Destroys them all

My youngest sleeps in her crate and she chewed everything I put in it.Now I have a cow mat that we cut to size and shes been fine with that.

Maybe he gets bored in the crate. Try putting a toy in along with the bedding. That way, he can amuse himself with his toy instead of his blankie.

Its what cows lay on. we bought ours at farm and fleet, I dont remember the price but was not expensive.I found the idea on another forum from someone who had the same problem.I was leary at first becouse they are rubber so I thought she would chew, but shes been fine.

It really is best to not put bedding in with young dogs unless you can supervise and correct them for chewing it. This is the only way I've found to not end up with bedding shredders.

I think its something that happens as they get a little older too. Our GSD never bothered with his bedding until he got to be about Roy's age, then he would tear at it. Now if you leave his blanket in his crate, he'll pull it out of the crate so he can lay on the floor.

Those mats they are talking about are rubber, 1/2 or 3/4" thick. I use them in my basement gym so my floor doesn't crack if I drop a barbell.

dogs with no fat and no buffer like Victor for thier bones should not ever be put on a flat hard surface..it will cause great callouses to develop and discomfort as well. Honestly i am not a crate advocate. i believe far more in a safe room but if you do..could he be in there too long? or is he digging to make softer his bed. Whatever you chose..please becareful of foam for if ingested can cause great problems in the stomach and digestion track

I have found with my own dog that he would prefer to just sleep on the crate floor. He generally bunches the blankets i gave him (soft fleece or baby blankets i got from the goodwill that had no exposed edges) into a corner and ignores them. Granted he's about 3ish, so he's not a baby... but his idea of comfort is to just be laying on the plastic floor of his crate. He doesn't like anything else in his crate save himself and his food bowls.

However, if you realy think your dog could use something in his crate with him you can also look into setups like Drs Foster Smith Bolster Crate Bedding or their Terry Crate Pad.

Although honestly the cow mat idea sounds much cheaper and probably more durable... and you can always add in a horse saddle pad or blanket for warmth.

I gave up on pads etc in the crate also. Basically anything they will have access to when we can't supervize is going to be destroyed with them, and that goes for the bed I left for them in the computer room, that they ended up destroying when we were away one day (ripped the zipper off...).

So far the only pad that has survived is the big pillow thing they have in the bedroom, but they only have access to it at night. The rest of the time they sleep on the floor now, or Boris in his crate (door is always open), and there isn't any carpet either, but they seem to do fine. I think it's much safer than giving them a bed they will destroy and swallow pieces of when we are away.

About nights in the crate, mine slept there until they were 6 months and it was no problem, they just slept through the night also. On a side note, have you tried letting him sleep in the room with you? It took maybe a couple days for each of them to understand that bedroom = sleep time and just settle down right away when we go to bed, and sleep until it's morning, when they either wake us up by jumping on us or just sleep until we get up.

Point taken JR0579! I guess I'm lucky Mojo doesn't consider beds and blankets tasty. Actually your wife should have more of a phobia of the dog trying to hog the bed, vs bitng your head off.

Oh... she can't worry about him hogging the bed .... beds and sofas are off limits for Roy. Besides, she isn't worried about my head .... she worried about hers

Lol. You should try to have her just take a nap with the door of the bedroom open while you do other things in the house, and the dog can come and go. Maybe it would help

For the poop, it was my worry also, but once they are housetrained, it's unlikely that they will poop or pee at night... For the rest, I can't say much because our boys do jump on the bed in the morning to wake us up (they only put their front paws on the bed, they know they're not allowed on it, well, they supposedly know that), and it's not always fun to wake up with a cold nose in the back I would worry more about being scratched when Boris tries to catch my arm with his paws to lick my hand or to get lick-attacked by Tips though... But it's kinda fun too.