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10 Christmas gift ideas for dogs

Kaapo dog with Christmas gifts and tree.

Drop everything you’re doing – in this blog post, Alvar’s co-founder Hanna tunes into the mariah careys and michael bublĆ©s, dives deep into a festive spirit and ensures all these topical conundrums are answered. Here are our top 10 Christmas gifts for dogs. 

The most important thing 

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you the best thing about Christmas is being together. Ask dogs, they’re no exception. Being with your loved ones with zero stress and no hurry is a luxury that also the furriest of friends appreciate. šŸ’š

Giving and receiving gifts is fundamentally just an extension of that – an instrument for spending quality time together, and creating memories that last a long time.

This list has been put together with that idea in mind: here are gift ideas to facilitate the making of memories with your dog and don’t burden the environment.

Kuura has been a good girl this year.

Equipped for adventures

If your dog has their gear all set, we don’t want to tout overconsumption – but if you’ve been on the hunt for a new coat, harness, anything to enable the most epic outdoors adventures in 2023, here are our best picks.

Woolly Wolf is an amazing small business who make dog gear out of recycled plastic bottles. We’re huge fans of Maria and Yoda!

Hurtta are an iconic dog wear brand – the functionality and durability of the garments is amazing. I’m impressed to with their zero-waste process: all fabric scraps are turned into pouches and small accessories. Some Alvar customers will get these as surprises in their December deliveries.

GOTO design dog wear made of plastic pollution collected from the ocean. A small selection of Goto products can be also found in our webshop!

Also, second-hand places such as Tori often treasure hidden gems and are a great way to extend the lifecycle of already existing supplies.

ā€œTrain together, stay togetherā€ 

I’ve been doing agility with Pyry for two years now and feel it’s definitely strengthened our bond. On the track, we make such a good team and celebrate our successes (and, more often, laugh at our failures 🤪) together. I strongly recommend trying out a new hobby or picking up some training sessions!

OneMind Dogs have been our faithful friend from puppy courses to sparring with founder Noora about how to solve certain, cough, behavioural issues.

If you want to maximise the social aspect of training, look up your local dog training clubs and attend a course – be it agility, rally obedience, nose work, I guarantee it’ll be so much fun.

To figure out what the best one would be, Google and recommendations at your neighbourhood dog parks are your best friend. And if you’re not ready to take on a new hobby, there’s also many ways to dog-proof your home – we do love our hygge.

Treat your pawed ones šŸ’š 

Surely no one actually thought I’d skip this opportunity to plug our own selection? Our team’s worked really hard to put together a Christmas gift collection from which everyone – dog mums, dog dads, people who don’t have dogs themselves but want to treat their family or friends’ dog – would find a suitable present. And I must admit I’m most proud of the outcome!

Here are our top picks for treats, toys and bundles from our selection. šŸ˜šŸŽ„

Alvar’s Christmas gift tips

That’s all for today. I wish all of you – you, your dog, your family, friends – the most relaxing holidays. This year’s been rough (see me resisting the RUFF pun?), hopefully the next one is kind and filled with positive surprises!

-Hanna with the Norfolk Terrier mom-son duo Peppi and Pyry

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Knit your own Alvar Sweater & Beanie

Drumrolls, please

We have paired up with Finnish knitwear designer Sari Nordlund to bring to life a pattern for making your own doggie, or as we call it, the Alvar Sweater for dogs. It of course comes with a matching chunky Alvar Beanie for us hoomans to keep warm as well.

Kaapo (left) wearing size 5 and Kuura (right) wearing size 3.

The sweater comes in 5 sizes and is beginner-friendly so all levels of knitting are welcome to join. The patterns are available to download for free from our blog until mid-November.

Why knitting? You make dog food, right?

Our mission is to minimise the CO2 pawprint and bring environmentally friendly solutions to dog owners. When planning our end of year campaigns earlier this year we put our heads together and thought about how we could bring sustainable dog living to our pupstomers outside of the food bowl as well. Instead of buying a mass-produced dog sweater of poor quality for your dog to keep warm in the upcoming cold & dark winter months, we encourage you to consider a more sustainable (and in our opinion: a way more better looking than store-bought) approach to keep your pup warm.

Sari and her dog Eetu (wearing size 4).

Who is Sari and why specifically this designer?

When we started this project, it was obvious that we wanted to bring this idea to life with someone who matches our brand as well as values and approach to sustainability. We immediately thought of Sari Nordlund – a knitwear designer who lives by the sea in Finland and spends most of her time knitting (despite vowing never again to touch needles and yarn after failed attempts at knitting in her childhood) and loves good quality coffee, knitting cables, dogs and cats (not necessarily in that order).

Yikes, I love the idea but I don’t know how to knit 😱

Worry not – when bringing the designs to life we wanted to make the pattern unique yet beginner friendly. The only techniques you need to complete this are:

  • Knitting right stitches
  • Knitting purl stitches
  • Increases
  • Decreases

…and technique videos of all these will be posted and saved in our Instagram Stories as a highlight.

The sweater comes in 5 sizes. You can choose whether you challenge yourself with do the charted pattern or knit the body of the sweater with only plain stitches to make it even more easily approachable. Want an even more beginner-friendly option? Then just choose to knit the coziest and chunkiest Alvar Beanie to keep warm on your dog walks!

Still got questions about the pattern? Shoot Sari a message on Instagram and she will sort you out šŸ’š

Many dogs don’t necessarily need clothing even during the winter, but if your dog has little hair or is easily cold, a layer of clothing can be a nice addition.

Partnering with Tukuwool for the yarn

We chose to partner up with Finnish Tukuwool, whose yarns are made from pure 100 % Finnish wool (a blend of Finnsheep and Finnsheep-Texel crossbreed.) Tukuwool was born from the love for wool. Also from the passion to create something new and unique.

ā€œI want to constantly develop Tukuwool and its production to be more sustainable by keeping the production close and avoiding long freights and thus minimising the carbon print of the production” says Tiina, the owner of Tukuwool

The yarn we have chosen for the pattern is the Tukuwool DK – You can order your yarn online (or check with your local yarn shop)!

However, if you have similar weight yarn at home – feel free to use up that or check for leftover yarns at your local recycling centre šŸ§¶ā™»ļø

So what are you waiting for? Get knitting!

The pattern is available to download from our blog for free until mid-November. You can join our 4-week long #alvarknitalong and share some tips & tricks and ask questions – or start the knitting whenever suits you.

We would love to see your work in progress (and dog pictures never hurt anybody…) – share your knitting progress on socials with the hashtags #alvarsweater #alvarbeanie #alvarknitalong

Happy knitting, we can’t wait to see your creations!

šŸ¤Ž The Alvar team & Sari