Crate & Travel Dog Beds

Here the frame sets the size, not the dog. Bedding for a crate, a carrier or the back of the car has to sit flat on the pan without bunching at the edges. Crate model names are outside measurements, so the floor the dog gets is always smaller than the number on the box suggests.

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Elsewhere in the catalog

Dog Beds39 beds Washable & Waterproof Dog Beds19 beds Dog Bed Mats & Pads8 beds Washable Dog Beds11 beds Waterproof Dog Beds11 beds Large Dog Beds14 beds

From the journal

Best Dog Crate Beds Journal Best Waterproof Dog Beds Journal Dog Beds With Sides: Bolster, Sofa, or Flat Journal

Measure the fixture, not the dog

A crate is named by its outside, and lined by its inside

A 36-inch crate is 36 inches of frame. The plastic or metal pan inside it is smaller, usually by an inch or so on each side once you account for the bars and the lip. Measure that pan, in both directions, and buy to it.

A mat even slightly over that will fold up in one corner, and the dog ends up lying half on the bed and half on the bare tray, which defeats the point of putting one in.

Five of these eight are built around a car, not a crate

That is the honest shape of this page. There is a trunk mat at 20 × 51 in (50 × 130 cm), a back-seat hammock in two sizes, a front-seat nest, a padded booster box, and a mesh seat cover. The remaining three are flat mats that work equally well on a crate pan, a car seat or a floor. Nothing here is cut to a named crate size, so measurement is doing all the work.

Eight items with five of them grouped inside the outline of a car and three outside it, beside a tape measure.

Flat or padded depends on what the crate is for

Flat if the crate is already a close fit, or if the dog chews when bored in there. Padded if there is height to spare and the crate is somewhere they sleep rather than somewhere they travel. A thick mat in a tight crate raises the dog toward the roof and makes a space that was already small feel smaller.

The same crate and dog twice, with the headroom above the dog measured on a thin mat and again on a thick one.

Crate bedding gets washed more than anything else you own

That is not a warning, it is a specification. A removable cover matters more here than anywhere else in the house, and a second mat matters more than a nicer first one. If the crate is in daily use, plan on the bedding being in the machine weekly.

A seven-day strip with one wash day marked, and two mats swapping between the crate and the line.

In a car, the base decides whether it stays put

A plastic trunk liner is one of the most slippery surfaces a mat ever meets, and a mat that slides on a corner will end up bunched against the seat back by the end of the journey. Look for a grippy or nubbed underside, and for straps on anything meant to span a seat.

The same car trunk twice with the same cornering force, once with a mat bunched against the seat back and once with a nubbed underside holding it in place.

How to measure a crate so the mat fits

Open the door and measure the plastic or metal tray at the bottom, inside the frame, in both directions. If the tray is tapered, take the smaller of the two numbers you get. That is your maximum, and it is smaller than the number printed on the crate.

A 36 inch crate is 36 inches of frame. The floor inside it is less, because the bars, the lip and the door frame all take their share before the dog gets any.

The crate is named by the outer line and the mat has to fit the inner one, and the difference is a visible band.

A mat that is slightly too big is worse than one slightly too small

Too small leaves a strip of bare tray, which is a minor annoyance. Too big folds up against one wall, and the dog ends up lying half on the fold and half on the tray, which defeats the point of putting a mat in at all.

It is also the version you cannot fix. A small mat can be centred; a large one has nowhere to go.

The failure is not the gap, it is the fold, and the fold puts the dog half off the mat.

The car is a different problem from the crate

A crate is a fixed rectangle and the answer is measurement. A car is a sloped, moving, slippery surface and the answer is attachment: straps onto the headrests for anything spanning a seat, and a grippy underside for anything lying in a trunk.

A plastic trunk liner is one of the most slippery surfaces a mat ever meets. A mat that stays put on a kitchen floor will still migrate into the footwell on the first roundabout.

In a car the mat is not held by its size, it is held by its underside, and gravity is working the whole journey.

Questions people ask about crate & travel dog beds

Should I put a mat in my dog's crate?

For most dogs, yes. A bare plastic pan is cold, hard and noisy under claws. The exceptions are a dog that reliably chews bedding and a dog that is still being house-trained, where a soaked mat is worse than a wipeable tray. In both cases a thin, washable mat is the compromise.

What should go in the bottom of a dog crate?

Something flat, something washable, and nothing loose enough to swallow. Blankets bunch and get pushed into a corner; a cut-to-size mat stays where it is. Whatever goes in, measure the pan first, because the crate's model name is an outside dimension.

What is the best mat for a dog crate?

The one that matches the pan and washes fast. Thickness is a secondary question: in a crate the dog is not going far, so drying time between washes matters more than plushness. For a chewer, a single-layer mat with a bound edge gives less to start on than a quilted one.

How do I measure a crate for bedding?

Open the door, measure the plastic or metal tray at the bottom from inside edge to inside edge, in both directions. Take the smaller of the two numbers you get if the tray is tapered. Buy to that, not to the crate's name. A 36-inch crate does not have a 36-inch floor.

Do you have bedding cut for standard crate sizes?

No, and we would rather say so. Nothing on this page is sold by crate size. Three of the eight are flat mats that fit a range of pans by measurement, and the other five are built around a car seat or a trunk. Match the numbers rather than the label.

What keeps a mat from sliding around in the car?

A nubbed or silicone-dotted underside on a trunk mat, and straps on anything that spans a seat. The hammock-style covers here buckle onto the headrests at all four corners, which is what stops the whole thing migrating into the footwell on the first roundabout.