At Pet Valu in Sussex, I bought my arthritic old dog a lovely new orthopaedic bed made by Bailey & Bella. Tucker was thrilled with it.
Then the cat claimed it, and promptly brought up a hairball on it. That’s where this story begins: about washing what looks like an unwashable dog bed and, second, listening to your dog.
I spot cleaned the bed really well. But yuck, no, cat and dog both said and wouldn’t go near it. So it had to be washed. I unzipped the cover and took out the thick foam slab. But there was still padding in the flat part and the bolster around the top. A small zipper that led only to loose padding. Didn’t want to start pulling that out!
Washing the dog bed
I read the tags: removable cover, machine-washable. But nothing telling me what to do with the padding still in the cover. Google showed me lots of people asking the same question about how to wash it, but no useful answers. They ranged from wash it anyway to never buy that manufacturer’s products again.
I called Pet Valu. They read the tags and looked inside. They weren’t sure either, but suggested washing the cover with attached padding on the gentlest cycle on my washing machine.
I washed it by itself with a bit of laundry detergent and a capful of odour remover. I let it dry on top of a folding clothes rack so air could circulate around all sides of it. If I didn’t have one, I’d have put it upside down at first so air could get to the top and bottom of the bed part. I left it for two days until I was sure it was thoroughly dry.
Earlier I had spot cleaned the foam pad with a cloth dampened with odour remover and let it dry. I reinserted the foam in the cover and zipped it back up. Just like new!
Listening to the dog
I put it back down and encouraged the dog to get on it. He walked on it, and off. For days, it sat unoccupied while he slept in his old beds that let his poor hips touch the hard floor.
What will get him to try out the bed again? What does he like? Blankets! He likes to burrow in blankets on a human bed, and his big stuffed bed has a small blanket left from our previous dog. Maybe the flat base makes him think of this new bed as similar to those beds?
I put an old tea towel in it and nudged him toward it, and in he got. It wasn’t a towel he knew, that had his or my scent on it. Didn’t matter. He’s slept in the bed, with his little towel, ever since.
He doesn’t require blankys in his soft round beds. But that little piece of cloth makes him feel comfortable in this one with its solid foam base. I know he’s pretty OCD in organizing his daily routine. Things are done in a certain way and, if not, he just refuses to go along with it. The cloth was a Hail Mary pass, and it worked. I don’t understand why, but that doesn’t matter. He’s happy with it, so I am too.
- See my Arthritic Dogs for more.
