A pet portrait as a housewarming gift: art for a new home

A new home has bare walls, and a royal portrait of the family's dog or cat can be the first thing that goes up on them. This page covers a portrait as a housewarming gift: why art suits a new home, how to choose a size for rooms you may not have seen, what renters should know about hanging pictures, and how the move itself affects the pet in the portrait. For the steps every portrait gift shares, start with the guide to pet portrait gifts.

Why art suits a new home

Gift research gives a reason to choose something that will last. A 2016 review by Jeff Galak, Elanor Williams and Julian Givi, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, found that givers focus on the moment a gift is opened. Recipients focus on how useful and pleasing the gift will be over the whole time they own it. Galak's example was a vacuum cleaner, a gift that will be used and liked for a long time.

A housewarming gift matches how recipients judge gifts. The new owners will live with it for years, in the rooms they are just starting to arrange. A portrait of their own pet is useful in the way art is useful: it fills an empty wall, and it shows the family who lives there.

A housewarming is often a party with many gifts. A 2021 set of 12 studies from Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business found that at occasions where one person receives gifts from several givers, recipients focus on how much thought went into each one, while givers worry about how their gift compares in value. A portrait of the family's own pet is a gift nobody else at the party could bring.

Choosing a size for walls you have not seen

The hardest part of a housewarming portrait is the wall. Purrealism's prints come in four sizes: 8 × 10, 12 × 16, 18 × 24 and 24 × 36 inches, on matte or glossy paper. Each size suits a different place.

A 24 × 36 inch print is 2 feet wide and 3 feet tall before any frame, so give it only when you know there is room. The framing and hanging guide covers how frames and mats add to those sizes and how high to hang a picture.

When you have not seen the new home, there are two safe choices:

• A digital download. Purrealism offers each portrait as a digital download or an art print. With the download, the owners choose the print size and frame once the rooms are painted and the furniture is in place.
• A card that promises the portrait. The owners choose the style and the size themselves once they have settled. Research reported by Stanford Graduate School of Business found that recipients appreciate gifts they have asked for, and this lets them ask for exactly the portrait they want.

Choosing a style for the new rooms

Purrealism offers 15 portrait styles: nine from Indian royal courts and six from European history. For a new home, match the style to what you know of the owners' taste. Dark wood and old maps may suit the Victorian Noble or the Regency Era, the style of this page's cover, a Bernese Mountain Dog. A home full of colour and textiles may suit one of the Indian styles, such as the Maharaja or the Maharani. The gallery shows finished portraits to help you compare, and the Purrspectives guide to dog wall art ideas has more ideas for pictures of dogs around the home.

Renters and nail holes

If the new home is a rental, the owners may worry about putting holes in the walls. Rules differ by province, state and country, so the owners should check their own lease and local law.

In British Columbia, the province's Residential Tenancy Branch publishes a policy guideline on who is responsible for what in a rental. Its Guideline 1 says most tenants will put up pictures, and that a landlord may set rules for how, such as no adhesive hangers or only picture hook nails. If the tenant follows the landlord's reasonable instructions for hanging and removing pictures, the guideline says this is not damage, and the tenant is not responsible for filling the holes or paying for it. The tenant does pay for repairs where there are too many nail holes, or where large nails, screws or tape have damaged the wall.

For a renter, then, a lighter frame that hangs on a single picture hook nail is the easier gift. The framing and hanging guide covers picture hooks and other hanging hardware.

The move and the pet in the portrait

The pet has just moved house too, and the move can be hard on it. If you visit or help with the move, this advice from animal welfare groups helps.

Cats

International Cat Care, a veterinary charity, says cats are territorial and form strong bonds with their home, so a move can be stressful for them. Its advice for moving day:

• Keep the cat in one room with the door and windows shut, with its carrier, bed, blanket, bowls, scratching post and litter tray.
• Put a sign on the door so movers and family keep it closed.
• Carry the cat in its carrier in the car, on the back seat and secured with a seatbelt.
• At the new home, set up one room first with its familiar things, and let the cat explore the rest one room at a time.
• Keep the cat indoors for at least two to three weeks.
• Update the cat's microchip details with the new address and phone number as soon as possible.

When the cat is ready to go outside, International Cat Care suggests a quiet, dry day when the owners are home, just before a regular mealtime, because a hungry cat is more likely to come back in. It advises opening the door and going into the garden together, letting the cat decide whether to explore, and leaving the door open so it can run back inside. It also warns that a cat whose new home is close to the old one may find its way back to its former house. The charity suggests asking the new residents of the old house to contact the owners if they see the cat, and never to feed it.

Dogs

The ASPCA gives similar advice for dogs and cats. It suggests bringing moving boxes in early, keeping pets in a familiar room that is packed last, and on moving day keeping them in a quiet room with the door shut or at a friend's house. At the new home, it suggests starting with one room as the pet's "home base", with its toys, treats, water and food bowls, and opening other rooms gradually. It also advises pet-proofing the new home: tucking away electrical cords, closing gaps where a pet could get stuck, checking that windows have secure screens, and removing any poisonous houseplants.

The microchip

A move is the moment a microchip record goes out of date. In a national study led by Linda Lord of Ohio State University, the leading reason shelters could not find the owner of a microchipped animal was an incorrect or disconnected phone number in the registry, in 35.4 percent of those cases. A reminder in the housewarming card to update the chip is a small kindness.

Giving it at the housewarming

A housewarming party means guests, open doors and wrapping paper, all of which matter to a pet that has just moved. Give the portrait with the pet in its quiet room, clear the paper away at once, and bring the pet in afterwards to see its royal self. The page on presenting a portrait gift covers wrapping and the card. If the owners do not know the portrait is coming, the page on getting a full-size photo for a surprise portrait explains how to collect the photo quietly.