Charles M. Schulz wrote, “Happiness is a warm puppy.”   And what the world could use right now is a whole lot of warm puppies and an enormous dose of puppy cuteness.  The LEGO 101 Dalmatians Puppy set (43269) provides plenty of toy photography fun and puppy-inspired happiness.

The Basics

The LEGO 101 Dalmatians Puppy set (43269) was released in June 2025, with 1722 pieces and a retail price of $149.99 USD.  The brick-built puppy model is about 8.5 inches tall.  The set was surprisingly interesting to build, and the finished puppy is fairly sturdy given all its moving parts.  Only the tongue and the collar tag labels use stickers. There are four instruction booklets, so you can easily split the build among your puppy-loving pals. 

The 101 Dalmatians puppy before final assembly (and extra parts for rebuilds).

LEGO also released a smaller companion set – 43271 – Lucky & Penny 101 Dalmatians Puppies.  Here are the puppies from the two sets together for size comparison. 

101 Dalmatians set 43269 vs 43271 size comparison.

Choose Your Puppy

The highlight of the set (besides an exceptionally photogenic puppy!) is its very customizable features.  You can build an infinite variety of puppies (or at least 101, although I did not test this :)).  The set comes with collar tags and photos in the first instruction booklet for six of the most well-known pups – Patch, Lucky, Rolly, Freckles, Penny, and Pepper.  You can switch collars (red or blue), and have the mouth closed or tongue out. The head and tail rotate.  You can choose to build black or white ears and can build the face with or without a black eye patch.  And there are plenty of black spots that you can arrange on the ears, head, torso, and legs however you would like.  The puppy’s back conceals a small storage compartment to hold the extra collar, tags, spots, and a few other pieces.

Spot the differences?

You can easily change between a sitting pose and a crouching (downward dog or “play bow”) pose by reversing the front and back legs and resetting the head. I wish that the technic pin connections between the legs and torso had been turntable assemblies to provide more range of motion and posing potential. But I do appreciate being able to so easily switch the legs and head for the two basic poses.

The sitting and crouching poses.

Puppy Photo Fun

Photographing this set was quite different than most other toy photography reviews I have done. This is because there are no minifigures or buildings to create themed setups with.  Nope, this set is all about the puppy! As a life-sized model (well, close enough), real-life scenarios are the way for photo setups.  The LEGO designers did an amazing job creating the head and face, so the pup is an absolute bundle of cuteness that begs to be photographed! 

Seriously, who could resist this face?!?
Freckles loves his ball.
In the mirror.
Pepper and the butterfly.
OMG, that head tilt gets me every time!!!

The description on the LEGO website states that you can decide whether you want your puppy to “stand, sit up, or lay down”.  But I did not see any product photos or instructions for any standing (unless they meant crouching) or lying down poses.  Nevertheless, don’t limit your puppy to the sitting and crouching poses. Experiment and you can create lots of interesting alternatives.

Patch finds a little frog.
Dogs on the furniture?  Absolutely 🙂
Will you be my friend?
Lucky knows how to shake.
Snuggly puppy.
Puppy fan of LEGO.

Conclusion

The LEGO 101 Dalmatians Puppy set (43269) is enchanting and fun to photograph. Whether exploring the outside world, interacting with others, or just engaging in playful puppy antics, there are endless creative photo opportunities. And of course, you could buy multiple sets for even more puppy fun. Although I photographed around the house for this review, this little pup has more outdoor photo adventures in its future.  Even just built as a display, the puppy is absolutely charming and will surely leave you with a smile. 

I suggest one improvement for those intending to photograph more than just the original build.  The set includes pieces for two ears – one black and one white, both white, or both black.  But you have to rebuild them if you change from your original ears.  I found this unnecessarily tedious. I suggest purchasing the remaining few pieces and building a set of black and a set of white ears (four ears total). This change would make it super simple to switch out ears for different looks instead of rebuilding them.  Regardless, the set as provided is super fun and I am very happy to have a new LEGO puppy companion.

Thank you to The LEGO Group and Toy Photographers for providing this set for review.

Butterfly kisses.