Thank you! Happy to hear you enjoyed it.
That's a fair point about petting. It actually speeds up their growth so they will evolve faster. It definitely could use a more obvious indication of this. (Feeding also reduces the growth time)
Edit: Oh, and the first pet you give to a dragon will insta-grow the youngest of your in-progress crops. This also is a hidden feature that needs some sort of indicator somewhere haha. Once a dragon evolves, the petting counter is reset so the first pet on the evolved form will grow another crop.