Woman divides opinion after dyeing her dog green to look like the Grinch

The Grinch may have stolen Christmas, but Rizzo the snazzy Schnauzer has stolen our hearts.

To get into the holiday spirit his family, took him for a trip to the salon to get his own Grinch glow-up.

Pictures and videos of the dashing doggo made their way to social media and soon went viral.

But it turns out that not all were impressed by Rizzo's Christmas-themed new look.

In fact, angry keyboard warriors sent the TikTok clips skyrocketing to viral status, with the videos of the fashion-conscious fido coming in at a combined total of 9.8 million views at time of writing.

One user said: "Why do people do stuff like this?"

A second added: "That should not be allowed. Poor baby."

While a third chipped in with their rather harsh opinion: "Some people don’t deserve animals."

Matriarch of the family Ashlee Spielmann told LADbible that all she wanted to do was honour her children's favourite festive film.

"Our kids love The Grinch and watched it almost every night last year," she said.

"Because Schnauzers naturally have grumpy looking faces due to their haircut I thought it would be fun to make Rizzo the Grinch."

So she had a chat with Rizzo's groomer, booked him in, and returned home with a green pupperino complete with a red Santa coat dyed into his fur.

Ashlee stressed that Rizzo was not in discomfort at any time and, in fact, loved the extra attention during his treatment.

"There was no bleach involved and the hair colour is totally safe," she said.

But she isn't letting the haters put a dampener on the Spielmann family Christmas spirit.

Madelyn, 15, Hayden, 14, Elise 12, Kendall, 7, and Hudson, 5, are thrilled with their freshly groomed Grinch.

When asked about the Christmas controversy, Ashlee just laughed.

"Welcome to the internet and this day and age where everyone has an opinion," she said.

"My goal in doing this was to make people smile and help spread holiday cheer. Who doesn’t love a Christmas dog?"

She added: "Apparently a lot of people"

Even though she had thousands of real-life Christmas grinches hating on her hound, Ashlee revealed a woman currently undergoing radiation treatment for cancer reached out to her to tell the family that Rizzo's video had made her day.

"It’s the little things like that," Ashlee said.

"My dog made her whole day while going through one of the hardest things."

According to the grooming experts at Washpaw, colouring your dog's fur is completely safe and harmless for your pet.

"All-natural and organic dyes formulated for use on pets are for the most part safe," Washpaw said.

"These products do not include the harmful toxins and chemicals found in most regular human hair dyes."

So the lesson here: don't be a real life grinch. It's Christmas, after all.