The Bed My Old Dog Finally Chose

The floor is what I remember. Last September, Juni's back legs slid out from under her on the kitchen laminate and she looked up at me like she had done something wrong. She had not. She was twelve years old, fifty-eight pounds, and the floor had stopped being something she could trust.

I am Gwen Oberholtzer. I am sixty-four, retired from the county library here in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and Juni is an Australian Shepherd mix I adopted from the Kootenai County shelter when she was two. She turned twelve in April. For most of those years she slept on whatever was cheap and flat, and I did not think much about it, because she never complained.

The same week as the kitchen floor, she stood at the back of the Outback and would not jump in. That was the week I started paying attention. I asked Dr. Lindqvist about her before I bought anything, and then I bought one thing at a time, never two at once, because I wanted to know what did what.

The Bedsure orthopedic dog bed came third, in January. It replaced a thin flat pillow bed that had gone flat in the middle years earlier. I had been telling myself that pillow bed was fine. I am telling you this so you know I am not a person who researches dog beds for fun.

What arrived was a rectangular bed, thirty-eight inches long by twenty-eight wide by six and a half inches thick, and it weighs under seven pounds. It has a bolster on all four sides and egg-crate polyurethane foam inside. The listing calls the cover removable and waterproof, and the materials are certified to OEKO-TEX standard 100, which mattered to me because she sleeps with her nose pressed against it.

The first two nights she ignored it. She walked a wide circle around it, lay down on the laminate beside it, and sighed in my direction. I left it where it was. I have learned not to make a project out of a dog's choices.

She circled it twice, put her front paws in, and was asleep on it before I finished my coffee. That was the second night.

I want to be honest about the sizing, because that is the part I would want to know. The listing shows a fifteen pound maximum weight recommendation for this bed, even though it is sold as a large dog bed. Juni is fifty-eight pounds. I read that, sat with it a while, and ordered it anyway. I would still tell you to look at the numbers yourself before you do.

She fits. She sleeps with her chin on the bolster and her back legs stretched out behind her, which is how she has always slept. Ten months in, the foam has a dip where her hips go. I am not going to pretend it does not. It is a dip, not a hole, and she still chooses that bed every night over the floor.

I should be clear about the other four things, because I do not want to give a bed credit it did not earn. I cannot prove what did what. The socks are for the kitchen floor. The harness is for the two concrete steps out back. The ramp is for the Outback. The bed is for sleeping, and sleeping is the only thing I am talking about here.

What changed in my day is small and specific. She used to get up three or four times before I finished breakfast and settle back down on the floor. Now she stays on the Bedsure bed until I put my dish in the sink. In the evening she gets on it while I read and stays there until I turn off the lamp. She is still stiff on cold mornings, and she is still slower than she was two years ago. I notice the cold more than she does, I think.

I wash the cover about every two weeks. It comes off, goes in the machine, and hangs over the back of a chair to dry, and her hair goes with it instead of working its way into the foam. In ten months the bed has not picked up a smell, which is more than I can say for the flat pillow bed it replaced. The other thing to know is that it is a big rectangle on the living room floor and it does not fold or tuck away. Thirty-eight inches is thirty-eight inches. I have stubbed my toe on the corner more than once. If your room is small, measure before you order.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you are where I was, watching a good dog hesitate at the edge of her own kitchen and telling yourself the bed is fine, here is what I would say. Read the size chart and the listing details for your own dog before you order anything, not just the photographs. Ask your veterinarian before you change a routine, especially if your dog takes medication or has a diagnosed condition, which is what I did with Dr. Lindqvist. Then change one thing at a time so you can tell what helped and what did not. The Bedsure bed did not make Juni young again. She is twelve and she is stiff and that is the truth of it. But she gets up from that bed in the morning without the long pause she used to take at the floor, and I will take that.