Tuesday, October 6, 2009

New Dog Bed and Cover

There are dog beds everywhere in our house. 1 bed in each of the 5 crates (recently down from 6) and 5-6 more on the floor in various rooms. Yes, it's totally overkill, though all the beds do get used.

I've never been a big Costco shopper but I've always known they have the best deals in dog beds. I found myself there recently and saw 42" x 36" rectangular beds on sale for $18.99. Do you know how ginormous 42" x 36" is? That's the kind of bed that would have fit my 130 lb german shepherd comfortably.

My only complaint about the beds was that they were too big and would take up too much floor space. Still, I couldn't resist buying at least one to see how they would fit in our house.



I've learned a few things over the past few years from fostering. First off, if a dog has an accident on a dog bed, you're kind of out of luck. You can wash the bed cover, but the stuffing in most beds are not washable, or otherwise, too big to fit in a normal washer. So if any urine (or worse) seeps through the cover and into the stuffing, there's not much you can do to really clean it.

With Popeye's ongoing allergies, I've also become much more aware of dust mites. Beds, including the dog beds, are a magnet for them.

So with this spanking new Costco dog bed, I decided to try to protect it as best as I could. I read that goretex, a synthetic fabric that is waterproof and breathable often used in outerwear, can help protect beds from dust mites because the pores in the fabric are smaller than the size of the mites. That means that the mites are too big to pass through the fabric. Some HEPA filters utilize goretex for this reason.

I happened to have tons of leftover goretex-like material from back when I was making the mermaid pants for Popeye's hind legs. So I made an inner cover for the new dog bed. I didn't have a piece of fabric that was large enough for the bed so I just sewed 2 pieces together and basically made an oversized pillowcase. At first I was going to attach a zipper but then realized it wasn't necessary. There was just enough fabric to make the length super long, so instead of a zipper to seal the cover, I could just fold over the excess length.

Place the bed stuffing inside the waterproof case.


And then put the regular bed cover over it.


This particular bed is going in one of the XL crates in our bedroom that Boomer and Phoebe like to sleep in.


Now, should we ever have a dog in the future that has an accident on the dog bed, we can just remove and wash both covers and the stuffing will remain clean. Additionally, the inner cover will prevent at least somewhat (the fabric isn't "goretex", just something similar and I'm not actually sure how small the pores are) dust mites from inhabiting the stuffing.

4 comments:

NAK and The Residents of The Khottage Now With KhattleDog! said...

One of my mom's Siberian listservs just had a khonversation about beds -

The Khostkho ones were mentioned -

Some others khommented that mattresses fur khribs make a good one too - since they usually have some protekhtion to the khovering!

I'm not a bed khanine - I like Mom's bed - I like the floor - I like the chair!

Hugz&Khysses,
Khyra

Anonymous said...

Hey great idea for the bed! Judy you're incredibly thoughtful and a problem solver. perfect for a foster mom. wish there were more foster mom's like you.

Veg Baker, J.D. said...

So smart! I am completely not crafty, but I think I could handle this. Sheila and Lucy are usually great in the house, but every once in a great moon there is an accident, and a dog bed is usually taken out in the process. Greg had switched to making "nests" for the girls instead, by taking a bunch of blankets and making a bed, but this post has inspired me to switch to back beds. This also corresponds nicely to my pending project, which is to make Lucy her own wearable fleece blanket that she can wear outside (she doesn't grow winter fur). If I put my money where my mouth is, I'll let you know how my sewing adventure turns out!

Anonymous said...

This is such a great idea! A waterproof dog bed can be more expensive, and this is a great fix! I bet it makes it last a lot longer too!