It’s my favourite time of year all over again – Christmas! So I just can’t wait to share a whole new gift guide for dogs and the dog loving human this year. Sit down with your favourite festive drink, a mince pie & start planning your Christmas shopping; we’ve got some great recommendations.
How often have you given a bowl of food to your dogs and found it the other side of the room? Light weight metal or plastic bowls are often pushed under the sofa or into another room by my dogs as they lick every last piece of food out. But that happening every meal can get a little tedious.
Pet Weighter have solved this. Their bowl comes in two parts, the base you fill with sand, water or both to weigh it down so your dog can’t budge it. Then on top is the coloured bowl to fill with food. This bowl can come on and off so it’s easy to clean [Essential if you’re a RAW feeder], but also you can swap it for a different colour to match your interior or if you just fancy a change.
The height of the dog bowl is also ideal for older dogs or dogs that are starting to suffer with arthritis as it takes the strain off their joints without needing to bend down to eat. Otherwise also for dogs with digestive or oesophagus issues. Once they’ve finished eating you can also fill it with water as the height will help prevent them dribbling water all over your floor!
These are £24.99 for both the base and the bowl in a colour of your choice.
For just the top bowl for you to swap in they are £12.99.
I have heard so many good things about these K9 connectable toys, and Christmas is the perfect time to try them out. For most people it’s a time of lots of visitors or lots of travelling, so you want your dogs to be able to settle and chill out wherever you are.
These are interactive toys you can fill with food, great for mental stimulation. Your dogs have to use their brains to find and retrieve the treats out of the centre of the toys. So not only will it keep them quiet whilst you eat your Christmas dinner, but the mental stimulation will help tire them out so they’ll fall asleep in front of the fire with you later on.
They come in a few pieces which you then have to connect together [Hence the name connectables] whilst filled with treats, and your dogs then work out how to disassemble the toy. The way each piece is joined in clicks is what determines how challenging it is for your dog, so as they get used to the toy you can up the challenge. Plus they float and also go in the dishwasher for a good clean. They sell special shaped treats to fit the holes, or you can get creative and see what treats you can fit that you have at home.
They really made my dogs think and they had to try really hard to figure out how to get the treats out. I love giving them something new that they have to work out. This medium starter pack is a great introduction for your dogs, or you can get a small or large depending on their breed size. This is £23.99.
You can’t leave your dogs out each day of advent when you’re opening your calendar of treats. So our friends over at Scrumbles have brought out their very own advent calendar for dogs!
From each sale there is a 50p donation to All Dogs Matter to help with their tremendous work. Or there is an option to add a £5 donation to your purchase to help them even more.
We have been a customer with Emily over at Devil Dood Direct right from the start when it was just Devil Dood designs and she was only making dog collars. Now she has a whole range of products and goodies for sale in her online shop, everything a dog could need!
We can’t have a gift guide without something festive for the dogs to wear. So here are a few of our favourite things from Devil Dood Direct.
Woody is wearing the ‘All things Christmas Eco Canvas Collar’ a gorgeous festive print. The collars are adjustable but also machine washable, which is perfect for those mucky dogs like my two. What gives it it’s Eco name? Well Eco Canvas is a 100% polyester canvas made with 45% recycled content and printed using ecologically-safe transfer sublimation inks – so not only will your dogs look fab but it’s good for the environment and your supporting small businesses.
This is £20.00 and you can choose the width, colour and buckle of your choice.
Never before have my dogs had a velvet bow tie. Wilma wears the ‘Mr Moose Bow Tie’ a beautiful velvet Moose pattern, they’ll be the best dressed on Christmas Day or for a day out in December.
This is £8.00.
Lots of people use snoods when feeding to keep those dangly ears out of their dogs food. Or they can wear them out on a cold day to keep warm and cosy. This is the new Holly snood, you just slide it over their head and off they go! The lining is so soft and the Holly pattern is great for winter.
These are yet to launch and will be live on the Devil Dood site next week! So come back and I’ll update the link when they are for sale.
I like to have a dog bed in every room [There’s no such thing as too many dog beds right?], so that wherever I go in the house the dogs can follow and settle down rather than pestering me.
