Just an FYI did you disallow network access to Gboard? If not you can long press on the Gboard app, go to permissions and deny network access if you want more privacy. Gifs won't work, but Gboard won't be able to "phone home" with any data to Google either. I use Gboard this way. I tried all the other open source keyboards and IMO none of them are as good as Gboard. 

 Thank you! That's super helpful. I just checked and it was on do not allow. So good on that front. I also just turned off share usage statistics and stuff from privacy settings.