Choosing A Dog Bed

Fido needs to be comfortable, right? Fido craves comfort. And we all know that if Fido sleeps well, we all sleep well. Dogs sleep more than we do, so it’s mighty important that they have a soft place to fall at the end of a ‘ruff day’, right?

Here’s a guide to the process we used to choose a dog bed for our Lab and the ones(s) we ended up with in the end.

The Criteria:

• Our dog bed needed to be comfy and cozy, soft, and big enough for a Lab. Bonus points if the bed let her lay splayed out without head or limbs falling to the floor.
• It needed to be durable enough to last more than a season.
• It should look kind of nice (sidebar – we’re not particular on this point).
• It needed to have a removable, washable cover.
• It needed to be easy on the pocket book so that we could maybe buy more than one.

With that list in mind, we went shopping.

Some Early Contenders:

PetSmart’s Midwest Quiet Time Fleece Pet Bed

This is the bed we first tried back when we didn’t know what we were doing. We had a new puppy and she needed a bed. Bam, this one looked soft and was an affordable first choice.

But, it didn’t take long to get stained, and flattened. It’s washable, but that’s easier said than done. It’s cumbersome in the machine and takes a couple of days to dry. The pile in the fill couldn’t withstand the weight of a growing Lab and crumbs were building up in the ring around the side bumper.

PetValu’s Napsherpa Pillow Bed

This bed was with us for a long time. It addressed the issues we had with the Midwest bed above, and was much bigger, fluffier, and totally washable thanks to its removable covers.

The one drawback was the smell. It just absorbed odours like crazy, no matter how many times we washed the cover, and we were washing it about once a week.

Our Winner:

Kirkland Signature Beds (Round and Rectangular)

Oh Costco, what don’t you make? And when is it ever not bigger and better and more affordable than nearly every other comparable product on the market?

These beds are amazing. Seriously, we tell everybody we know about them. We give them as gifts and we left one behind once because another dog loved it so much.

They’re big. Big enough for two Labs to sleep on. We have one Lab, but two Labs on one of these beds has been known to happen when friends come over.

They’re incredibly soft. They come in all kinds of textures – velvety, fleecy, and suedey. And they’re reversible (and fashionably patterned), so you get the best of all worlds which comes in handy with seasonal temperature changes. Think fleece for winter and thin cool suede for summer.

A quick air conditioning tip: Hang your head off the side. Works every time. 

The cover washes and dries quickly and easily.

(Whisper) Some come stuffed with cedar chips! Come on! They smell amazing. The ones that don’t have cedar chip stuffing come with recycled fibre lining. It’s ‘baffled’ so the pieces all stay in place.

They don’t flatten or squish. Especially the round ones. Sometimes, on wash day, our Lab isn’t quite sure what the mountain is where her dog bed used to be. They look extra fluffy on days when you wash the cover. Maybe the cedar chips or fibre lining air out and buoy up?

The price is less than half the cost of comparable beds elsewhere. And they’re really only comparable in size (and then, not even really). Most other $100 plus beds don’t have cedar chips or baffled lining, recycled content, and removable covers.

Winner winner!

Update: for additional information, we invite you to check out this dog-bed buyer’s guide from our friends at Tuck.com. They also have an informative article all about dogs and sleep. Enjoy!

(cover image via)

Does your dog have a Costco bed? We may or may not have three of them scattered around our house. Be sure to tell us where your dog lays his or her weary head after a ‘ruff day’, in the comments!