DIY Dog Bed Tutorial

1 Choosing a Site

Any windowed, airy, warm room can be adapted into a bed, ideally on a south-facing, wind-sheltered slope. Build with brick, tile, and cement, and steel-or-wood doors and windows, so it is sturdy, safe, bite-proof, and easy to clean.

Keep the bed away from toilets, garbage, sewage, livestock yards, and polluting plants like chemical, slaughter, tannery, or cold-storage works where disease spreads.

2 How to Build It

Get filler cotton from an old cushion, or buy it at market for about 8 to 10 yuan per 500 g, enough for many beds.

Prepare two fabric scraps, same or different, about half a meter wide.

Use your largest pot to draw an inner circle, then cut a cardboard circle of that size as a guide.

Cut both fabrics together along the circle, basting the edges if worried about slipping.

Fold the cut pair into sixteen sections and press creases to guide sewing, and cut a cardboard disc the size of the inner circle.

Sew the inner circle first: stitch about half, slip in the cardboard, continue to three-quarters, then stuff the cotton; how much is a matter of taste. Sew the outer sixteen lines to make sixteen pockets, or skip the pockets and just stuff and shape, pulling the thread tight as you go. Hand-stitch in a running stitch there and back to mimic a machine seam.