How to Help Your Dog Paint

Those of us who consider our dogs our kids treat our dogs like our kids. At least I do, for the most part. One of the biggest parts of having human kids that I feel I missed out on because I only have a fur-kid is having a refrigerator adorned with report cards, notes, and art work.

That all changed recently when I saw a video (I don’t remember where I saw it!) of a dog painting using one of its best features—its tongue!

The process goes like this:

Put peanut butter on the outside of a baggie. Put paint on a piece of paper sized to fit inside the baggie. I used glitter paint because I like sparkly, but mostly because it's all I had on hand.

Seal the baggie, and put it on the floor for your dog to lick. The pressure and motion of the licking spreads the paint, making a work of art!

Sounded like a great idea, and easy, so I had to try it with my dog, Witherwings.

I smeared peanut butter on a gallon-size baggie, put some glitter paint on a piece of card stock and then put the paper in the bag. It was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. I was by myself, and it was hard to hold the bag open wide enough to slide the paper in without making contact with the plastic. So, some of the paint smeared before my dog even had a chance to put his mark on it.

He did a good job of licking the peanut butter off, and as he was doing it, I could see the paint smearing and mixing, which is what was supposed to happen. When he was done with it all, it was time to take the painting out of the bag.

Because putting it in the bag hadn’t gone so well, I decided that rather than trying to pull the painting out, I would cut the bag around the paper inside and then just lift it off. It was my hope that this would minimize my impact on the painting. Unfortunately, there was a lot more smearing as I pulled the plastic off.

The picture above is the first painting my dog painted. Unfortunately, it’s hard to gauge how much of it he actually did, and how much was my fumbling trying to get the paper in and out of the bag.

I figured I had not understood exactly how to do this project, so I searched online for a video to help me get a painting from the dog that was more of his painting ability than mine. There were quite a few on YouTube, and the ones I watched made me feel a little better, since each featured some parental smearing. It appears to be unavoidable, so don’t feel bad if this happens to you when you’re helping your dog paint.

Despite this, I wanted to try again, and see if I could eliminate at least some of the smearing that I had contributed. I worked really hard to keep the bag open as wide as possible when sliding the paper in, and was actually pretty happy with my success.

Witherwings licked his heart out and when he was done, I once again cut the bag to make getting the painting out easier. This went better as well.

Unfortunately, I think I may have been a little skimpy on the paint on our second attempt, but it’s still a nice paining, especially because my kid made it for me. Here’s a picture of it (below):

Experienced now, with two paintings in the bag (pun intended), I’d like to try once more, using more paint, and a more concentrated peanut butter overlay.

But since each painting requires the dog to have a peanut butter treat, and Witherwings and I are watching his weight (and mine, but that’s another story), I’ll need to be patient and art class will have to be on another day.

For now, though, I have two beautiful child-made painting hanging on my refrigerator. I’m such a proud mom.