People who make dog beds must not own dogs. We love our puppies but if they’ve taught us anything, it’s that dogs are gross. Our little Pomeranians have sensitive stomachs and like to eat just about everything they can get their tiny little mouths on. Tearing up their bedding and getting sick from eating things like their bedding have dissuaded us from buying them a fluffy dog bed. Instead, we’ve decorated their crate with aesthetically unappealing, half-eaten old towels. I know they want something more comfortable because every morning, after they go out, they run inside and throw themselves on a pillow. The problem is that we need something water-proof and, well, dog-proof. This weekend, while strolling through Tuesday Morning, we found a really inexpensive dog bed.
Here it is sitting against the wall. (Please forgive the image quality. A digital camera will be our next big step since ours is obviously on its way out.)
It didn’t come with a water-proof liner but we knew that with a little work we could puppy-proof it ourselves. Here are the step by step instructions. If you’d like to do this at home, you will need the following items:
- One dog bed
- One plastic drop cloth or other type of large plastic sheeting
- One stapler
- One sheet that you are comfortable donating to your dogs
- Blankets that dogs have already sleep with
First we removed any tags that could be harmful to the dogs if they managed to get to them. We then covered the dog bed with a plastic drop cloth in the same way that you would wrap a present.
Here I am folding the edges like I would wrap a present. This doesn’t need to be perfect since you will not see it in the end result.
Staple as you go to secure the plastic. With our dogs, the fewer stray bits they have to chew on, the more likely it is that the product will stay together.
After you’ve wrapped the dog bed, flip it over so that any staples are on the bottom of the bed–far away from your sleeping little ones.
Now, take your sheet and wrap it around the bed. We chose to use a fitted sheet so that it would be more difficult for the dogs to dig up the loose ends and chew on them. Here is Théo, our youngest, checking out his new bed.
Finally, put the dog bed into the crate and cover it with their old blankets. Since the dogs have already been sleeping with the blankets, they will recognize the familiarity of their scent and perceive it to be a safe place. Here is our end result, minus the dogs’ familiar blankets, since (as I mentioned before) they’re pretty gross.
What do you think? The whole project only takes a few minutes and now we know that when they get sick in their crate, we’ll be able to clean it up without throwing the bed away. Now, if only we could get not to chew on their blankets…
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Your dogs are so cute!! I’ve actually never seen a pom that I haven’t thought is cute. I’m biased, I suppose
Even so, I love their color…they look so exotic and different than the typical golden/red colored poms. And very creative idea with the dog bed. Something like that might work with our dogs except it would be for a different reason…Daisy likes to occasionally pee on beds, pillows, or blankets that may be on the floor. Of course we have our occasional throwing up too. 
Look forward to hearing more about your dogs!
Thank you so much Carrie! All Poms are adorable. We recently had a puppy play date with a friend and her poms and I fell in love with each of hers. One was black and white and the other was golden. They’re so so nice and sweet. Our eldest, Jean- Jacques, excited pees all the time. I’m not sure if yours do this but its enough to drive anyone crazy! Thanks so much for stopping by!