Bedsure Dog Bed Honest Review: The Good and the Flat Spots

I bought the Bedsure orthopedic dog bed in July, and for the first three weeks I told anybody who would stand still that it was the best thing I had ever bought for that dog. Four months later I still think it is a good bed. I just know a few things now that I did not know then, and those things are the reason you are reading this instead of the listing photos. The short version: the bed is fine, the foam is fine, and there are two details worth knowing before you order the 28 inch size for a 28 pound dog.

I am not a trainer and I am not a vet. I am a retired school bus driver in Toms River with one dog, a beagle mix named Murphy. He is six, he weighs about 28 pounds, he sheds year round, and he has a nose that overrules every plan I make on a walk. Our vet handles anything medical, and I do not guess at that. What I can tell you is what I bought, what it replaced, what my dog actually did with it, and what I would say to you over the fence if you asked me whether to get one.

What Nobody Tells You About a 28 Inch Bed

Start with the size, because the size is where the disappointment lives. The bed measures 28 inches long, 23 inches wide, and 6.5 inches thick, and the listing caps it at 30 pounds. Those numbers are honest numbers. What they do not tell you is how much of that 28 inches your dog actually gets once he decides to use the bolsters. Murphy curls into the middle and leaves a good four inches untouched at the head end. When he stretches out flat, nose to the edge, he fills it end to end and his back feet hang over a little. That is a 28 pound dog in a 28 inch bed, so you can do the arithmetic for yours.

Here is the part I would tell you over the fence. If your dog is a curler, the medium is generous and he will look small in it. If your dog is a sprawler who lies flat on his side with his legs out, this bed will feel one size tight from the day it arrives, and you will spend the next month telling yourself it is fine when it is not fine, it is just the wrong size. Order up if you are anywhere near the line.

The second thing nobody mentions is that the bed arrives flat and stays flat in a way that is either reassuring or confusing depending on what you pictured. It does not puff into a cloud. There is foam in the base, foam in the bolsters, and a cover over all of it, and the whole thing weighs about five pounds, so I can pick it up with one hand and vacuum under it on a Tuesday. That is not a complaint. It is just not the deep sinking pillow that the words orthopedic sofa might put in your head.

The listing also mentions Standard 100 by OEKO-TEX certification on the materials and CertiPUR-US certified foam. I am not a chemist and I am not going to pretend to evaluate a certification. What I will tell you is that the bed smelled like nothing when I unwrapped it. No chemical smell, no off gassing that made me open a window, and it went straight into the living room the same afternoon. The cheap bed it replaced sat on the porch for two days before I could stand it. That is the full weight I am putting on a label.

How Murphy Actually Uses It, Four Months In

We bought it in July to replace a flat, thin pillow bed from a big box store that had gone lumpy in the middle and smelled like a dog no matter what I did to it. Murphy had quit that bed entirely and was sleeping on the couch, which I pretended not to mind and minded. The Bedsure went into the corner of the living room by the window, which is where the afternoon sun lands, and I put his old blanket on it for the first two nights because I am sentimental about these things.

He was on it inside a week. Not on the blanket, on the bed, chin over the bolster, facing the window like a man watching his own property. By the end of July it was his afternoon spot. By August it was his night spot too, and the couch went back to being furniture. Four months in the routine is this: he sleeps on it at night, naps on it most afternoons, and climbs onto it whenever Frank turns the television on, because he has decided the bed and the television are the same activity.

What I did not expect was the bolster. He uses it as a chin rest, which sounds precious and is, but it also means he is not flat on his side with his head on the floor the way he was on the old pillow. He is propped up. He is, frankly, a little smug about it. I asked our vet about the bed in passing at his checkup, mostly to hear myself talk, and got the sensible answer I probably deserved: a dog who is comfortable and sleeping through the night is a dog whose bed is working, and anything past that is marketing.

One small thing if you have hardwood floors like ours. The bottom of the cover is not grippy in any way I can detect. On our living room floor it slides an inch or so when Murphy hops on with enthusiasm, and over four months it has worked its way a few inches from where I first set it. It is not a problem, I just nudge it back with my foot when I walk past. If sliding would bother you, put a rug grip underneath and be done with it.

Four months, three cover washes, and the only dip in the foam is the exact shape of one beagle mix who curls.

