The Bed That Let Biscuit Sleep Through the Night

For most of last winter, my nights went like this. Two in the morning, the click of Biscuit's nails on the hardwood, then the slow shuffle down the hall. Half past three, the same thing. Quarter to five, again. She is a 12-year-old Golden Retriever, about 68 pounds, and our vet diagnosed arthritis in her hips and elbows when she was 10. Dale slept through every bit of it. I did not.

Here is what I finally worked out she was doing. She was looking for a soft place and not finding one. She would start on the flat pillow bed by the window, paw at it for a minute, circle twice, lie down, and get up again ten minutes later. That bed had gone flat as a pancake. When I lifted one end, the whole thing folded in half like a wet towel.

So a year ago I ordered the Bedsure orthopedic dog bed in Large. The listing gave the size as 38 inches long by 28 inches wide, about 6.5 inches thick, with egg-foam inside and a cover that comes off. I did not do careful research. I checked the size against Biscuit stretched out on the rug, checked that the cover could go in the washer, and hit order.

The first two nights, she ignored it. I set it where the old bed had been, by the window in the living room, and she walked past it and lay on the rug instead. On the third night I put one of her blankets on top of it, which I think was less about comfort and more about smell. That did it. She stepped on, turned around twice, and stayed there until morning.

By the end of that first week she was sleeping through most nights. Not all of them. I want to be straight about that, because I have read plenty of reviews that make it sound like a switch flipped overnight. What changed is that she stopped getting up three and four times a night hunting for a softer spot. She still shifts position once, sometimes twice, usually around four. But the long patrol down the hallway stopped, and so did my lying awake waiting for it.

What changed is not that she stopped being sore. What changed is that she stopped walking the hallway at two in the morning looking for a softer place to lie down.

The Bedsure cover has been through our washer more times than I can count. It unzips, and I wash it on cold and let it air dry over the deck rail, mostly because the first time I ran it through the dryer it came out looking tired. The foam core I have only spot cleaned with a damp cloth. After a year of daily use, the foam has not gone flat. That is the part I watch now, because flat is exactly how the last bed failed us.

The four raised sides turned out to matter more than I expected. Biscuit rests her chin on the front one, and I think it gives her something to push against when she hauls herself up. The first month she mostly used the middle. Now she sleeps with her head up on the side, which she never once did on the flat pillow bed.

None of this fixed her arthritis. She takes her Cosequin chew every morning and still does, and I do not credit the bed for that. She still has stiff days, more when the weather turns, and she still needs a minute to get her back legs under her after a long nap. The bed did one job. It gave her somewhere to sleep that did not make her worse. I will take that.

Two other things help, and I mention them because a bed only covers the sleeping part of the day. On bad mornings I run the sling under her back legs for the three wooden steps down to the yard. It supports the rear end only, and I am not going to pretend it does anything for her elbows. The folding ramp lives in the back of the Outback for vet visits and weekend drives. The hallway is still hardwood and still slick, so she wears the non-slip socks indoors, morning until bedtime.

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

I would tell you not to buy a bed expecting it to undo a diagnosis. It will not. I would tell you to measure your dog stretched out flat rather than curled up, because Biscuit takes up the whole 38 inches when she sprawls and I nearly ordered the smaller one. I would tell you to put a worn blanket on it for the first few nights and not to be discouraged when your dog walks past it. And I would tell you to talk to your vet before you spend money on anything for sore hips, because with Biscuit the chews, the bed, the sling and the ramp work as a set, and not one of them works alone. If you have an old dog pacing your hallway at night, start with the sleeping half of the problem. That is what gave me my nights back.