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How to turn your own dog or cat into a desktop pet

October 7, 2026

You can turn your own dog or cat into a desktop pet in three ways: draw the animation yourself, pay an artist to draw it, or use an app that builds the pet from your photos. The first two take days or weeks and give you full control of the style. The third takes minutes, and there are now several apps to choose from.

Option 1: draw it yourself

Some desktop pet programs let you swap their character for your own pictures. You will often see these called shimeji. To make one of your pet, you draw them in every pose the program uses: standing, walking, sitting, climbing, falling, and more. Each pose is a separate small picture, and a full set runs to dozens of them.

Good for: people who like to draw and want a pet in exactly their own style.

Hard part: the number of drawings, and getting them to line up so the walk looks smooth.

Option 2: ask an artist

Many illustrators take commissions for custom desktop pets. You send photos of your dog or cat, and they send back the finished set of pictures, ready to load into a program.

Before you pay, ask three things:

• Which program are the files made for, and will they help you set it up?
• How many poses are included?
• How many rounds of changes can you ask for?

Good for: a pet with real character, drawn by a person.

Hard part: the wait, and finding an artist whose style you love.

Option 3: use an app that works from photos

This is the newest way. You add photos of your pet, and the app works out what they look like and animates the result. It takes minutes, and you need no drawing skill.

We make one of these apps, Pawsome Family, so weigh what we say about it accordingly. We have not tested the others. What we say about each one comes from its own website or store listing, checked on October 7, 2026.

In your browser

Your pet lives inside Chrome and walks along the pages you visit.

• Pawsome Family. Ours. You add 1 to 5 photos of your dog or cat. Your pet walks, sits, and naps along the bottom of every tab, and you can correct the coat, ears, tail, and markings yourself. One pet is free for 30 days, then it is $5 a month, billed yearly.
• FriendPet. Works from one photo, of a pet, a partner, or a friend. The character walks across your pages, waves, and says hello. Listed as free.

On your whole desktop

Your pet walks on top of any program, on a Mac or a Windows computer.

• Peekoo. Works from one photo, of a pet or a person. You pick an art style, such as plush, pixel, or watercolor, and the character walks across your desktop and climbs your windows. For Mac and Windows. Free to start, with paid plans.
• MomoPlanet. Works from three clear photos of the same dog or cat. For Mac and Windows. The free version includes two actions, and paid packs add more.
• DeskPet. Works differently: you give it a short moving clip of your pet, as a video or a GIF, and it places that on your desktop. For Mac only. Free to download.

How to choose between them

1. Where do you spend your day? If it is mostly in a browser, an extension is the simpler choice. If it is in other programs, pick a desktop app.
2. Do you want your pet, or a style? Some apps aim for a likeness of your animal. Others turn any photo into a character in a chosen art style. Both are fun. They are not the same thing.
3. How many photos does it use? More angles usually mean a closer likeness.
4. Can you fix what it gets wrong? No app gets every pet right the first time. Look for a way to change the ears, tail, coat, and markings yourself.
5. What happens to your photos? The privacy policy should say what they are used for and how to delete them.
6. What does it cost? Check whether it is free, a one-time price, or a subscription.

What makes it look like your pet

Whichever way you choose, the likeness comes from the same three things:

• The outline. Ears, tail, leg length, and the shape of the body. People recognize their pet from the outline before anything else.
• Where the colors sit. A white chest, a dark saddle, one sock. The pattern matters more than the exact shade.
• The face. The mask, the muzzle, and the eye color.

So the photos you start from matter. Use a full side view with your pet standing, one photo of the face taken straight on, and the other side as well if the markings differ. Take them in good light, with only your pet in the picture. Our guide to which photos work best has more.

How Pawsome Family does it

1. Add 1 to 5 photos of your dog or cat.
2. About a minute later, you meet your pet. They walk, sit, and nap.
3. Keep them, and we spend about 3 more minutes making them look even more like themselves.
4. Add Pawsome Family to Chrome. Your pet walks along the bottom of every tab.

We read your photos, and your pet’s breed if you tell us, so mixed breeds work too. If we get something wrong, you can change the coat, ears, tail, pattern, or eye color yourself, or try other photos. To see the kind of result you get, look at the example golden retriever or calico cat.

One pet is free for 30 days, with no card needed. After that it is $5 a month, billed once a year at $60, for up to 5 pets.

Pawsome Family runs in Chrome on a computer. If you want your pet outside the browser, on your whole desktop, one of the desktop apps above is the better fit.