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The Rise Of Beds, And The Falls Of Dogs

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The Wall Street Journal

The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 13, 2008

Without fanfare or marketing, the bedding industry has been raising the altitude of its products, satisfying customer preferences for ever-thicker mattresses. Yet that preference is creating a hazard for a tall bed's shortest occupant: the dog.

Anecdotally, veterinarians across the country report among house dogs a rise in such disorders as elbow and shoulder arthritis, hip dysplasia and degenerative disk disease. As the lifespan of pets rises thanks to better food and medicine, the old dog that once leapt with abandon now hesitates on the edge of the bed - or jumps and hurts itself.
Little dogs such as the Pekingese are soaring off of high beds without fear. "For a little dog to take a flying leap off a bed that's five to six times higher than he stands is an act of courage, and a recipe for injury," said Stephen Crane, an academic animal doctor and diplomat of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons.

The peril is too new to have generated peer-reviewed veterinary research. But the problem is evident in the white-hot popularity of a relatively new product: pet stairs, specifically designed to lead Fido from bed to floor by land rather than air.

Several Options Available
Pet stairs are one of the fastest-growing categories at national pet retailers such as Drs. Foster & Smith Inc., which offers five models ranging from $40 to $170. Vermont-based Orvis, the upscale outdoors retailer, launched its first pet staircase four years ago and now carries four, including a $200 carpet-and-hardwood model. Wal-Mart Stores offers a $64 variety, while a Web site called Puppy Stairs offers a range of models, from a bare-bones version for $77 to a designer model swathed in heavy-duty foam and washable upholstered covers in decorator fabrics for $535.

Even amid the downturn, pet stairs are strong sellers. "From day one through today our pet segment has been steady, growing by 10 percent annually," said Joel Lederhause, owner of Discount Ramps.Com, which about five years ago added pet ramps to a wide range it sells for other purposes.

To be sure, pet retailers have long sold a wide variety of products to keep pets off beds and other furniture. But the animals are winning that war. Dogs reside in about 40 percent of U.S. households, and in rising numbers they are sleeping in human beds. An American Pet Products Association survey found that a record 40 percent of dogs slept in an adult bed in 2006, along with 7 percent that slept in a child's bed.

And beds keep rising. Until the past decade, standard mattress and box springs were each about 8 inches thick, in part to facilitate the regular flipping of mattresses, as recommended for maintenance purposes. But in recent years, the development of the no-flip mattress sparked a thickness race. On the market today are mattresses twenty inches thick.

"It's the 'Princess and the Pea' phenomenon - the high bed being a cue to quality," said Tim Oakhill, executive vice president of marketing at Simmons Co., the Atlanta-based bedding giant. In his own bedroom, said Oakhill, "It's not just a case of slipping into bed. I have to kind of hop up." He adds that the family dog "is having trouble getting up there."

Learning From Experience

Even before the advent of thicker mattresses, Kathleen Zaslaw came to regard her bed as a primary suspect in the arthritis that crippled her now-dead Dalmatian. Upon obtaining two new Dalmatians, she bought a set of wooden stairs from Orvis. "It looks like a fancy piece of furniture," she said, adding that it perfectly complements her oak bedroom furniture. Most importantly, now that she and her husband have a bed that hovers nearly 30 inches off the ground, "the stairs are great for the safety and health of the dogs."

Heather Hyde, a partner at American Rebel PR in Los Angeles, purchased pet stairs on her veterinarian's recommendation after her cocker spaniel underwent leg surgery. In researching the product, she found options ranging from traditional stairs to metal ramps to stepping blocks made of industrial-strength foam. Ultimately, Hyde chose an offering from Puppy Stairs.

Now, all three of her dogs use the stairs to climb into bed - and so does she. Otherwise, climbing into bed is akin to mounting a horse. "This bed is higher than my stomach," Hyde said.

Some customers are buying pet stairs for themselves, said one purveyor, who requested anonymity because her company's stairs are not built for humans.

Whether higher beds are resulting in human injury isn't known. Only this decade has much medical research accumulated on the risk that bunk beds pose to falling children.

Another option for pet owners is to lower the bed, which can be accomplished by purchasing a newfangled product called the "low-profile box spring," whose thinness offsets the thickness of today's cushier mattresses. For dog owners, a simpler and cheaper solution would be to "keep the dog out of bed," Crane said. "But that advice is going to be rejected."

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