today I'm thinking about beds and crates

[neona]

For our (hopefully) soon to be rescue mastiff. I found and hope to pick up this week a futon mattress from craigslist for $20. But I'm also thinking we might need a crate. But I'm guessing a full sized futon won't fit inside of even the biggest crate, right? We don't have space for him/her to have 2 beds. Maybe I could put some kind of water resistant fabric on it and it could be an outside bed? We're in the desert so there isn't much rain.

Ruby (our pit) has a crate that she sleeps in with the doors usually open. We recently had the bright idea to put one of our old couch cushions for her bed inside the crate and she seems very happy, though it took a couple inches off the height. She never really stands or sits in there anyway, just sleeps. (attaching gratuitous picture ).

Any thoughts?

 

[musicdeb]

Most people use an old baby crib mattress as a bed but I don't think it would fit in a crate. You'll need a very large crate to give your new EM room to move around.

Titan has a crate and the door is always open. He likes to sleep in this crate and he goes in there when I have to run errands.

Maybe use the body pillows, old comforter, old mattress pad?

 

[ruthcatrin]

Apollo doesn't have anything in his crate, which is his preference....

 

[musicdeb]

Titan doesn't have anything in his crate. I put in a comforter and he moved it out of the way so he could lay on the bare crate.

 

[ruthcatrin]

Same with Apollo. The blankets get scrunched over and he's sprawled on the bare tray.

 

[neona]

Hm. Interesting... Maybe I'll take a wait and see on this one. THanks!

 

[Robtouw]

Cruiser was in a soft canvas crate until 4 months when he outgrew it. He now has a bedroom of his own. I found a cute bed made from pallets on Pinterest and we made a similar one. Its two pallets connected, a thin sheet of plywood, painted with with a little headboard that has his name on it. And we put the whole thing on locking casters so that I can roll it away for easy cleaning underneath. I took king sized pillow cases and stitched them together side by side and inserted pillows, closed the seams with velcro. I can take the pillows out and wash them with no probs. He loves the thing and it was pretty easy to make.