A Dog’s Life Gift Book | Dogs Trust & The Little Dog Laughed
A quick recap in case you don’t know the story or have far more important things to remember!
To celebrate The Little Dog’s 25th year of existence, we wanted to mark the occasion by giving a little something back and by doing what we think we do best – drawings dogs! Being in a reflective mood had us thinking about how the business first started and what makes us stand a little aside from the pack. Rescue dogs are and always have been our inspiration and therefore it was an easy mental leap to approach Dogs Trust – the UK’s largest dog welfare rescue charity, to see if they’d like to have a partnership with us and collaborate on a special collection.
It turns out they did and so we have!
Partnerships
In the past we’ve worked on projects with other animal charities – Battersea Dogs & Cats Home for our 10th anniversary and the RSPCA for our 20th, but hopefully, what will make this collaboration extra special is the warmth, loyalty and fondness people have for Dogs Trust and ourselves. Dogs Trust’s popularity and reach is slightly bigger than ours – over a million at the last count! Our humble input is the artwork, the humour and the style to what promises to be a heartwarming and original collection.
The Project So Far
The centrepiece of the range is a gift book featuring 50 Dogs Trust rescue stories charmingly illustrated by Anna. The stories touch on everything from divorce, friendships, new careers, health, misfortune and motherhood. Some will make you laugh, some will definitely make you cry, mostly it will resonate with those who function best with a dog in their life. The artwork is now complete and we are just adding the final touches to the cover and contents. It has been an intense few months but the results look strong. The fund raising target is £25,000 and a percentage from the sales across all the collection’s additional card and gift lines, including coasters and a 2024 calendar and diary should help us reach this donation amount.
The Artwork
Here is a quick snapshot of some of the rescue muses from the book who are most likely to feature on the accompanying greeting cards and gift lines. Starting with the Jacks, because, well, they insisted they went first!
Meet Emmy, the high energy, bat eared legend who has climbed the 3 Peaks and raised over £2000 for Dogs Trust with her coastal challenges.
Or how about little Lacey, the faithful companion who kept her human focused and sane when she was going through a heartbreaking divorce.
And then there is Greg, an elderly chap who liked to get straight to the point, the point being whatever worked best for him!
Perhaps you’d like to know more about Figg, the sweetest Staffie and animal assistance activity dog who tornadoes her way into everyone’s hearts!
And if you are going to meet Figg then you must also say hello to Logan, a soulful legend with a penchant for soft furnishing thievery.
And then of course there is flower girl Maddie and page boy Flea, itching to get to the bit where the vicar says ” You may now lick the bride”
With over 50 muses, there is a good chance you’ll find your ‘breed bias’ among the pages. From Labs to lurchers, Rotties to rascals, doodles to dachshunds. They are all here, and if by chance they aren’t, maybe think Vol.2!
Page Format | A Dogs’ Life
A Dog’s Life | Display
Whatever your display size requirements are, be it window, centre table, shelf or till area, we’ll have a variety of free POS options – including the soft toy mascot, to fit your needs. Eye catching, colourful, informative, original and ready to go this September! The free POS options are a ‘first come first served’ basis and you will automatically get ‘first dips’ when pre-ordering. Email info@thelittledog.co.uk to register your interest.
This year’s calendar offering will feature 12 of our favourite muses from the book and highlight the % of each calendar sale that will go directly to Dogs Trust. It will follow the same page format as our usual calendar offering.
We’ve chosen Emmy to grace our 2024 diary cover. As per previous years, it will feature 12 muses and has the usual extra features of ribbon marker, receipts pocket, month to view and again POS will highlight that a % of the profit from each diary sale will go directly to Dogs Trust.
Publicity Promotion & Pre Orders
With Dogs Trust’s loyal following and wide audience reach, this project will receive a lot of publicity including film edits (there will be rescue puppies!) and book signings that will play out across all their social platforms. We also plan to highlight and promote across all our socials, the retail outlets that make a nice display of the collection. This is an easy way to let all our customers know you support animal welfare and this fundraising charity collection.
Pre-ordering began in February and the orders and interest has been excellent. Our happy dilemma now is whether to sell out on the first print run and go for a second run ready for Spring ’24 or up the initial quantity so that we can all make the most of the Autumn ’23 launch.
The answer to this can be swayed by you!
If you think this dog lovers range would appeal to your customer base or you would like to attract a new audience to boost your footfall, you are welcome to secure your copies and free POS now. But fear not, if come September your plans or circumstance have changed, pre-ordering the books today is not binding. It will just help our giddy little minds make an educated quantity guess!
We’ll leave you with Betty while you have a little think but just ignore her single shoe offerings, they are her favourite items to gift house visitors!
In other news …
End of Line Bargains
https://www.thelittledog.co.uk/2023/05/bird-nature-end-of-line-bargains/
Coming Soon | Wash bags & Zip Purses
https://www.thelittledog.co.uk/2023/05/coming-soon-new-zip-purse-wash-bags/
Office Gossip
https://www.thelittledog.co.uk/2023/05/and-it-just-keeps-getting-better/
