washing the dog's bed.

Between-grooms know-how from scruffyboy

Quick audit: when did you last wash the dog's bed? If the answer involves counting seasons, this is the guide, and you are in the majority. The bed is where a day's worth of skin oil, drool, hair and outdoor souvenirs gets deposited every single night, and it is somehow the last thing in the house to see the washing machine.

the honest schedule

Covers and blankets: weekly to fortnightly. Weekly for an active, outdoorsy or oily-coated dog, fortnightly for a clean-living one. If that sounds like a lot, consider that you wash your own sheets on roughly that schedule, and you do not sleep with your face in your own fur.

The inner cushion: every month or two, if it is washable, and aired out in the sun between times. Sunlight is a genuinely useful deodoriser and it is free.

Everything, immediately, after fleas, worms, an accident, or a roll in something foul. On those days the bed is not laundry, it is evidence.

how to wash it without wrecking it

• Vacuum or shake the hair off first. Wet hair felts onto fabric and clogs the machine. Thirty seconds outside with a stiff brush saves the filter.
• Hottest wash the label allows. Heat is what actually deals with the biology. If the label allows only cool washes, run it twice.
• Unscented or lightly scented detergent, no fabric softener. Softener coats fibres and holds oil, and heavy perfume on his bed is for you, not him. He liked the old smell better anyway; he will cope.
• Dry it completely. Bone dry, right through the cushion. A damp dog bed grows exactly what you washed off, faster. This is the same rule as the dog himself.

when the bed is past saving

If a clean cover goes back on and the bed still smells within a day, the inner has soaked through and no cover-wash will fix it. Replace the inner, or the bed. When you do, buy the one with a removable, machine-washable cover and ideally a spare cover, because the bed you can wash in two minutes is the bed that actually gets washed. This is most of the battle in keeping the house from smelling of dog.

and keep the deposits down

The bed collects whatever the dog brings to it, so the other half of the fix is a cleaner dog: a wipe-down after grubby walks, proper drying when he is wet, and the five-minute weekly routine. A clean, dry dog on a weekly-washed bed is a house nobody pauses at the door of.

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scruffyboy keeps the dog clean so the bed lasts longer between washes. Join the list for first dibs, or read the other guides.