Olive and Berry have a beautiful range of dog products for the home with interiors for your pets that look stylish yet are comfortable. We tried out one of their Slogan Cosy Dog Beds which are made out of high quality 100% cotton and recycled plastic bottles – how amazing is that! I love that more brands are using recyclable materials for every day products.
They’re called Slogans because you can choose the saying that is embroidered onto the bed from 3 options:
- I’ve Had A Ruff Day
- Eat. Sleep. Bark. Repeat.
- Shhh…I’m Sleeping
We went for Shhh…I’m sleeping because that’s what my dogs love to do at home… sleep!
They come in two colours, Rose or Blue. I went for Rose because we don’t have enough girly accessories for Wilma in the house and it’s so cute. They also sell duvet beds if you wanted a different style or it may be more suitable for in the boot of the car for a road trip. The beds are to be hand washed only, so I just lift it out of the way when they come in from a muddy walk to save any unnecessary cleaning.
This is the medium bed which is £75.00
I love a personal gift, anything personalised has an extra special meaning and I can’t share a Gift guide without including just that. I have more photos than you could ever need of your own dogs, but that doesn’t stop me taking them! However something that freezes them in time is an illustration or drawing.
We received this beautiful piece of art from Portrait Pals, ours is a quick Painted Portrait by Lauren Pilgreen. She captured their personalities and most importantly hair do’s so well in her work. I just love how artists draw their crazy hair, particularly doodles I can imagine it’s quite hard to do with all those curls. The turnaround was also so speedy and efficient, all I needed to do was send her an image to base it off and she was away. This is the image I sent over:
But Portrait Pals is a market place for artists selling Pet Portraits, so you can choose the artist and style you prefer, sending them an image of your dogs to draw from. They also contribute to charities from each sale, so your gift also benefits others.
The quick painted portrait is £25 you can even have your artwork made onto keyrings so you can take them with you!
Christmas is a time for good food and celebration, so why feed your dogs the same? Last year my dogs had the Cotswold RAW Three Bird RAW for their Christmas meals. A festive mix of Turkey, Chicken and Duck with seasonal vegetables.
Make sure you put your RAW food order in plenty of time. You want to make sure it arrives in time for Christmas and you have enough to last the whole of the Christmas break.
The Festive Three Bird RAW is £4.95 for 1kg.
The Cosy Canine Company T Shirt
I have been a lover of Lottie’s work over at The Cosy Canine Company for years now. You may also spot my dogs on her website. She makes gorgeous oilcloth products for the home and for the human, many of which I have featured on this blog and our social media accounts. But this is something new and different, T Shirts – embroidered with dog related slogans.
The perfect gift for dog owners, or just to treat yourself there are a few options:
- Dog Mum
- Dog Mom
- Dog Dad
- Dog Hair don’t care
I went for the Dog Hair don’t care top, as with my job especially I am always covered in dog fur! It’s a great but subtle way to show you’re secretly a crazy dog lady. A stylish yet practical top to wear to dog shows like Agility competitions, or more fun days out like Crufts or Dogfest.
The best gift you can give your dog is the power of play. The positive impact it has on them but also your relationship with them is unbelievable. It’s also a great tool for training things such as agility or recall as I recently wrote about here.
On their blog Tug E Nuff have some fantastic posts about how to play with your dog or introducing them to the idea of playing. I also have daily conversations with people on Instagram helping them to learn what toy their dog may prefer, or how they can introduce playing into their training sessions; so feel free to message me if you’re stuck or the Tug E Nuff team are so helpful if you ask them a question.
I think my favourite toy to share with you would be the Rabbit Skin Bungee for £16.95 or Wilma’s favourite should I say. But this is totally individual to your dog and the type of personality or background that they have. The clam ball is also a great introduction to them learning to play, so may suit you more at this stage.
Don’t forget you can get 10% off anything online with our code THECOTSWOLDSPANIELS so those pennies that you save can be spent on even more gifts for them!
As small businesses these companies will all have various final order dates so they can make and post out your order with love. Please bare this in mind and order in plenty of time to receive them ready for Christmas.
If you’d like to read our previous year’s gift guides just click here.
Thanks for reading and have a very Merry Christmas,
Megan, Woody & Wilma
Thank you to all these companies for working with us on this years Gift Guide, I had so many requests to join in but narrowed it down to just a few that I absolutely loved and think you will too.
The Cotswold Spaniels 