Our evaluations and opinions are not influenced by our advertising relationships, but we may earn a commission from our partners’ links. This content is created by TIME Stamped, under TIME’s direction and produced in accordance with TIME’s editorial guidelines and overseen by TIME’s editorial staff. Learn more about it.
After hours of scrolling online, you’ve found the perfect dog bed: it’s super cute, matches your furniture, and it’s just the right size. Your pup is going to love it! But wait. You suddenly remember that your adorable sidekick is actually more piranha than canine. How can you be assured this fabulous bed will hold up to your pup’s inevitable attempt to execute a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” of it? My dog Tucker and I tested several of the best dog beds for chewers to find ones that can actually stand up to the toughest of tests. Here’s what we found.
Tucker and I took all these things into consideration, and after careful testing, we found your best bets. However, your mileage may vary, and it’s quite possible you can find a bed that suits your Fido Scissors Mouth even better than these.
Crate beds and crate pads all have one thing in common: with just a little digging, they’re pretty easy to flip over, making them the perfect chew toy for a bored pup alone in a crate. Here’s where the unflippable K9 Ballistics Chew Proof Armored™ Crate Pad comes in.
Essentially a low elevation elevated bed, K9 Ballistics took their elevated bed, hacked off the legs, and gave it a slim rubber foot in each corner. The size of each crate pad is about one inch smaller than its corresponding crate size, leaving about half an inch around the edges. Rubber feet keep it from slipping and possibly trapping toes between the border and crate wire. Unlike other elevated beds with just a hammock or tarp material, this is a crate pad in durable fabric, held together along edges by an aluminum frame.
This armored crate pad is not cheap but with its aluminum border and “unflippableness”, it may be the last crate pad you ever buy for your persistent chewer.
K9 Ballistics wins again and the lightweight shipping box betrays this bed’s heft and sturdiness. Within a minute, the inner bed that looks like it can out be the bed itself, expands to double its size. Once it comes to life, you slip it into an even heftier, tougher ripstop fabric cover that has a textured bottom which grips the floor. The heavy zippers close it all up and are hidden beneath industrial-strength velcro flap closures.
At five inches high, this chew resistant bed seemed pretty cozy, but with two layers of ballistic fabric, I didn’t imagine it would be very comfortable. But who am I to judge? I handed that testing over to my canine partner and asked him to try it out. He climbed up, laid down, and promptly fell asleep for two hours.
This bed is industrial strength and despite its ballistic fabric, dogs find it comfortable (or at least this dog did).
Unlike the K9 Ballistics bed, this one was dense and heavy. The bolster comes pre-packed, and you need only unroll the mattress, wait a bit for it to expand, and put it inside the waterproof cover. The zipper of the waterproof cover has a flap covering it, and you’re instructed to make sure the flap faces down so any water will roll off and not seep into the zipper. Once the mattress is inside the waterproof cover, you just need to slip it under the bolsters and zip it up.
The PetFusion Ultimate Dog Bed does not have the fabric sturdiness of K9 Ballistics, but its orthopedic foam is supportive while having just enough give to be comfortable.
K&H Original Bolster Pet Cot has over 900 reviews on Chewy, mostly all good. It doesn’t claim to be chew proof by any means, but it is an elevated bed with 600D canvas and mesh—a sturdy combo. Tucker and I have had ours for two years. It’s only now, two years into the California sun beating down on it, that it’s truly showing its wear. We weren’t able to test a brand new one, but our two years of experience with it warranted an honest review.
K&H is a solid, modular choice if you’re looking to save money and don’t mind buying replacement parts if needed.
If you’d prefer not to bother with a bolster and you don’t foresee yourself getting into buying accessories later, I found one more possibility for your little chewer. We didn’t get a chance to test first hand (or first paw) this late entry into the running, but using our criteria for best bets against chewing, the Veehoo Chew-Proof bed is a solid consideration.
This is a great outdoor bed that doesn’t rust and it’s one to consider for dogs who are only light chewers.
This is a bed that Tucker and I didn’t test out, so I went by reviews and my experience. This nest-like bed is best suited for diggers, scratchers, and light chewers. You can use it in or out of a crate and the all-around bolster sides make for a comfy place for your small pup to burrow and feel more secure.
This den-style bed is great for little dogs who like to burrow and are light chewers, or just diggers and scratchers.
As a foster mom to many wayward canines who have possessed varying levels of deconstruction skills, I’ve come to accurately assess the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of objects and how they hold up to the different styles of chewers and diggers. Tucker, a master destroyer and disassembler of toys, also helped me by trying out different beds. In our ten years together he has never taken to gnawing on his beds, but as a clumsy sixty pound American Staffordshire mix who likes to chew drool-inducing items—and whose front toenails have left indelible marks on a Subaru’s front center leather console—he needs a bed robust enough to live up to the Staffie lifestyle. For beds that Tucker and I didn’t personally test, I combed through online reviews and used my years of experience to make selections.
Here’s the challenge: ultimately, you’re looking for something soft and cozy that can stand up to teeth that are meant for tearing and chewing. There are two elements that contribute to the odds of the bed winning the battle: fabric and design.
The following fabrics are usually at least “chew resistant” (for light chewers and scratchers) and are often “rip-stop” (i.e. once a tear happens, it won’t just unravel like a sweater.)
This generic fabric was once a multilayered nylon initially intended to keep military personnel safe from shrapnel during explosions. However, it proved to be no match for bullets, so it was soon replaced by Kevlar.
