The paper delineates the fabrication and testing of a small quadruped robot of dimensions 50 × 60 × 25 mm, weighing 1.9 g, actuated by NiTi wire of diameter 100 µm. The robot has individually controlled legs, each with one degree of freedom. This design enables the microrobot to exhibit various gait patterns such as walking, ambling, pacing, and trotting. The power pulse required to actuate NiTi wire as per the specific gait requirements has been obtained through numerical heat transfer modeling. The tethered robot is powered by a DC power supply of 5 V and 0.65A. A microcontroller with an analog input is implemented to regulate the amplitude and timing of the output voltage signal to meet varying current needs during both actuation (swing) and the subsequent hold (stance) phases. The significant effect of walk and slow trot gait patterns on the robot’s energetics has been demonstrated through experiments. The robot has demonstrated a speed of up to 0.02 body-lengths per second and less than one-thirds the cost of transport of its hexapedal counterparts.