How to Plan the Best Birthday Party for your Pup!

Whether it is your pup’s 1st or 10th birthday, your very best boy or girl deserves to have a celebration of their special day!

Party planning for humans is hard enough, but how do you plan for a dog who can’t tell you what they want, and also will your friends and family think you are weird for doing this? Well first off, your dog will love anything you plan for them, because they love you and the attention you bestow upon them. Second, if your friends or family think you are weird for this, do you really want to call them friends? Just kidding. Just make sure to have human cake served as well and everyone will be happy. Or if you really feel funny, just keep the party to just you and your pooch or maybe have a couple of their favorite dog friends come over.

So what are the ingredients for a great dog party?

Games and Activities
Decorations fit for a King or Queen!
Birthday Cake and Treats
Presents, Presents, Presents
Keeping the Memory Alive

Games and Activities

Personally I am happy to stand around and mingle at a party while sipping wine and I absolutely abhor group activities. Will on the other hand would love nothing more than to have multiple games, activities and tons of play time. As an introvert I really wish someone told me what life was going to be like with an extremely extroverted dog! Anyways to make your party a success whether your dog is the only dog there or his neighborhood friends are stopping by you have to create some fun things to do. These are my top 3 favorite activities and depending on your monetary or time budget you can do a lot of these DIY.

1. BALL PIT

Fill a kiddie pool or any large container with colorful plastic balls. Easy enough and your dog will love to jump around in them. For added fun, hide treats or toys amongst the balls and let your dog find them!

2. AGILITY COURSE

Let your dog try their hand at a little agility and run through some obstacles. A little treat incentive is all you need to get them going. Keep it fun, no need to get it perfect or imagine all the championships you will win. You can buy some simple obstacles, or get creative and use things lying around your house like milk crates and broom sticks or an old hula hoop.

3. SCAVENGER HUNT

So this is actually one of my favorite winter time things to do to keep Will occupied, but to make it Birthday Party special, either up the ante on what you are hiding, like better treats, or perhaps even a delicious bone as the jackpot, or expand the perimeters of the hunt. If not great weather, hide stuff throughout the whole house. If the weather is good take the hunt outside and utilize grass and bushes as great hiding spots.

I keep Will in a ‘down stay’ while I hide the goods. Once everything is hidden I tell Will to “go find them!” and off he goes! For step by step instructions on how to implement a scavenger hunt, plus 4 other games and level ups I do have my Ultimate Guide to Dog Games available for download.

Decorations Fit for a King or Queen!

Will is not yet quite a King but he is DEFINITELY a prince so his birthday decorations should match how spoiled/special he really is! This is where you can get really DIY and use stuff around the house, but my mind is not creative like that so I prefer to buy ready made. Etsy is a great resource for some unique and personalized finds, but if you are last minute like myself these are my favorite Amazon picks:

Birthday Cake and Treats!

Just like a human party, the cake and treats are probably the most important part of the Birthday party! If you are having human guests then you must have human treats as well. I would either get a cake with a photo of your pup on it, or even better find a bakery that can produce cookies that look like your dog. If you consider yourself a baker, Etsy does sell custom cookie cutters to look like your dog.

But obviously this is a party for a dog so we need dog friendly treats. If there are no dog bakeries around you I have listed some online options for you. Or sign up at the bottom of this post to download our free dog cake recipe that uses all dog friendly ingredients. If you really want to get fancy and make your pup the most popular dog on the block, get some custom dog cookies to hand out to the neighborhood dogs!

Presents, Presents, Presents!

Is it really a Birthday party if no presents are given? As I said before, Will is a prince so he gets presents very often, so for his birthday I like to give birthday themed gifts, or the SUPER expensive bone and also wrap them in paper, because what dog doesn’t like to shred paper. Since it is their special day I do like to get a birthday themed wrapping paper, but old newspaper and Trader Joe bags work just as well. Below are my favorite birthday themed toys and wrapping. If you really want to up the ante on a great gift a subscription to Bark Box might be just the thing. I find that the toys are incredibly durable and the themes are so cute and witty. The toys for dogs that like to thrash are Will’s favorites and he especially loves to whip them dangerously close to me!

Bark Box Subscription

Keeping the Memory Alive

Now that you have spent all this time and money on making your dog have the Best Birthday Ever!, don’t you want to remember this day forever! Your dog may not care about photo’s but you will and if you have family members, like Grandma and Grandpa who go just as gaga over your pup, they would love a memento as well. The easiest and most cost effective way to do this is to just capture the moment on your cell phone camera and use a photo service like Shutterfly to upload your photos and have hard copies printed and sent to you. I used this service to create some Christmas ornaments of Will and they were a huge hit for the grandparents. If you want to get extra fancy purchase a photo preset off of Etsy to give your pics a professional look. This preset is one of my faves and only costs $3.99 and you can continuously use it on all future photos.

Also BONUS topic, don’t forget to make sure your little buddy dresses for the occasion!

Now you have all the ingredients to make sure that your pup has the most special day ever! But honestly don’t we try to make every day of their lives extra special :)

Download Your Free Dog Friendly Birthday Cake Recipe!

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