Puppy Coloring Pages

Puppies are drawn differently from adult dogs, and it is not just scale. The head is oversized relative to the body, the eyes sit lower and larger in the face, the muzzle is short, the legs are stubby and the paws are conspicuously too big. Those proportions are what the eye reads as "young," and every one of these 29 puppy coloring pages is built on them. Each downloads as a free printable PDF sized for US Letter paper.

Simple sheets suit small hands. Golden Retriever Puppy Sitting With Floppy Ears, Sleepy Puppy Curled Up in a Cozy Basket and Puppy Chasing and Playing With a Ball all use bold outlines and few internal lines. Detailed sheets add fur texture and more figures: Puppy and Kitten Cuddling Together, Fluffy Poodle Puppy With Curly Fur and Shiba Inu Puppy With Fluffy Tail take longer.

Named breeds make color choice easy. A golden retriever is cream to russet gold. A dalmatian is white with separate black spots. A poodle can be apricot, cream, silver or black. A shiba inu is orange-red with a cream mask, chest and inner legs, the pattern is called urajiro and it is what makes the breed recognizable at a glance.

The rest of the set covers the situations puppies actually get into. Naughty Puppy Making a Mess With Toilet Paper and Three Puppies Playing and Tumbling in the Grass are the two busiest pages, and the tumbling sheet is a good exercise in giving each animal a different coat so the pile stays readable. Dalmatian Puppies Playing Together With Spots is the one where the spots need to vary in size and sit at irregular intervals; evenly spaced dots are what make a colored dalmatian look printed. Puppy Running Through a Sunny Flower Field and Puppy Wearing a Big Bow Looking Adorable are the brightest two.

Related line art: Dogs, Cats, Bunnies and Teddy Bears.