National Pet Day Party Ideas

National Pet Day is coming up! This April 11th, don’t forget to shower your furry friend with a little extra love and appreciation. Last year everyone from pop girl group Little Mix to the Simon’s Cat comic celebrated their fuzzy family members. We’re excited to see all the ways that people will celebrate this year!

Do you need a few ideas about how to celebrate your pets on April 11, 2019? The official website for National Pet Day offers a few ideas for celebrating National Pet Day, such as purchasing a new toy for your pet, volunteering at your local animal shelter, and throwing a National Pet Day party!

You know us, we are always on board with throwing parties for our pets. We think it would be a great idea to throw a bash for National Pet Day and invite your friends and their pets!

And what do you need for parties? Decorations, food, activities, and favors, of course! We’ve broken out all of our suggestions by category below. Have fun with your National Pet Day party planning.

National Pet Day Party Decorations

First impressions of a party are important. If you want your guests to know where the party is as soon as they pull up, you can attach these paw print cling decals to your windows. This will set the theme before your guests even walk in your home!

Here’s another option. We know your furry friend(s) will greet your guests as soon as they walk up to your door, but before they get there, what about this? We think a cute doggie doormat is almost as good as the real thing.

Once your guests come inside, you can add a humorous touch to your environment with a few of these dog balloons -- send us videos of your dogs reacting to them!

Even better, stay on trend with some fun metallic letter balloons! You can use them to spell out anything: “Welcome” or “Woof” or “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” if you’re feeling ambitious.

Bonus! These balloons are gigantic and come in different metallic hues! You’ll be sure to find a balloon color that matches your theme and your guests can take perfectly Instagram-able pics to post online. Score!

Food For Your National Pet Day Party

What party would be complete without food? If you want some treat ideas for your pups, you can check these out: a recipe for peanut butter dog biscuits and, if the weather is warmer where you are, you can use our silicone paw print muffin molds to make frozen treats.

You can use vanilla yogurt, pureed pumpkin, or mashed bananas! You do know we have a recipe for those, right? You can download it from the muffin page linked above--just share your email address with us and we’ll send it right to your inbox!

Dog treats are fun to make and fun for them to eat, but we know that humans like treats too! If you want to keep the humans on-theme too, you can make cookies or brownies, and cut them out using a dog bone cookie cutter!

Or, you can reuse that paw print muffin mold or any of our other pet-themed silicone pans to make cake, brownies, banana bread--whatever you want! Just make sure that you’re keeping ingredients like chocolate (not dog safe!) away from sniffing snouts. You don’t want to make an unexpected trip to the emergency vet on National Pet Day.

When in doubt, almost everyone loves apples and peanut butter--humans and canines alike! So this is a party snack that can transcend species.

National Pet Day Party Activities

While I’m sure your furry friend will gladly keep themselves occupied with their animal friends, there are a few activities that humans and dogs will both enjoy!

• Take a standard metal muffin tin and enough tennis balls to fit in each muffin cup. (Have you seen our “Happy Birthday” tennis balls?)
• Then, take your dog’s favorite treat and put it in one muffin cup.
• Next, place a tennis ball over each muffin cup so the treat is hidden.
• Finally, let your dog go to town!

With this fun exercise, your pup should be able to smell the treat and use their nose to knock off tennis balls until they find it. If you want to introduce a healthy dose of competition, keep track of how long it takes for your pup to find the treat and compare it with your friends’ dogs!

Have fun with a doggie IQ test

Keeping with the spirit of healthy competition, there are many doggie IQ tests that exist online, if you and your pup are up for the challenge. Tasks include tests of object permanence, information retention, and problem-solving skills.

If you want to see some of the tests in action, about four years ago Internet personality Jenna Marbles tested the intelligence of her three dogs, Mr. Marbles, Kermit, and Peach to hilarious results. Check out her video here (tests begin at 1:44)! You can keep score of how you and your friends’ pets do on the test and make a special treat for the winner (and all the participants, who are we kidding we love all of our pups equally).

Favors To Give Out At Your National Pet Day Party

When you were a kid, do you remember how excited you were receiving that little bag of goodies at the end of a friend’s birthday party? We think that feeling shouldn’t be for kids only! Surprise your guests with small party favors as thanks for attending your party.

Why not send them home with a few of the homemade dog biscuits that you served? Include the recipe and cookie cutter, too, so they can make the treats at home! You can also include a toy! Our dogs have loved the squeaky tennis balls from Kong, and they come in four different sizes to suit all pooches!

Remember those Instagram-able pics you all took in front of your balloon greeting earlier? Have your guests use a dedicated hashtag when they post those pictures. Then, you can later use the hashtag to find the pics from your party and repost them to an Instagram account dedicated to the party. You and your guests can have all of the pictures in one place! You can look back on the fun memories you had on National Pet Day, and then reference it when you’re planning next year’s party!

Are you going to throw your pets a National Pet Day Party? If so, use the hashtag #PawsomePetParty2019 so we can find your pictures! We can’t wait to see how you’ll celebrate your pets this year.