The gift for someone who only talks about their dog (or their cat)

What do you give when the phone comes out before the pudding?

You give them a place to hang the face they can’t stop showing you. You know someone like this. You haven’t asked, but somewhere between the roast and the sticky toffee pudding the hand goes to the pocket and the dog appears on the screen. The dog on the sofa. The dog at the beach. The dog who ate a sock, with the vet’s bill as a caption. You nod, because it’s sincere, and because the next one is already coming: the dog asleep, exactly like yesterday.

Then a birthday comes round and you have to find something. You already know what you don’t want: the mug with the dog’s face, the cushion, the keyring. They exist, they’ve all been given before, and they end up behind the salad bowl. What that house is missing isn’t one more object wearing the animal’s face. It’s somewhere to hang it, quietly, without having to scroll for it on a phone.

Which photo should you choose for the portrait?

The one where the animal looks at the camera, or nearly: face on, eyes open, muzzle clearly visible, taken in daylight. It isn’t necessarily the prettiest, and it’s nothing like a photo competition entry. It’s often the one taken in passing on a Sunday, without a thought. The hard part is done anyway: the photo exists, there are thousands of them.

For a surprise there is a very simple move: dig through the photos that person has already sent you in messages. You’re bound to have some. And if they are in the picture with the dog, don’t worry: it’s often the only one where you see the dog with someone.

• Choose: a sharp photo, taken in daylight, where the eyes and muzzle show clearly.
• Avoid: a blurry photo, taken from far away or against the light, which gives a less faithful portrait.
• Don’t worry about: the person, the lead and the background, which disappear from the portrait in our tests.
• For a black animal: a well-lit photo where the eyes and muzzle stand out.

Is the portrait painted by hand?

No, no paintbrush went near it. An artificial intelligence paints the animal from the photo in about thirty seconds, in a cloud of soft colours and a few small splashes, on textured paper. What arrives is a watercolour print, made at our workshop in Aveyron. It’s the first question you’ll be asked when you hand it over, so let’s settle it here.

What this gives you in return is that you see it before you pay. You get three tries per photo, and the image you approve is exactly the one that gets printed. If the muzzle isn’t right, you try another photo rather than paying for a portrait that doesn’t look like your dog. So we don’t promise a likeness: we let you judge it, which for a gift is more reassuring than a promise.

We had a golden retriever painted, then a black Labrador, a ginger tabby cat and a black cat, and finally a family of four with their dog: those are the portraits you see on this page and on the product pages. None comes from a customer. They are our own tests, which is why we never write “it always looks like them”.

And what about a cat?

The portrait exists for cats too, with the same four palettes and the same name in handwriting underneath. It works from what the photo shows: the ears, the whiskers, the colour of the coat, ginger tabby or black in our tests. A cat doesn’t pose, so if the photo is still to be taken, take it close up, in the light from a window, the moment it looks at you. A phone photo is enough.

A cat is recognised by very little: a stare, one ear slightly crooked, a mark on the nose. When the photo shows those things, the portrait has a better chance of keeping them; if it doesn’t, you try another photo, and that is exactly why you see the result before ordering.

What can you write under the portrait?

The animal’s name in handwriting script, plus an optional short line of text just beneath it. The name can be changed at any time without redoing the image. Plenty of people put only that, and it’s more than enough: a first name, and whoever walks past says it under their breath.

The line of text is the place for what only that household knows: the nickname they only have at home, “Boss of the house”, “King of the sofa and cuddles”, the day they arrived. Write it the way you’d say it out loud, and you see it before ordering, like everything else.

Which colour, which size, and how soon should you order?

Pick the colour for the wall, the size for the space, and order a week ahead in France. There are four palettes: sage and ochre, powder pink, ocean blue, terracotta. Don’t look at the animal, look at the room. You go wrong less often by following it: sage in a light-wood sitting room, powder pink in a bedroom, blue where there’s already white and grey. The palette changes the cloud of colours, not the animal in your photo.

For size, the trick is the one for any home gift: put a sheet of paper on the wall and step back. The table below says where each size goes, which ones are available with a frame, and how they arrive.

For the date, allow plenty: the workshop prints within 48 hours, then the parcel still has a few days to travel. For a birthday, order a week ahead in France, ten days ahead if it goes abroad. And if it’s for tomorrow, there’s still the print-ready file: a download link arrives the same day, and any photo print shop can print it.

And the moment she opens the parcel?

That is what you really want to see, and it isn’t the portrait: it’s the face of the person unwrapping it. The seconds it takes to understand that it’s him. The small silence, the hand rising to the chest, and the sentence that doesn’t come.

We wanted to see that moment before promising it to you, so we staged it: Biscuit, a golden retriever, and a woman unwrapping his portrait. To be clear: neither the dog nor the woman nor the room exists, and the video is entirely computer-generated, not filmed. It shows what we hope for you, not someone’s testimonial.

What if the dog is in the family photo?

The family portrait paints them all together, parents, children and dog, with the family name underneath. Sometimes the photo you want on the wall is everyone’s. We tried it with a family of four and their dog: everyone was painted, in full. With an animal other than a dog, nothing is guaranteed.