FROM THE HOME FRONT
Susan Martin: Let sleeping dogs lie … in style
Ikeep coming across all these stylish dog beds that remind me just how much we love our pets. I see them in local pet stores, of course, but also in mail-order catalogs that don’t even specialize in pet products exclusively.
There’s the Doggie Lounge from Garnet Hill in spiffy solid colors such as pink, orange, red and lime –each with a big white bone printed on it.
Orvis offers a dog bed designed to fit into a corner –as well as therapeutic “memory foam” models.
And the Company Store had at one time a low-to-the-ground bed fashioned after an Adirondack chair but, as of this week, it was unavailable –but still cute.
Our dog has his own bed. It’s a big rectangle in bubble gum pink (to match our daughter’s room), but he doesn’t seem to mind its girliness.
He also has discovered the cat bed in the family room. This is not a problem because the cats never use it. Why would they? They are cats, and no one, not even the ones that love and feed and pet them, can tell them where to sleep.
I bought the bed several years ago on a trip to Target when I had absolutely no intention of buying a pet bed.
But there it was in black with a black-and-white buffalo check cushion that reversed to hot pink. I couldn’t resist. It matched our decor so perfectly. Plus, the economy was better then.
Now the dog has discovered it even though it is designed for an animal three-quarters his size.
He somehow manages to curl up like a garden hose in it and fall promptly to sleep. If he feels like stretching out, he leaves his bottom half in the bed and drapes his body over its side.
The cats, on the other hand, settle down wherever they choose.
Sammy prefers our daughter’s bean bag chair that I keep covered with an easy-to-wash fleece blanket (the cat hair problem, you know).
Gumper, on the other hand, is always looking for new places to settle down.
Preferably ones that drive me crazy.
I can deposit a pile of laundry on the bed and leave the room for 10 seconds, only to return to find him snoozing smack in the middle of it.
I can leave a 5-by-7-inch grocery list on a table and, bang, there he is – rolling around on top of it.
For years, I kept a basket on top of the refrigerator with neatly rolled-up kitchen towels poking out of it. It looked cute and freed up drawer space.
One day, as I walked through the kitchen, I saw you-know-who curled up in it.
“This is totally unacceptable,” I said to him, dropping towel after towel down the laundry chute.
The kitchen, by the way, is next to the family room where the cat bed mostly sat empty –until we got the dog.
Enough about the cats.
We got our dog bed at a local pet store. But if you want to check out some dog beds online, visit these Web sites:
• Garnet Hill at garnethill.com.
• The Company Store at thecompanystore. com (there’s one covered in big paw prints).
• L. L. Bean at llbean.com.
• Orvis at orvis.com.
• Lands’ End at landsend.com.
And monogramming is always an option, of course.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments