adjust bar width, padding, and distance between x categories INDEPENDENTLY in 2 factor ggplot

I am trying to create a 2-factor plot where I can increase the distance between categories (dog vs. cat) WITHOUT affecting the padding between bars or width of the bars. This has been a whack-a-mole game -- I only seem to be able to change this distance by decreasing the width of the bar or padding, which I don't want to do. Any help is much appreciated. Reprex below...

sex <- c('f','m','f','m')
pet <- c('cat', 'cat', 'dog', 'dog')
mean <- c(4, 5, 4, 5)

df <- data.frame(sex, pet, mean) 

ggplot(data = df, aes(x = pet, y = mean, fill = sex)) +
  geom_bar(stat = 'identity',
           position = position_dodge2(preserve = "single", 
                                      padding = 0.2),  width = 1)  

One option would be to use ggh4x package which via scale_x_manual allows to manually set the positions for the categories, i.e. whereas the ggplot2 will by default position the catgeories at 1, 2, ... we can shift the first category slightly to the left and the second slightly to the right, thereby increasing the space between categories:

library(ggplot2)
library(ggh4x)

ggplot(data = df, aes(x = pet, y = mean, fill = sex)) +
  geom_bar(
    stat = "identity",
    position = position_dodge2(
      preserve = "single",
      padding = 0.2
    ), width = 1
  ) +
  ggh4x::scale_x_manual(
    values = c(.9, 2.1),
    c_limits = c(.9, 2.1)
  )