"Do you want something to eat?" Mark asked his gorilla.

"You take good care of me," the gorilla responded.

"How are you doing?" Mark asked.

"I'm glad I'm your pet," he responded as a little heart burped out from the gorilla.

The graphics are cute and simple, and the site itself usually seems to work well. At times on a recent weekend, though, the entire Web site was shut down for maintenance. We also previously faced glitches running some games on a Safari browser on a somewhat-dated Macintosh; those problems cleared up after switching to the Firefox browser.

The Web site is operated by the Ganz company, a third-generation family business outside Toronto that had been primarily known for manufacturing plush toys and collectibles. Spokeswoman Susan McVeigh would not discuss the number of registered users or which features on the site are most popular.

She did say that the site began in 2005 but really took off late last year. Many stores have been selling out of the toys.

And she said more boys inhabit Webkinz than people realize.

Ben the gorilla will be glad to hear it.