First, the rules nobody tells you
Ask the cap before you buy. Most exchanges land between $20 and $30, and office ones cluster at $25. Coming in over the cap is more awkward than coming in under it.
Do not bring anything personalized. This is the most common mistake at dog-lover gift exchanges. A gift with someone's specific dog on it cannot be stolen by anyone else, so it dies on the first pick and the game stalls. Custom gifts are for named recipients. Save them for the family exchange and read the last section of this page.
Funny on sight, wanted afterwards. A pure gag gets one laugh and is abandoned under a chair. A pure practical item is never stolen. The gifts that get fought over are the ones that are both at once, which is why food and rude-but-usable objects win every year.
The Pooping Pooches calendar
Perfectly under every cap, immediately funny when unwrapped in a room, and still a functioning calendar in January. It has been going since the early 2010s, the photographs are submitted by readers, and the business has partnered with the Maui Humane Society since 2013, so it gets a laugh and does some good.
If you only read one line of this page: this is the one to bring. poopingpooches.com
Good treats, absurd packaging
Bakery-style dog treats presented as something they are not: a wine bottle, a beer six-pack, a birthday cake. Cheap, universally stealable, and consumed rather than stored. Any pet shop stocks these in December and most supermarkets do too.
Works because every dog owner in the room can use it, and the ones without dogs will still take it to be annoying.
Anything that makes a noise
A squeaky toy the size of a toddler, or the loudest possible novelty item. Frequently stolen, occasionally regretted, and it will absolutely be remembered. Do not bring this to an exchange with people you work with closely.
The framed portrait of their dog, for afterwards
We make a custom framed gallery print from four photographs of somebody's own dog pooping, printed at 11 x 14 on fine art paper and hand-framed in real wood. It is the funniest thing you can hang in a bathroom.
It is also the wrong gift for a white elephant exchange, for exactly the reason above: it is personalized, so nobody else can steal it and the game breaks. Bring the calendar to the swap. Buy this for the one dog person you actually shop for. Made to order, free US shipping, 5 to 10 business days, so order by early December for Christmas, and a dollar from every order goes to the Los Angeles County Animal Care Foundation. See how it works.
What to avoid
- Anything the recipient has to assemble. Nobody at a party wants a project.
- Live animals, obviously. This needs saying more often than you would think.
- Breed-specific anything. You are buying for a room, not a person. A golden retriever mug is dead weight to the eleven people who do not own a golden retriever.
- Scented candles. Not funny, not stealable, and everyone already has four.
If you are buying for one specific dog person
Different game entirely. The constraint that makes white elephant gifts generic is exactly the constraint you no longer have, so use it: the best gifts for a named dog owner are the ones made from photographs of their own dog, which they cannot already own and will not throw away.
That is what we make, and there is a fuller list of options, including several we do not sell, in our guide to funny gifts for dog moms.