We’re back with another fun kids birthday party idea with lots of free printables to go along with it! This time my newly turned 4 year old daughter requested a puppy dog birthday party. She is all about puppy dogs right now and has been asking for a puppy. So instead of adding more chaos to our house with a puppy, she opted for a fun puppy themed birthday party with lots of fun activities. Check out all the awesome puppy activities that we had and grab a few free printable signs while you’re at it!
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Adopt a Puppy Dog with a Fenced Yard
So if you’re having a puppy dog party, then I feel like you have to have puppy dog stuffed animal party favors for the kids to “adopt.” I found this adorable set of puppy dog stuffed animal party favors from Amazon that’s pictured above. The dogs were the perfect size, came with a large variety, and were such great quality. You can grab these same puppy dog favors here and I have also linked them in the supplies section right below.
I wanted to set the dogs up to where it looked like they were running around in a fenced yard. Check out the picture below to see how my vision came to life. I couldn’t find a miniature white fence, so I made my own out of a white foam board. I’ll give you a quick tutorial on how I made this, but first read through the supplies list below to make sure you have all you need. I’ve linked all the supplies I used and recommend for you to use as well.
Supplies Needed for the Adopt a Puppy Fenced Yard
Puppy dog stuffed animal party favors
White foam board (20×30 inch)
How to Make the Fenced Yard
1. First, take the white foam board and craft knife and cut four 4 inch wide strips the entire length of the foam board which would be 30 inches long. You’ll finish with four 4 inch x 30 inch strips.
2. Next, use the ruler and pencil to sketch out a fence pattern on each board. You can use the pattern of my fence as an example.
3. Use the craft knife and cut out the fence pattern on all four boards. This takes some time so I would definitely have this prepared before the party.
4. Attach each of the four fence pieces at the corners with clear scotch tape to create a square white picket fence
5. When setting up the party, lay out the green tablecloth on the table and set the fence on top of the tablecloth
6. Set the puppy dog stuffed animals inside of the picket fence randomly so it looks like they’re running all around in different ways.
7. Then have the children pick their favorite puppy to take home with them!
Decorate a Dog House
Once each of the kids have adopted a puppy, then they can grab a doghouse to decorate! The doghouses are made from white favor boxes and a doghouse coloring page which can second as a goodie bag holder for the birthday party. We have a free printable sign and the free printable doghouse coloring pages that you are welcome to download and print off to use for this cute little activity. You’re find these downloads available in the supplies section right below.
Supplies Needed for the Doghouse Favor Box
Below I have listed all of the supplies needed to make the doghouse favor boxes and the table decorations for the party setup. You can click on each product name to see the items that we recommend for this project.
- Cardstock paper – This is to print out the table signs and the doghouse coloring pages on. I do recommend cardstock because it is thicker and would be more sturdy for a child’s party favor box.
- “Decorate a House for Your Puppy” Table Sign – Click the download button below to print off the adorable table sign that’s shown in the picture above. This PDF has all three of the free printable table signs for this birthday party in one document. So you can go ahead and print all of the table signs off at once but I’ll tell you about the other free signs further down in this article.
- Free printable doghouse coloring page – Click the download button below to print off as many of these doghouse pages as you’ll need.
- Acrylic Sign Holder – Grab these sign holders to display the free table signs
- White favor boxes – These boxes are the exact size that you need to fit the printable doghouse covers.
- Glue dots
- Mini colored pencils
- Washi tape – the tape linked here is puppy themed and it is so stinking cute!
- Scissors
How to Make the Doghouse Favor Box
1. First print off and cut out each of the doghouse coloring page PDFs.
2. Next, use glue dots to attach the doghouses coloring pages to the front of each of the white favor boxes.
3. Then attach two coloring pencils to the side of each box using a piece of washi tape. See the picture below to see the final doghouse favor box.
4. Then insert the “Decorate a House for Your Puppy” sign into the acrylic sign holder to be displayed on the table at the party. See the picture below for how we displayed the doghouses and sign at our birthday party.
