How to Throw a Breed Reveal Party for Your Rescue Dog

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So, I am a little bit of a jerk. Since all of my friends were doing gender reveal parties for their CERTIFIED HUMAN BABIES, I decided that I was going to do a BREED REVEAL for my HUMAN DOG BABY because I am that much of an asshole.

Yes-you read that right. I threw a whole breed reveal party for my rescue dog. I guarantee I am not the first person to come up with this idea, but I still could find very little on the Internets for it. Instead, to plan, I read a lot of blogs about ideas for gender reveal parties, did a deep dive into gender reveal Pinterest boards and extrapolated from there.

First and foremost, we clearly needed a theme and an instagramable snack table. Second, we needed a gimmick for the breed reveal itself. (So far, my husband and I have come up with two of these and we are in the works for the 3rd reveal as we speak...the ideas are silly and endless.)

Lastly, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, we had to actually figure out what Porter's breeds were.

Any guesses before I reveal the answer?

Finding out his breed was easy enough, as I ordered the first recommended doggy DNA test after I googled "Doggy DNA test." I've only used this one test, and now that I am typing this, I am wondering if we would get similar or different answers with another test...BUT...that seems like an idea for another post.

We ended up buying Embark's "Dog DNA Test" and got a full report that gave us a laugh (in a good way). Porter looks like a lot of breeds so it was fun to finally know what he was after months of guessing.

Doggy DNA Test

We threw a big party and had people "buy-in" in order to guess his breed. The betters could then fill in their answers on a half-sheet of paper, and the person with the closest answers won a donation to Porter's rescue in their name. (Porter was adopted from Lost Dog Rescue in Arlington.)

Once all of the bets were collected, the BIG REVEAL was unleashed. To prepare for this before the party, I printed out Porter's breed report and cut it up into strips. Then I put each strip in a balloon and popped each balloon individually, revealing the breed and percentage inside to the oooos and ahhhs of my adoring audience. (Just kidding-they were mostly drunk and unfocused but humored me nonetheless.) 5 booms. Party success.

Below are your definitive steps for planning a breed reveal party.

*While trying to create the list below, I could not figure out how to get rid of the automatic numbering and it's all fucked up. I had to give up trying to figure it out before I threw my computer out the window. Just ignore until I can learn how to get out of the clutches of the auto-numbering.

Steps to Planning Your Rescue Dog Breed Reveal Party

1. Do a DNA test on your dog. We used Embark for no particular reason and it worked just fine. It takes a few weeks to the results so you'll want to do this first.

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   Embark Dog DNA test

   
   

2. Plan your color theme. We chose black and gold since Porter is black and gold.

*The next two steps are interchangeable depending on your reveal strategy.*

3. Plan your "reveal" strategy. For Porter, we decided to cut up his breed report from Embark and put each strip in its own balloon. Then, late in the party, we popped each balloon and announced the breed inside. (We did something different for Gussie.)

   
   

   Did anyone guess what Porter's breeds were?

   
   

   This was his report:

   
   

   

   Porter's DNA Report

   
   
   
   
   
   

4. Plan your Instagram backdrop/table & order the pieces. Next, we used the chosen color scheme to plan an "instagrammable" table spread. I am not crafty, nor am I even remotely interested in being crafty, so anything instagrammable is way, way, way, way wayyyyyyy out of my ability range...BUT since I was trying to capture the spirit of a baby shower or gender a reveal, I felt the effort was necessary in order to complete the ridiculousness of the party. I decided I would just do up one table and really go over the top. The rest of my house was untouched.

   
   

   Gender reveals usually have a lot of candy, food, balloons, and decorations in one color or the other, so that's what I had in the back of my head as I were ordering. For a while I was stuck on trying to learn how to make a balloon arc, but I finally had to give up on that idea due to my lack of grit and tenacity. Ultimately I settled on decorating one long table with balloons and candy for Porter's reveal.

   
   

   This is what the table ended up looking like:

   
   

Here is what you need to re-create Porter's breed reveal table or a table of your own:

a. A 6-foot table

b. Tablecloth that matches your chosen color theme (black and gold for us)

c. Backdrop

d. Large customizable balloons.

e. Blackboard to tape up popping balloons

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   f. Popping balloons (Cut up the DNA report and put 1 breed in each balloon. )

   
   

2. 

   g. Flair decorations

   
   

3. 

h. Small chalkboards for directions. ( I can't find the original ones that I had in the picture, but any 6 x 9 chalkboards will do. On one of them I wrote the directions for the betting and the ballots. (See "labels" below.)

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i. Ballot Box for people to submit their guesses.

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j. Paper to create ballots

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k. Pens

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l. Labels. Use the paper to print labels and directions for people.

• Ballot directions

• Ballot box label

• Donation vase label

m. Chalk pens to leave directions for people on how to participate and where to put their votes. Also, you can use this to decorate the balloon board.

16. 

n. Candy that matches the color theme!

o. Mason jars to hold pens and candy (or any ol' jars/cups you have around the house that match your color theme.

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p. Vase from around the house or another box for donations (if you do this part)

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5. Send invite! Once all of the materials are on the way, choose your date and send out the invitations!

6. 1 Day Before: Put table together. You will need a few hours for this, unfortunately-especially if you are not crafty like me. I need a while to experiment and move things around so that the table would look full instead of sparse. (It still looks a little sparse, but I had reached the end of my decorative patience at this point.) Start by hanging up the backdrop and setting up the table, then create the balloon board and blow up and tape up the giant letters. Fill the candy in in the blank spots.

7. Party Time!

   Encourage guests to throw a dollar in the jar and make some guesses. A few hours into the party, do the big reveal by popping one balloon at a time and announcing each breed!

   
   

   Open the ballot box and figure out who had the closest guess. This was more of an art than a science since the answers were infinite and everyone was all over the place. (We chose my brother, who was the only one who listed Rat Terrier, which I still think is so fucking random. I don't think Porter looks anything like a Rat Terrier and somehow my brother pulled that one out of his ass. I promise I did not give him the answers but since we are siblings there could have been a little mind-reading going on.) Announce the winner and enjoy the rest of the party.

   
   

8. After the Party

   Make the donation to your dog's foundation in the name of the winning guesser. Make sure to print out the confirmation and send it to the winner so that they get a little warm-fuzzy.

   
   

   I hope you have an awesome breed reveal party and that it spreads some love to some of the rescue foundations out there!

Please take photos and share them with us @spotsandbrindle!!!!