Little Balloon Doggy’s #SpecialSomeone

Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest dog welfare and rehoming charity, is currently running an awareness campaign to highlight the sad truth that dogs in rehoming centres are waiting longer than ever to be adopted by a caring new owner.

 ‘Little Balloon Doggy’ tells the story of one dog, Paddy, and his #SpecialSomeone.
Using balloon dogs as a metaphor for dogs waiting in Dogs Trust centres, the ad shows what would happen if they could send a message to their destined owners, encouraging dog lovers to consider a rescue dog first, and changing common perceptions of rescue dogs in the UK.

To further advocate this message at public events, Paddy was to accompany Dogs Trust fundraisers at their side in the form of a life size balloon sculpture as seen in the video.
In order to withstand travelling around the country to events for up to 12 months, utilising real balloons was not possible and so had to be made of something more durable.

Using photographic reference of a real balloon dog used in the campaign video a 3D CAD model was created for proofing. From this data components were 3D printed to create a dog that was 50cm tall assembled, about the same scale as the real balloon versions.

This collection of parts were used to create resin copies via two part silicone tooling, to create all the pieces required to produce ten complete balloon dogs.
 Due to the complexity of any balloon animal, with its intertwining knotted shapes, the dogs had to be assembled from 28 separate pieces put together in a specific order, a total of 280 parts!

Client: Dogs Trust.