Christmas Gifts for People Who Would Rather Talk About Their Dog
Every family has one. Their Christmas card is a photograph of a labrador in a hat. They refer to the dog as their son. When you ask how they are, you get an update on the dog's hip.
They are, on paper, the easiest person to shop for and in practice one of the hardest, because the obvious gift — a dog thing — has been given to them eleven times already.
Start with what they have too much of
Anyone this devoted already owns: a mug with a paw print, a tea towel with breed names on it, at least one sign about how the dog runs the house, and a doormat. These are the default gifts and they are why the cupboard is full.
What they usually do not own is anything featuring their specific animal, made properly. That is the gap, and it is a wide one.
The reliable choices
- A portrait of the animal. The default for a reason. The gap between “a picture of a dog” and “a picture of my dog, painted like a Habsburg” is enormous, and it is the one gift in this category people photograph and post.
- An ornament with the dog on it. Cheap, small, and it comes out every December for the next twenty years. Per pound spent, probably the best-value gift on this list.
- A blanket. Used every evening from Boxing Day onwards. Wins over wall art with anyone who rents, or who has strong opinions about their walls.
- Wrapping paper printed with the dog's face. Not really a gift — it is what you wrap the actual gift in, and it means the joke starts before anything is opened.
- Matching pyjamas. If the household is the sort that takes a photo on Christmas morning, this is a gift to the whole family disguised as a gift to one person.
The timing, which is the part people get wrong
Anything custom has two clocks running: making it and shipping it.
For us, the making is two to three business days to get the artwork to you, then one to two business days to print and ship after you approve it. The approval is the variable — if you take four days to reply to the email, your order takes four days longer, and there is nothing anyone can do about that from this end.
Then there is transit, which in November and December is slower everywhere. Couriers are moving several times their usual volume and every estimate on every website should be read with about a week of slack in it.
The practical version: order custom gifts by the end of November and you are comfortable. Order in the first week of December and you are probably fine. Order after the middle of December and you are gambling with somebody else's logistics.
If you have left it late, the honest answer is a digital file — the artwork emailed rather than printed, which the recipient can print themselves in January. It is not as good as the object. It is much better than an empty space under the tree and an apology.
What to send if you have no photograph
Three routes, in order of reliability: ask their partner or housemate, take one yourself next time you see the dog, or take one from social media as a last resort.
The social media route is the one most people default to and the weakest, because the photograph somebody posts is chosen for the caption rather than for the detail. A slightly blurry one taken from six feet away in a dim pub produces a portrait to match. If you have any chance of taking a picture yourself, five minutes of doing it properly improves the result more than anything else you could spend money on.
Choosing a style without asking them
The safe rule: match the costume to how seriously the animal takes itself, then invert it. A dignified old labrador in a jester's outfit is funnier than a dignified old labrador in armour, and a chaotic terrier is funniest in something formal.
For a first gift, though, the quieter styles travel better. Something that reads as a painting from across a room can hang in a living room for a decade. Something that reads as a joke has a shorter life on the wall. The five main styles and what each one suits covers this properly.
And if the dog died this year
Different gift, different rules. A Christmas memorial piece can be exactly right or exactly wrong depending on the person and how recent it is, and the ornament is usually the safest of the options because it lets them include the animal in the day without committing a wall to it.
We have written that up separately in what to give someone who has just lost a pet, along with the timing, which matters more here than anywhere else.
Otherwise: the Christmas collection is the seasonal end of what we make, and the best sellers are what people actually buy when they are not sure.