz and he was excited to try out some of the new Rescue Pets from MGA because he thought it would be fun to have a new website to play with online.  Unfortunately, this toy is meant for a lot younger crowd and if your child likes Webkinz, he or she will be bored with Rescue Pets very quickly. 

These stuffed animals come in a clear plastic container. They are recommended for children ages 4 and up . The animals are cute to look at. The one we have is a brown dog.

When you purchase an epet you will want to make sure that you have the following requirements at home:

A CPU 800mhz or higher computer with windows 2000, me or XP. If you have a mac system you will need a MAC OS 10.3 or higher operating system. Your monitor needs to be 800x600 resolution. 512 MB ram and 100 MB of free disc space. You will also need an internet connection.

The little stuffed dog has large embroidered eyes. It appears to be quite well made. It comes with a little heart shaped necklace and in the original package there are heart stickers to put on it. It also has an embroidered logo on its backside.


On the little dog you will find a tag in the shape of a dog bone. The dog bone is actually a little piece of cardboard wrapped in plastic. You will need to open the plastic and take out the dog bone. On the bone is written "Secret Access Code". There is a lift tag that you lift and under that is the code you will need to unlock the online epets world. (Make sure your child does not lose this, you will want to put it somewhere safe as it is needed to go online.

There is a sticker on the tag that says. " This tag is not a toy, Please remove tag and save access code. for use on the internet. All tags and fasteners should be removed before toy is given to a child.

My 8 year old son and I spend time on epets. Once you enter the world with your access code at www.myepets.com you will find a town square with a house and a veterinarian. You will find the Diner and a spa. There is an arcade and a flea market and an adoption center and amusement park.

As you take your animal to these places the animal can play games to earn money. A pink piggy bank on the side fills up with money that can be used at the different places. The games are meant for younger children. These are quite easy to play. My 8 year old son was bored with most of the games. He found them to be too slow. He also complained about the "pinkness" of the whole website. It really seems to be geared toward girls. I looked at the packaging and saw no boys depicted, only girls. Once again, there seems to be some sort of marketing idea that pets are for girls and not boys.

There is a parent section at Epets where parents can check out everything to make it safe for their child. Certain areas appear to need parent approval for the child to play. In the parent section it is explained to parents how children can talk to other members using the PDA system. However, this can be turned off or on so that children cannot communicate with others. There is a bad word filter and online safety is discussed with parents. I wish online safety were discussed more with the child, since many children receive this kind of toy and are online themselves.

There are a lot of areas on the epets world that appear to be under construction. I got many "coming soon" messages as I traveled around checking it out.

At the adoption center I got a little upset as it really is a place to entice children to purchase more of these epets. It is as if one is not enough! There are pictures of more of them and it tells the child exactly where to purchase another one. The sign on screen allows children to have many pets and they can choose the one they want to play with. I do not believe they can play with more than one at a time.

The rescue a pet mentality makes children want more of these! I would like to know that this company is actually using some of the money from these to help real pet rescues! I am not finding that anywhere on the packaging.

As a parent, I do concern myself with the number of toys that are coming out of China these days. This one is made in China although the company is in Van Nuys, California.

Customer service phone numbers can be found on the package for this item and on the tag that is attached to the little dog. I attempted to call this company at least six times and have been met with a busy signal each time. The company phone number is 1-800-222-4685. On the 8th call I received a message telling me they were receiving a high volume of phone calls. When I finally got a person online, I asked a number of questions.

The first question I asked was regarding internet safety. I explained how I had found that even though there was an area where it plainly told me that I could turn off the PDA communication device I was still unable to do that. It was explained to me that when I signed on I should have received an email and in the email I would have to choose "Text or No Text". However, I never received an email. She then explained to me that since I never received an email I would need to email them myself from the parent section there would be a link.

This lead to me believe that internet safety is really not important to this company. While they may talk about internet safety in the parent section, they are certainly not teaching it to my children. This concerns me greatly. The letter in the parent section states that the child's name is not used. But, I think that most online predators will expect to find children on this website. I never received an email allowing my child to sign on and he signed on quite easily. I have to question whether online safety is important to this company.

I also asked if any of the money for these pets was being used to rescue real pets. The customer service agent left the phone and then returned and told me no.

I wanted to know if the access code expires and was told that these access codes never expire. ( I believe Webkinz expire after one year)

I also asked about the number of "coming soon" messages and was told that the web was always under construction. I think this is quite frustrating to a child. I also heard my son say "this stinks" a few times when he could not access something due to the "coming soon." I could not help but wonder if this was a marketing sceme to make children want more so they would keep coming back!

My neice who is 10 received one of these rescue pets and has been unable to sign on at all with it. I wonder if she and her mother were calling the company. I suspect many people are calling and asking questions about this website.