My New Poodle Friend

The poodle sits on a grooming table when My New Poodle Friend opens, coat a little scruffy and waiting for its first wash. The first thing you choose is the shampoo color, and it tints the suds in the tub, leaving a faint sheen on the fur once you rinse it off.

The toolkit splits into grooming and dressing. On the grooming side you pick a coat trim, like a pom-pom cut or tight curls, then a dye or pastel tips before the blow-dry. Dressing adds a raincoat, a rhinestone collar, a bandana, or a bow clipped just above one ear, and every piece sits over the fur without hiding the trim underneath.

Where a typical makeover game just swaps an outfit, this one changes the animal underneath the outfit, since the coat trim and dye stay visible through every accessory added afterward. A round ends with the poodle posed on a cushion for a photo, the groomed coat and the outfit both on display.

Trim the coat before touching the dye, since some cuts leave more fur exposed for the color to show. A pastel dye reads better against a plain collar than a patterned one, so save the bandana for a solid coat. The blow-dry button sits tucked in the corner of the tub screen, easy to skip, but skipping it leaves the fur flat under the finished look.