Before going out and spending a lot of money on a bed (see the article about the human who bought her dog a gel bed, Old dog, new bed just aren’t gelling) think a bit on what your dog might like.  Does your dog lie on anything on the ground like a dirty shirt, a towel or even socks?  One of our dogs does and she’s completely happy with her traditional dog bed.  (That we bought at Sam’s for about $20.)  For her I would have also tried putting one of our dirty shirts on a new bed just to get her used to it.  Does your dog just love sleeping on your bed?  Or even your pillow?  One of our dogs loves our pillows, so we just put an extra human pillow on the floor for him and he thinks he’s got something special.  And then one of our dogs prefers the sofa to any bed we could possible provide him on the floor.  (He’d take our bed over the sofa but if it’s occupied and he gets booted, he moves to the sofa.)

So think it through before you spend a lot of money …

Do make sure whatever kind of bed you get comes with a cover you can remove and wash!

Photo by Marianne Perdomo.