When we moved, we gained a lot of extra space. In our old apartment, we had either a bed or a couch in every room and we carpet everywhere except the kitchen and bathroom. Before, our dogs would mainly lay on the bed or sit on the couch with us. Now that we have an extra bedroom (that we use as a toy room, sewing room, etc) that doesn’t have a bed, couch or carpeting, I thought it was time to get my dogs a dog bed. I had noticed when we moved here that if I gave them something to chew on, they’d go into our bedroom (The only room with carpet) to eat it – I assumed this was because it was uncomfortable for them to lay on the hard floor. My dogs are older (8.5 and 9.5) so it wasn’t really surprising to me.

Frank loves to rest his chin on anything in site. He will lay his chin on Beans, a humans leg, foot, back, shoulder (while I’m in bed), dog toys, pillows, laundry on the floor – you name it. So, I knew that a dog bed with a raised edge would be ideal for him. My dogs stay really close to each other all the time so I thought that getting a dog bed made for a single, large dog would be better than getting them each their own small dog bed.

There are so many dog beds out there that it can quickly get overwhelming. There is a huge range of prices, too. One brand that I saw at various retailers at an affordable price was American Kennel Club dog beds. They had cute designs, lots of colors/patterns to choose from as well as a lot of different sizes of dog beds. We were able to test out two American Kennel Club Dog Beds. The first is an oval-shaped brown dog bed with an incredibly soft, gray inside. This dog looks really nice and it’s just a little bit longer than my dogs, yet it’s wide enough that they can both fit into it laying side by side. If I were a dog, this is the bed I would choose because it’s really soft and looks nice. My dogs have seemed to enjoy this bed and it has held it’s shape really well. Sometimes it feels like this bed is “in the way” more than the rectangular bed, I assume because it doesn’t line up next to walls or furniture as well because it is round.

The second bed that we got is the AKC Embossed Pet Cuddler Bed. Our bed is 28 inches across, 20 inches deep and the sides are 8 inches high. This bed comes in two different sizes on Amazon, the smaller of which sells for $17.99 and the larger one is $22.99, so they’re both really affordable. The outside has cute little dog bone shapes and is soft, but the inside is much softer. The inside is sherpa which has a thicker fabric that is really soft. The back side of our bed slopes down, sometimes appearing almost flat instead of vertical, but my dogs don’t seem to mind at all. They both seem to prefer this bed over the other one, because they use it more. Frank in particular seems to really love this bed, whenever we come in from outside he runs and sits in it until Ryan or I sit down and then he comes and sits with us instead. This bed is deep enough that my dogs can lay in any direction in it that they want. When they lay sideways in it, there is even a little space left over.

Both beds state that they are machine washable but I haven’t washed them yet to see how they hold up. With both of the beds, the sides meet the bottom of the bed in such a way that little toys or chews get stuck in the edges once in a while. It’s funny because sometimes a bully stick or treat will get stuck in the edge where it’s not visible, but they’ll lay down and start sniffing around like crazy until they find it. Then they get so excited to have found the surprise once they get it out. It’s made for some good laughs.

We were also sent some kennel pads to try out. The plush one that we got is called the AKC Pet Crate Mat, it would be great for a big kennel. We have a large kennel for them to share but we don’t normally use it at all. We will definitely use it if we decide to travel with the dogs or something though. For a few days we left it on the floor to see if they would take to it and they would sit and lay in it sometimes so they definitely approve.

We were also sent two smaller kennel pads (these are 17″ by 24″) that have a very textured, almost egg-crate like padding to them. They are fairly thin but they are memory foam so they are really supportive and comfortable. These would be great for our dogs if they had individual small kennels. They enjoy sitting on these on the floor and would sometimes choose these even over the full-sized dog beds, so I can tell they find them quite comfortable. It even occurred to me that you can lay them underneath a dog bed to provide additional comfort and support.

American Kennel Club also makes other products for dogs including common accessories like collars and leashes (how adorably girly is this glittery-silver one!) to rarer items like vehicle seat protectors.

They sent us pet training pads, too. My dogs don’t use these but I have a pet hedgehog who has a cage with a plastic bottom, so I use doggy pads to line his cage with to prevent his urine from soaking into the plastic. The AKC training pads were similar in size to others that I had used before, and they seemed to absorb everything just fine, at least for my hedgehog.

Everything that they sell is reasonably priced and based on my experience with the items we’ve tested, they seem to be of quality. I’ll definitely be purchasing more AKC brand dog products in the future.

You can find AKC products on Amazon and at stores like Walmart, TJ maxx and Ross.