LEGO pets...awesome

LEGO animals... we love them.

Of course everyone knows the (domestic) animal LEGO sets. There is the LEGO Creator 31112 Lion, the LEGO Creator 31088 Deep Sea Creatures and the Brickheadz versions of dogs ( 40479 ), Goldfish ( 40442 ) and Hamsters ( 40482 ).

You can make anything with LEGO, including pets. But what is the background of LEGO and these pets?

In 1934, Danish carpenter Ol Kirk Kristiansen, the founder of what we now know as LEGO, asked his staff to come up with a good name for his growing toy company. The two names that eventually became finalists were "Legio" and " L EGO ". The first was a reference to a "legion" as in a "legion of toys". The second, which won, was made from a contraction of "leg godt", which is a Danish expression meaning "play well". Interestingly, "lego" is also a Latin word meaning "to collect or gather," which is somewhat fitting considering what their most popular product ended up being.

We then did some cat-focused research and found a company called JEKCA (based in Hong Kong) that makes innovative and elegant building block products using their own in-house design, marketing and manufacturing teams. And yes, they make a lot of cat models!

The cat models shown in the photos are not made with 'real' L EGO bricks, so we had to ask... "What is the main difference between Lego and your bricks?" This is what the JEKCO team told us:

"Since LEGO's patent expired decades ago, numerous building block products have appeared on the market. But most follow LEGO design closely and there has been little breakthrough. Our founder thought he could do something more with building blocks and would expand the possibilities. So he spent a lot of time inventing a new kind of building blocks with a unique new locking system... introducing JEKCA bricks. We have granted patents from various countries such as USA, EU, China, Japan , Korea... etc. for our unique locking mechanism."

In the JEKCA system, all the bricks are firmly attached to each other, so you never have to worry about an unfinished item suddenly collapsing.