The Bolster Does More Than the Foam

The listing calls it a four sided bolster design, and I want to be honest about what that means in a real living room, because bolster is a word that gets used for everything from a firm foam wall to a decorative ruffle. On this bed it is a foam rail built into each side of the cover. It is firm enough to hold its shape when a 28 pound dog leans his whole head on it and soft enough that he does not fight it.

The reason I care is that the bolster is what ended the couch habit. Murphy is a dog who likes to be against something. On the old flat pillow he would circle three or four times and lie down looking vaguely disappointed, like the room had let him down. On this one he circles once, drops, and shoves his head into the rail. I do not know what that is about and I am not going to pretend I do. I only know the flat bed got ignored and this one did not, and the difference between the two is a raised edge plus 6.5 inches of foam underneath.

Where the bolster does not help is with a dog who wants to spread out. If your dog sleeps on his side with his legs straight, those rails are just walls he has to arrange himself around, and he will end up draped over one of them with his chin on the floor, looking at you as though you did this to him personally. That is not a fault in the bed. It is a mismatch, and it is worth knowing before you order rather than after.

One more consideration and this is the one I would want somebody to say out loud. The cover is fabric and the inside is foam, and Murphy is a chewer. He has a chew that lives in a basket by the couch and he works on it most evenings during the news. For the first week I watched him on the new bed like a hawk, because a foam bolster is exactly the kind of thing a determined dog would open up. He never went near it. But if your dog destroys beds, this will lose that fight. That is true of every soft bed on the market and it is still worth saying.

Washing the Cover: What Four Months Taught Me

The cover comes off and goes in the machine. I have done it three times since July. Cold water, regular detergent, no fabric softener, and I drape it over the back of a kitchen chair to air dry instead of putting it in the dryer, because I have ruined enough things in my life that way. The first wash was the nervous one. It came out the same size it went in, no pilling, no seam pulling, and it went back over the foam without a wrestling match, which is more than I can say for other covers I have owned.

The foam does not go in the machine. I want to be very clear about that, because the listing describes the cover as removable and waterproof and it is easy to read that as the whole thing being washable. It is not. The foam core gets spot cleaned with a damp cloth and that is the end of it. We have had two accidents on it in four months, both on the cover, both wiped up before anything got through, and the foam underneath still smells like foam and not like anything else. That waterproof layer is doing real work.

The honest part, since that is what you came for: the cover is not stain proof and nobody claimed it was. There is a faint shadow on the bolster where Murphy's chin lives, and it did not come out in wash number three. On a bed that sits on a living room floor with a dog who eats in the kitchen and then goes directly to his corner, I think that is the normal course of events. The color has not faded. The seams have not gone. If a faint chin shadow is going to bother you, put a blanket on it and save yourself the aggravation.

What I Would Do Differently

Two things. First, I would have measured Murphy lying flat on the kitchen floor before I ordered, instead of looking at him standing up and feeling hopeful. Standing, he is a compact little fella and the medium looked like plenty of room. Flat on his side with a tape measure next to him, he wanted more length than I had pictured. He happens to curl, so it worked out fine. If he had been a sprawler I would have been irritated for four months and it would have been my own fault.

Second, I would have bought it in July instead of waiting until the old bed was so bad I was embarrassed to have it in the room. The Bedsure replaced a bed that cost less and went lumpy within its first few months, and the difference in how much that dog uses his own bed is not a small difference. I am not going to sit here and tell you a dog bed changes your life. I will tell you that a dog who sleeps on his own bed instead of your couch is a better arrangement for everybody in the house, the dog included.

Who This Is For

This bed is for a dog under 30 pounds who likes to curl, tuck, or rest his chin on something. It is for a house where the bed goes on a hard floor in a room people actually sit in, which describes our living room and probably yours. It is for somebody who wants to wash the cover without giving up an entire afternoon to it. And it is for a dog who has been avoiding a flat bed, because that was Murphy exactly, and this is the thing that got him off the couch and back onto the floor.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if your dog is over 30 pounds. The listing says 30 and I believe the listing. Skip it if your dog sprawls flat with his legs out, because the bolsters will be in his way and the length will be tight. Skip it if you want a deep pillow your hand sinks into, since this is foam and foam does not sink. Skip it if you are not willing to spot clean a foam core, because the whole bed does not go in the machine and it never will no matter how many reviews suggest otherwise. And skip it if your dog has a history of opening up beds, because fabric over foam is fabric over foam.