[Dailydrool] Pee Pads

[Elizabeth]

When our late Elsinore, in her old age, began having trouble making it through the night, I invested in five reusable, washable, cloth hospital-grade bed pads. I’d seen my aunt using these for her two poodles. She’d acquired a collection of them while caring for first my uncle’s and then her own parents, and I guess she thought why not use them for the dogs, too?

I thought it made a lot of sense. They’re durable, sturdy, trap a full basset bladder’s worth of urine, and wash well. I like being able to use them over and over again instead of throwing them out after one use. They cover about the same amount of floor space, possibly a bit more, as disposable pee pads. I found mine on Amazon after searching for “washable bed pad” in the “Health, Household & Baby Care” section. 

Something else I like about the bed pads is that they’re substantial enough that’s it’s hard for a dog to scrunch them up, or for a sudden draft to blow one side up over the other. The disposable pee pads are so tissue-paper thin that they don’t always stay put. The reusable ones are so sturdy that you can even walk across them yourself, in shoes, if you have to.

Plan to spend about $100 or so because you’ll want enough so that you can have some in use while the others are in the wash. But I’ve saved many hundreds of dollars in the four years I’ve been using them, first with Elsinore and now with young Charlie. Charlie wants to sleep on the bed with me, but I don’t want his fur and body grease all over my sheets. Plus, he’s at that age where sometimes he dribbles in his sleep. So two bed pads down one half of the bed has been a good compromise. I wash his pads when I wash the sheets. 

Elizabeth