5. Then during the birthday party, each child can grab a doghouse to decorate for their newly adopted puppy and use it as a favor box to hold their goodies. See the picture below of my daughter’s final decorated doghouse.
Make Your Own Dog Collar Craft
Our puppies have been adopted and have a doghouse, but now they need a collar. So, next I set up a collar making craft station for all the kids to make their puppy a collar. This station also has a free printable table sign that is shown in the picture above. You can download and print this sign from the supplies section right below.
Supplies Needed to Make a Dog Collar Craft
Here are all of the supplies needed to setup the dog collar craft. You can click on each item and see what specific product that we recommend for this party craft.
- “Make a Collar for Your Puppy” Table Sign – Click the download button right below to print off the free printable PDF
- Acrylic Sign Holder
- Pipe cleaners
- Beads
- Key tags
- Dog bowl – I just grabbed an inexpensive plastic dog bowl at Dollar Tree
How to Setup the Dog Collar Craft
1. First, place the “make a collar for your puppy” table sign into the acrylic sign holder and set it out on your craft table.
2. Then set out the pipe cleaners for each kid to choose a color for the collar.
3. Pour all of the beads into the decorative dog bowl so that each child can choose the beads they would like to add to their collar. Check out the picture below to see how I set this collar craft area up.
4. Then have all the children choose their supplies and thread the beads and the key tag onto the pipe cleaner to create their puppy collar. This is a good time to name the puppy and add their name to the key tag.
5. Once the collar is made, then you can wrap the pipe cleaner collar around the puppies neck and twist the ends together to fit the collar to the right size.
6. Trim the excess pipe cleaner ends off of the collar, if needed.
Setup a Pet Shop
Ok, now the kids need to go shopping at the pet shop to get all of the necessities for their newly adopted puppy! At the pet shop they could each choose a dog bowl with dog food which was actually Whoppers and Goobers. To make these dog bowls, I drew a paw print on a dot sticker and stuck it on the front of a shallow paper cup. Then I filled the dog bowl with brown colored candy like Whoppers and Goobers to resemble dog food. I placed each of these in a cellophane bag and tied the bag shut with a cute decorative puppy ribbon. Check out the picture below to see a closer view of the dog bowls.
At the pet shop, they also were able to shop for a toy ball for their puppy which was just some colorful bouncy balls. Then they each could shop for dog treats which were actually graham cracker Scooby Snacks. Once the kids each got all of their puppy supplies, they could put them in the doghouse favor box to bring everything home. You can check out our pet shop setup in the picture below. The picture isn’t all that great because you can’t see that the bouncy balls are between the dog bowls and scooby snacks. But, you can at least get an idea of how I set it up.
The cute little pet shop sign that’s displayed in the picture above is the last of the three free printable puppy birthday signs. You can download that and check out all the supplies needed for this setup in the supplies section right below.
Supplies Needed for the Pet Shop
- “Get Supplies at the Pet Shop” table sign – Click the download button below to download the free printable pet shop table sign
- Acrylic sign holder
- 4oz paper cups – These need to be the shallow cups that kind of resemble a dog bowl
- Dot stickers
- Clear party bags
- Dog ribbon – Check out this adorable puppy themed ribbon
- Black marker
- Bouncy balls
- Scooby Snacks – These are a graham cracker snack for humans but it’s shaped like a dog treat. So it’s a perfect treat for kids at a puppy dog themed birthday party
- Whoppers candy
- Goobers candy
Puppy Dog Cake
I had to share the puppy dog cake that I made for my daughter too. Now just a warning that I am not a baker or cake decorator so don’t expect anything special. But, I thought I could share it as a simple homemade cake idea for a puppy party. So check out the puppy dog cake picture below!
We served this cake along with pizza on some super adorable puppy plates. You can click the link to check out the plates. I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of the plate setup but I found one of my pictures where you could kind of see two of the plates. So check out the picture below.
This birthday party was so fun and I received lots on complements on all the fun puppy dog themed ideas. If you loved it too, you can check out some of our other birthday party ideas like our Harry Potter birthday and our Big Bad Wolf birthday party that’s linked below!
