Buying guide
How to choose a dog bed.
We make the beds in this guide, so we are not a neutral referee. What follows is how we would choose one, including the places where one of ours is the wrong answer.
- 4.8/5from 2,516 reviews
- 30-night risk-free trial
- The Telegraph Best Buy2023-2026
- Handmade in EuropeThe Ultimate and The Comfort
What to look for
Five things that decide whether a bed gets used.
In the order they matter, on the evidence of what customers ask before they buy and what they tell us afterwards.
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Room to lie the way they sleep
A dog who stretches out needs length. A dog who curls needs depth and a rim to lean on. Measure them nose to base of tail and leave room to change position in the night.
Measure your dog -
Support that still holds its shape in a year
Memory foam recovers. Loose filling compresses into the shape of last month and stays there. The question to ask is not how a bed feels in the shop but what it will feel like next winter.
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A way to wash it
A cover that comes off, or a bed that goes in the machine whole. Either works. What does not work is a bed you cannot wash, because one bad walk will make you wash it anyway.
How to wash each bed -
A shape that suits the room and the dog
A raised rim gives a nervous dog something to back into. A lower front helps an older dog step in rather than climb. Round beds suit a corner; rectangular ones sit better against a wall.
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Parts you can replace
If the cover can be bought on its own, one ruined cover costs a cover. If it cannot, it costs a bed.
See the interchangeable covers
Which of ours
Four beds, and who each one is not for.
We make four. They are genuinely different, and the useful part of any comparison is where each one stops being the right answer.
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The Ultimate
Orthopaedic memory foam, raised sides, a lower front entry and covers you can swap in eleven colours. Not for you if you want the cheapest bed that will do, or if your dog is small and only ever naps in the sun.
The Ultimate -
The Comfort
Memory foam with adjustable firmness in a low, open shape with high sides. It stops at Large, so a very big dog should start with The Ultimate instead.
The Comfort -
The Donut
A round bed with a 20cm rim for dogs who curl and like something to lean into. There is no cover to remove: the whole bed washes. It is the wrong shape for a dog who sleeps flat on their side.
The Donut -
The Cwtch
Big enough for a dog and a person, which is the point of it. It is also the largest thing in the room, so measure the space as carefully as the dog.
The Cwtch
Measuring
Measure the dog, not the breed.
Two dogs of the same breed can need different sizes, and how they sleep matters as much as how big they are. Measure yours lying naturally, nose to the base of the tail, and weigh them if you can.
If they fall between two sizes, take the larger one. A bed with room to spare gets used in every position; a bed that only fits one way gets used until they want to turn over.
The sizes we publish are outside dimensions, so allow for the raised sides when you picture the sleeping area. Our size guide lists typical figures for 167 breeds and the size each of our beds takes, as a starting point for the measurement rather than a substitute for it.
Open the size guideWhat no dog bed can do
- Treat a medical condition. If your dog is stiff, limping or in pain, that is a conversation with your vet. A supportive bed is something you add afterwards, not instead.
- Survive a determined chewer. Ours are not sold as chew-proof, and no bed at any price is.
- Suit every dog. The four above are different on purpose, and the guide above says where each one is wrong.
Somebody else’s verdict
Where an independent reviewer agrees with us.
We are not a neutral judge of our own beds, so it is worth knowing what somebody with no stake in it concluded. The Telegraph has named The Ultimate its Best Buy Dog Bed four years running, and The Independent named it Best All-Round.
Their reviews are linked in full on our awards page, including what they tested it against and what they said.
Read the awards and reviewsOr let your dog decide.
Every bed in the range comes with a 30-night trial. Let them try it at home, and if they are not comfortable after a genuine fortnight, we refund it.