Have you ever thought about the wide range of sizes of dog collars? Dogs, like people, come in all shapes and sizes but their neck sizes vary from a couple of inches to a few feet!

Talking of large dogs, according to the Guinness Book of Records the biggest dog ever was an English mastiff who weighed a monstrous 282 lbs. The normal weight for the breed is around 200 lbs. He would have needed a ginormous dog collar because his neck alone measured 38 inches.

Some say the honour of smallest ever dog should go to a female chihuahua from Florida; just six inches from her nose to the tip of her tail. Her neck size is not recorded, but tiny ribbon dog collars are generally available for tiny little dogs.

Then there are the Yorkshire terriers like Whitney for example, three inches from ground to shoulder. Or Pinnochio who weighed just one pound. Pinnochio appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show and died shortly afterwards from overeating.

Dog beds also have to accommodate the smallest to the largest dog. There’s no point putting a tiny Chihuahua in a massive bed designed for a Great Dane for example.

If ever anyone needed an extra large dog bed it was a St. Bernard called Dido who resided in a rather grand style at a medieval manor house in Kent, England.

Dido’s home was at Ightham Mote (pronounced item-mote). He was a big boy; far too big to fit into any conventional-sized dog bed. So his master decided to build him his very own Grade One listed large dog kennel. Standing proudly in the cobbled courtyard, it’s believed to be the only one of its kind worldwide. The manor house was built in 1320, the kennel five hundred years later, yet it blends in perfectly. Ightham Mote, Sevenoaks, in one of the most beautiful part of the country, was acquired by the National Trust in 1989.

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