How to Make a Dog Poster

Make your own poster about or featuring dogs.

You’ve been tasked with creating a poster on dogs for a school presentation, adoption event or dog show. While the 157 different kinds of purebred dogs recognized by the American Kennel Club and the incalculable number of mutts and mixed canines may make deciding on a poster seem overwhelming, creating something educational that captures your audience’s attention doesn’t have to leave you going to the dogs. With a little bit of research and some dogged perseverance, you’ll have a dog-themed poster ready to go.

Things You'll Need

• Poster board
• Internet connection
• Printer
• Ink
• Paper
• Glue
• Markers
• Poster paint
• Ruler

Instructions

1. Collect your media materials and decide what will work best with your concept. If you plan to offer extensive text information, you'll want to use fine-point markers, distinguishing your poster's headline with a different color or a thicker line. Larger areas or posters with a more graphic-dominant design are best handled with poster paint. For your dog image, you can choose from hand-drawn designs, hand- or silkscreen prints, full-color paintings, computer printouts or xeroxed images. Make sure the background features colors that complement the shades of the dog image you're using.

2. Create a timeline with markers and a ruler across the top of the poster detailing the history of the dog. According to the website My Top Dogs, canines descended from a tree-dwelling weasel-like creature called a Miacis more than 40 million years ago. Mark a place on the timeline 13,000 years back from the current date to indicate the time when dogs appeared in Eurasia, after having evolved from the wolf. Because cavemen were the first humans credited with keeping domesticated dogs, you could add a small drawing of a caveman and mark the spot on the timeline as the Paleolithic Age.

3. Create a poster that delineates the dog's most characteristic body part: its nose. Draw a bar graph with a stick figure and three dogs labeled “Dachshund,” “Fox Terrier” and “Alsatian.” Mark the stick figure’s bar at 5 million and the dog breeds at 125 million, 147 million and 220 million respectively. Across the top of the chart, write “Olfactory Cells” and, in smaller letters, write “A Superior Sense of Smell” to display how dogs literally run circles around humans’ ability to smell.

4. Print a picture of a dog, glue it to your poster and use bright-colored markers to write in a few tidbits of information specific to that breed. Pomeranians, for example, may look like especially fluffy little foxes, but they first hailed from the area they’re named after, Pomerania (which is now Germany and Poland). They were once used as sheepherders and most have an overbite.

5. Draw a picture of a dog standing next to a stick figure (or use images of you and your dog, if available). Underneath the figures, write a list of comparative information about humans and canines. For example, you might note that both humans and dogs lose their "baby teeth." Though it takes years for humans to get all of their teeth, dogs get all 28 of their baby teeth at three to eight weeks old. However, these are soon replaced, as the dog develops all 42 permanent teeth by about four months of age. You might include the fact that while human body temperatures are regulated at 98.6 degrees, dogs' temperatures fall between 100.2 and 102.8. Also add unusual information about other inter-species similarities and differences, such as the fact that like cats, but unlike humans, dogs have an extra, third eyelid (called a “haw”).

6. Add pictures of “famous” dogs your audience may recognize from television, comics and movies, such as the alien pug from "Men in Black," Lassie, Snoopy, Marmaduke or Eddie, the frisky Jack Russell Terrier from the TV show “Frasier.”

7. Research your closest adoption center or shelter and print their website and phone number on your poster. Add a note about whether they accept volunteers under the age of 16 and statistics such as the Humane Society of the United States' estimate that eight to 10 million dogs and cats enter shelters every year, but only a third to a half are adopted. You could display this poster in a public place where it can raise awareness about canine population control.

References

• My Top Dogs: Dog Facts
• Love Your Dog: Fabulous Facts About Dogs
• American Kennel Club: Meet the Breeds-Pomeranian
• Bill Foundation: The Cold Hard Facts on Pet Overpopulation