Free Dog Coloring Pages

Dogs are the animals most children already know by heart. They live in our houses, ride in our cars and wait by the door when we come home, which makes these pages easy to talk about: almost every child can name a dog they have met and describe whether it was long, short, fluffy or spotted. Dogs come in more shapes and colors than any other pet, so nobody can color one of these pages "wrong". A golden retriever is usually honey-blonde, a Dalmatian is white with black or liver-brown spots, and a husky is often grey and white with a dark mask, but real dogs are also black, red, brindle, cream and every mix in between. Point out the parts that stay pale on many dogs — the chest, paws and the underside of the muzzle — and the black of the nose and paw pads. The Dalmatian is the natural one for a spotted coat, and the poodle's clipped puffs are fun to fill in with any color at all. The eight designs are deliberately different from one another. The first three are the easy ones: a long, smiling dachshund walking in side view with almost nothing inside the outline, a happy puppy sitting with its tongue out and tail wagging, and a corgi in a play-bow with its front paws stretched forward. They use thick lines and big open shapes that suit toddlers and preschoolers still learning to stay inside the lines. The middle sheets add more to color — a standing Dalmatian covered in round spots and wearing a collar, and a poodle in the classic clip with a topknot, chest puff and pom-pom tail. The last three are the longer projects: a basset hound lying down with heavy drooping ears and a wrinkled face, a husky sitting and howling with a thick ruff and a curled tail, and a French bulldog sitting slightly turned, whose short muzzle, bat ears and facial folds are drawn in fine, close lines for children who like a careful piece of work. Every sheet prints on landscape US Letter paper at 200 DPI, so the dog fills the page without being cut off. Plain copier paper is fine for crayons and colored pencils. If you are using markers or paint, slightly thicker card stock stops the color bleeding through — worth doing on the last three sheets, where the wrinkles and fur sit close together and can run into each other on flimsy paper. In the classroom these pages pair well with a lesson on pets and how to care for them, on the letter D, or on comparing animal bodies. The dachshund, corgi and basset are all long and low; the French bulldog is short and compact; the husky is fluffy. Print two or three different designs and let each child pick: the walking dachshund is finished in a few minutes, while the French bulldog can fill a whole quiet afternoon, which keeps a mixed-age table busy at the same time. The sitting puppy and the howling husky also make good display pieces for a classroom pet wall, and the Dalmatian's spots are a useful counting activity — children can color a set number of spots in one color and the rest in another.