Doctor, doctor my frog’s got chicken pox!

Toca Pet Doctor is a colorful, imaginative game that teaches small children how to look after animals as they play.

Feeling a little horse?

Toca Pet Doctor is set in a vet’s surgery, and when you load the game you’ll be presented with a room full of animals with a variety of different ailments or injuries.

The afflictions of the pets are very imaginative and child friendly, and include a bird with chewing gum stuck to his foot, a frog with chicken pox, and a worm with a knot in its tail. Thankfully none of the animals have serious illnesses like rabies or myxomatosis! 

Healing touch

Each ailment in Toca Pet Doctor needs to be cured in a different way, and operations are played out in the form of mini games. These mini games are all very straightforward but require kids to think about exactly what they need to do in order to fix the problem. They need to discover how to manipulate the touch screen and interact with the tools available in each mini game to make the animal better.

Once the animal is cured it’s time to feed it, which you do by dragging the food into its mouth. Again, this is helping children learn since the foods vary depending on what that animal eats in real life.

Once an animal is cured it falls asleep, but you can wake it up and feed it again if you like. It would be nice if there was more interaction with the animals beyond just feeding. Unlike virtual pet games like Pou or Talking Tom Cat, Toca Pet Doctor doesn’t let you dress up your animals, pet them or interact with them in any way.

There’s no way to ‘save’ your progress in Toca Pet Doctor. Once you exit the game and return, all the animals will be sick again so you need to repeat the procedures again. In a way this is good since kids love repetition, and the challenge of making the animals better all over again is likely to appeal to them. 

Creature comforts

As with other Toca Boca titles like Toca Hair Salon, Toca Pet Doctor is bright, bold, and colorful. The cartoon animals are beautifully drawn and the imaginative character designs give each pet its own distinct personality. This is heightened further by the cute and funny sound effects that come out of the critters as you fix their bones, brush their teeth, untie their tails, or whatever it is you have to be doing.

Great for little ones

If you have a child of around 2-6 years-old, Toca Pet Doctor is a good bet for keeping them entertained and help them learn about animal care at the same time. Older kids will probably get bored quickly, though.