Thirty-eight pieces of dog text art, one line to 16, in keyboard characters only. The ears hang, which tells them from the cats next door. Dogs sit, run and beg, a sausage dog stretches, and 7 pieces take a name.
Read the full guide
Put the dog's name on it
Names to type over holds 7: a kennel (FIDO, 7 characters at most), a bone (9), a bowl (7), a squash-proof tag (9), a rosette, a Beware of the dog sign (two lines of 13) and Barking dog, one line, whose WOOF can be any length. Keep each line its length and the edges hold. Dog faces narrows to 16.
Getting the dog there in one piece
Past one line, a piece needs a monospaced font and every space it came with: the cat ASCII art page covers why, and what Markdown does to the backslash in 29 of these 38. Squash-proof keeps 9 with no spaces to lose, 5 of them one-liners. Fits a comment box marks all but Big dog face and Dog silhouette.
Tips
The shortest ascii art dog is Sleeping dog, one line: 11 characters. Squash-proof dog face is 4 lines by 7.
Sausage dog stretches: add equal underscores to its two middle lines. Dog with a long stick grows by = signs.
Dog in a cone wears an Elizabethan collar and suits a get-well message. A one-character bone: the bone emoji page.
Questions and answers
How do I make an ASCII dog not look like a cat?
Hang the ears. This site's cats have pointed ears, /\ each side. The dogs have flaps: /| and |\ beside the face, braces on the squash-proof pieces, a U each side on the one-liners. Then a muzzle: Y for the nose, U under it for a tongue.
Can I change the breed?
On four pieces. Long-eared hound face gets more hound with every line of bars. Delete the bottom line of Poodle, side view and its ankle pompoms go. Sausage dog is a dachshund: short legs, long body. Swap every # in Dog silhouette to change its coat.
What if the name is too long for the kennel?
Use Dog bone with a name, which widens easily: for each extra character add a space to the top line and a hyphen to the second and fourth. Barking dog, one line has no edges at all.
Barking dog, one lineA dog with something to say. Type over WOOF with anything of any length. 1 line, 14 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog and bone, one lineFloppy ears, three dots of distance and a bone. Reads left to right. 1 line, 21 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog biscuits, one lineThree bone-shaped biscuits, four characters each. Copy one and paste it as often as the dog has earned. 1 line, 14 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog with a long stickOne line: a dog carrying a stick wider than it is. Add = signs to both ends until it no longer fits through the door. 1 line, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Sleeping dog, one lineEyes shut, ears down. Add a z for a longer nap. 1 line, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Show all 38 pieces (33 more)
Small, 2 to 4 lines 17
Dog bone with a nameA bone with a name along the shaft. Type over BISCUIT, 9 characters at most, and keep 11 between the two brackets. 4 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog bowl with a nameA bowl of biscuits with a name on the side. Type over REX, 7 characters at most, and keep it centred. 4 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog giving a pawSitting, with one paw held out to the right. 4 lines, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog in a coneA dog looking out of the cone the vet sent it home in. Four lines, 11 columns. 4 lines, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog in sunglassesThe puppy face with two # lenses and a hyphen for the bridge. It is not going to fetch that. 4 lines, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog with a boneA dog face with a bone held crossways in its mouth. Add = signs to both sides for a bigger bone. 4 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog with no backslashBraces for ears and a row of u for paws. No backslash, underscore, asterisk or backtick in it. 4 lines, 7 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Long-eared hound faceEars that hang to the jaw and past it. Add a line of bars for longer ears. 4 lines, 9 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Plain dog boneA bone with two knuckles at each end and nothing written on it. Add hyphens and underscores in step to lengthen it. 3 lines, 14 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Puppy faceTwo ear flaps hanging either side of the face, a Y for the nose and a U for the tongue. 4 lines, 9 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Sausage dogA dachshund, facing left: short legs and a long body. Add underscores to the two middle lines, the same number to each, for a longer dog. 4 lines, 21 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Sleeping dog, chin downFlat on the floor with a paw stretched out each side and its chin on the ground. Swap each hyphen eye for an o and it is awake and waiting. 