The quotation marks work for me:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=%22lowes+pet+bedding%22&atb...
I notice in your HN post, you're using fancy quotation marks; I assume you're not using the same while searching DDG.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=%22lowes+pet+bedding%22&atb...
I notice in your HN post, you're using fancy quotation marks; I assume you're not using the same while searching DDG.
Perhaps they're A/B testing or something?
Changing the region to "USA" really confused me. Suddenly a lot of unrelated results turn up, but a lot of the results are Danish or Denmark-related. Including the Wikipedia page for Ringsted. What does that have to do with "lowes pet bedding"?
I am honestly not entirely sure what the region parameter on DDG does, but it appears not to be working for "USA".