A new bed for my old dog

We have a sixteen year old dog, he has been with us since he was a puppy of five weeks and now he is an old man. These days he has arthritis and his sight is going, most days we think he's deaf but sometimes it seems that he has just decided that listening is optional as he can't hear us call him in from the yard, but if I get the cheese out of the fridge he is there like a shot. He seems to have periods of time where he doesn't know where he is and wanders around the house looking distressed until he spots one of us, maybe he has dementia. Recently I noticed that he seems to find comfort in sleeping on our clothes (probably because they smell like us) so I decided to make him a comfort bed out of a sacrificed jumper. I wore the jumper for a day before I started sewing so it would smell strongly of home and comfort.

An old fleece jumper I have laying around

My first step was to sew a line across the body of the jumper from underarm to underarm, I added a bit of an upward curve so the back of my bed would be roundish.
Next came the fun part...stuffing the base. I have some of that crumbled foam stuffing used in sofas and old cushions that seriously needs to be used so in it went. As it turns out fleece fabric and crumbled foam have a fatal attraction and trying to stuff handfuls through a little hole made a huge mess and seriously threatened the balance of my mind. Luckily a piece of PVC came to my rescue, I shoved one end down into the jumper and poked handfuls of foam into the other. This kept the foam and fabric apart and prevented even more mess and possibly an embarrassing tantrum.

My sanity saving stuffing device.

The base all stuffed and sewn shut, still with some bits of foam stuck to the outside.

 For the 'arms' of the bed I decided to use dacron stuffing from an old lounge cushion I had been keeping for just such an occasion.

Old longe cushions are so handy

I stuffed the arms and upper chest area of the jumper with dacron and sewed the sleeves together and the neck shut.

Spot looks on with worry, he has been in trouble for ripping the stuffing out of lounge cushions in his youth so he probably thought I would be in trouble too.

Almost done.

I sewed the sleeves together by hand rather than take the unwieldy pile to Prudence (my sewing machine).

Spot in his new bed.

Still in his new bed.

He seems to love it, he has slept in it at every opportunity and even pushed one of the other dogs out of it. I hope it gives him comfort and lets him know that  he is safe  here at home.