Today, many manufacturers are creating their own version from polyester or nylon, with varying deniers (thickness of yarns). No longer a multi-layered fabric, its tight basketweave pattern helps it hold up to abrasions, such as dogs digging into it, and gives it a strong tensile strength to hold up to rips and tears.
This trademarked fabric is in the ballistic market. It comes in yarn sizes from 330D to 1000D. Higher sizes make more durable fabrics. Cordura holds up to abrasion better (think higher rub counts on couch upholstery) than other ballistic textiles, but others do better in the rip and tear department.
This tightly woven cotton, often just called just “duck” was once used for sailor pants and even sails. It’s used for tarps, tents, and the like. Due to its heavy thread weave, it can be stiff at first but will soften over wear and washing. If you want natural fibers instead of synthetic, duck cotton is the only viable option for chewers.
Those beds with no fabric (i.e. elevated beds) are usually rated as “chew proof” because they’re pretty sure your dog is going to tear into fabric, not PVC pipe or aluminum. But we all know some dogs don’t discriminate. If your dog is gnawing the legs off the dining room table, there’s no guarantee the elevated bed will remain unscathed.
What fabrics lack in imperviousness, design can often make up for in durability. The best designs include some or all of the following.
Some beds are small enough and contain washable fill that can just be thrown straight into the washing machine. But a zip-off cover is convenient for big beds and memory foam beds that can’t be washed. If there is a zipper, it needs to be well hidden, preferably on the bed’s underside with the hope the dog never flips it over. Some companies include a cloth or velcro flap over the zipper to make it even harder for your pup to find.
Memory foam beds almost always have corners as they are slabs of foam. Beds with loose poly-fill or shredded foam often don’t fill in the corners, leaving an easy target of thin cover fabric to chew on. Most reviews of destroyed beds tell the tale of corners being chewed off. Try for a completely round bed, or at minimum, corners that are already rounded on the manufacturer end.
Poly-fill and shredded foam beds are known to be soft and pliable, but that leaves the chance for a loose cover unless it is tightly packed. Any time a fabric isn’t pulled taunt over the filling, it gives a dog an opportunity to get their mouth around it. Look for taunt covers where you can’t pinch fabric.
No exposed stitching is your best bet as there’s no thread to pull, but that design can be hard to come by. So if you can’t get around that, be sure the seams are reinforced and the stitching is tight enough that you can’t lift a thread.
Keeping the bed steady makes it less like a toy to throw around. A bed that stays put keeps the zippers hidden and won’t be flipped over.
Top of the line “chew proof” and “chew resistant” beds offer guarantees against damage, but check the fine print on the return policy and warranty. Some offer full replacement, some a credit to their store, some only replace the cover and not the bed.
Related: Best dog food
Much like “fireproof” and “fire resistant”, “chew proof” and “chew resistant” are often incorrectly used interchangeably. “Chew proof” means a bed is close to indestructible, but there really is no such thing as a completely chew proof bed. This type of bed is good for extreme chewers. “Chew resistant” means a bed can withstand light or moderate chewing, as well as digging and scratching, but it’s not recommended for extreme chewers.
Chewing is normal behavior for dogs and they enjoy it for a variety of reasons. It’s a way for them to explore things and if they find something that smells or tastes interesting, they’re more likely to further investigate it with their mouth. Sometimes they also chew because the texture of the object is satisfying. A dog’s motivation to engage in a chewing session can also be due to teething, hunger, anxiety, or boredom.
To a dog, a bed looks like a giant toy. They don’t contain squeakers, but they’re filled with fluffy insides that would be a fun challenge to release into the world. If your dog is disemboweling every bed, take a good look at their stuffed chew toys.
There are no right angles in nature, and some dogs don’t believe they should be anywhere. It’s like they’re trying to child-proof the world. Even though the corner can be soft and squishy, it’s still a corner, and should be rounded off.
Then you have all the items on a dog bed that are simply too tempting for a dog to resist. For example, a zipper dangles and moves if touched. It’s got a crunchy feel, often isn’t stitched well into the seam, and if you rip it off, all the innards spill out in a glorious waterfall.
Thread is just a zipper made of sorts. It’s a challenge to snag just one tooth or nail around one stitch, and if it’s not reinforced, innards fly everywhere!
The only dog bed material a dog will not be able to chew through is metal. Indentations in metal, however, are possible. Materials like wood, chew resistant fabric, and chew proof fabrics can eventually be chewed through.
Some chew proof dog beds work and some don’t. Whether a bed works or not depends on if the bed is well matched to the dog’s level of chewing. For example, you wouldn’t want to get a bed that’s listed as suitable for light chewers for a dog who is an extreme chewer. At some point, however, even the best chew proof beds will likely need to be replaced.
Finding the best durable bed for your dog can be a long, arduous, and expensive journey. The very best dog in the world deserves the very best dog bed—for them. When it comes to being chew proof, there is no fabric totally impervious to being torn, ripped, and dug into. There is no design that is foolproof against every and all chewers either, but there is a fabric and a design that will work best for your dog.
The only way to assure a dog bed won’t get torn up is to make sure your dog doesn’t want to chew it up. A dog chews because chewing feels good. So while you’re waiting for the next bed to arrive on your doorstep, search for chew toys that will make your dog feel good.
The information presented here is created by TIME Stamped and overseen by TIME editorial staff. To learn more, see our About Us page.