4 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Small dog, side viewA whole dog in four lines, facing right, tail up. 4 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Small sitting dogEars, a face, a chest and two paws, with the tail up on the right. Four lines, 9 columns. 4 lines, 9 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Squash-proof dog faceBraces for ears and no space anywhere, so there is nothing to fold. 4 lines, 7 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Squash-proof dog name tagA bone-shaped tag with dots for padding. Type over BUDDY and fill what is left with dots, 9 characters between the brackets in all. 3 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Squash-proof sitting dogEars, face, a chest of colons and two paws. No line starts with a space and the tail is a tilde. 4 lines, 8 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Medium, 5 to 9 lines 14
Beware of the dog signA warning sign and the dog it warns about. Type over both lines, 13 characters each at most, and pad with spaces so the right-hand bar stays where it is. 8 lines, 17 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog beggingUp on its hind legs with both front paws held out, looking straight at your plate. 6 lines, 7 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog in a bandanaThe puppy face with a triangle of v tied under the chin. Swap the v for another letter to change the cloth. 6 lines, 9 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog in the bathA dog up to its neck in a tub on two feet, with six bubbles. It has opinions about this. 6 lines, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog kennel with a nameA kennel with a name over the door and its owner looking out. Type over FIDO, 7 characters at most, and keep 9 between the two quote marks. 7 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog on the sofaA sofa with two arms, and a dog on it that is not allowed on it. 6 lines, 21 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Good dog rosetteA show rosette with two ribbon tails. Type over GOOD, 5 characters at most, and DOG, 7 at most. 7 lines, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Poodle, side viewA poodle drawn with @ signs: a pompom on the head, the chest, the tail and all four ankles. 7 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Running dog, side viewFlat out, legs at full stretch, one ear and the tail streaming behind. It faces right. 5 lines, 21 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Shaggy dog faceA fringe of bars where the eyes should be, then a nose and a tongue. It can see you fine. 6 lines, 13 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Sitting dog, front viewA whole dog sitting square on, front legs together, tail out to the right. 7 lines, 11 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Sitting dog, side viewSide on and sitting, one ear hanging, tail up behind. It faces left. 7 lines, 18 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Small dog on a leadThe small dog with a lead running up and off to the right. Whoever holds the other end is out of shot. 6 lines, 15 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Standing dog, side viewFour legs, a level back, tail up and one ear hanging. It faces right. 7 lines, 19 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Large, 10 lines and up 2
Big dog faceA full face between two big ear flaps, ten lines in all. Swap each (o) for (-) and it is asleep. 10 lines, 25 wide. Keyboard characters only.
Dog silhouetteA sitting dog filled in with # signs, side on, muzzle to the left, tail up on the right and one blank for an eye. Swap every # for another character to change the coat. 16 lines, 24 wide. Keyboard characters only.
How this list was compiled: Every piece was drawn for this page and checked in a monospaced font on 2026-09-19; none is copied from an archive or another site. The set covers what the plan for this page names, a sitting dog, a running dog, a puppy face and a bone, and adds a kennel, a bowl, a bone, a sign, a rosette and a tag that take a name, faces with floppy ears, whole dogs seen from the front and the side, a sausage dog that stretches, a poodle, and four taller pieces with no run of spaces in them. Each character was looked up in the Unicode Character Database, version 18.0.0: names and categories in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt, width classes in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/EastAsianWidth.txt, the Emoji property in https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/emoji/emoji-data.txt, all read on 2026-09-19. Keyboard characters only means the 95 printable ASCII characters, U+0020 to U+007E. Squash-proof means no line starts with a space and no two spaces touch. The comment box badge means at most 8 lines and 30 columns: a rule of thumb of this site, not a promise about any app. Licence: own work