Bad Habits and Mending Dog Beds

Our dog Zac has the strangest habits.  We adopted him at 12-18 months and found out when he visited us for a week to make sure that he fitted in well with Chile.  One of his habits is quite endearing.  He kneads his bed with his paws while clamping his teeth onto it.  Sometimes he actually rocks himself to sleep that way.

The other, somewhat annoying, habit is that he bites and shakes the beds, eventually tearing holes into them. Luckily the dog beds have withstood all of this action for quite awhile. Quite recently, however, the number of holes in them meant that each time Zac was left in the lounge room by himself there would be bed stuffing all over the place.

A typical scene after Zac is done with shaking his bed

While Turtle thought that coming up behind me and playing while I squatted and restuffed the beds was a fun game I was not so impressed.  A friend of mine has stopped buying new dog beds since they were being destroyed so quickly by her three dogs.  Although that idea was pretty attractive after cleaning up stuffing about 100 times, I decided to try my hand at darning the beds.

The felt fabric patches

I bought some cheap felt fabric from a fabric store and hand stitched one of the beds. Since I started on the one with the biggest holes and kept getting side tracked with a few other tasks around the house Mr Fix It took pity on me and did the other bed.  He even re-stitched a patch after I queried the quality of his work.

The first patch which I think looks quite good in a retro kind of way

Zac protesting the removal of his bed by moving to the couch - cheeky!

I am really pleased with the results and I hope that it might keep the beds going for awhile yet. My sewing skills are incredibly basic. It is not an area that I have built much confidence in.  However, if I keep getting some good results then I might just try my hand at some classes - maybe even with a sewing machine! I'm excited to think that I might be able to repair more items or even make up some unique clothes.

Chile thinking about moving back into her newly mended bed

Last night Zac made a new hole in one of the beds.  Mr Fix It darned it almost immediately while I was putting Turtle to bed.  I guess we will see how long we remain motivated to continue with this project.

Are you much of a seamstress? Have you mended anything stranger than a dogs bed?