The Good: Easy to clean, relatively inexpensive
The Bad: Does not retain stuffing density!
The Basics: A dismal pet pillow bed, the Comfort Pet Products Pillow Pet Bed flattens out within a month of a medium-size dog using it.
When I consider pet products, I consider my experience and observations and I rely largely upon my wife to inform me as to what some of the statistics actually mean. But when it comes to a pet pillow, like the Comfort Pet Products Pillow Pet Bed, I felt I had a pretty good handle on the product from the moment we brought it home. After all, this is a pillow designed to be set on the floor for animals to lay on in comfort. Just as I don't enjoy sleeping on the floor, neither does Mitzie, our cocker spaniel, and – as it turns out – our cats. While Brillo, our obese Siamese has been happy to sleep on a blanket on the floor and Gollum seems happy to sleep on a stool or tabletop, Mitzie is definitely at an age where she wants to be pampered. She is a seventeen year-old cocker spaniel and between the canine cancer that keeps popping up all over her body and her arthritis, she is an old girl who deserves a comfortable place to sleep. When Brillo discovered Mitzie’s old pet pillow on the floor and began to take it over (it turns out Mitzie is quite the pushover and would not kick him off her bed), my partner decided it was time to get a new pet pillow for Mitzie and I made up a whole pet bed area in our bedroom so the whole family could sleep proximate (Mitzie seems to get agitated when her people are not nearby when she sleeps).
We picked up the Comfort Pet Products Pillow Pet Bed in one of the many medium sizes, in this case the 30” X 24” pillow. When we bought the pillow, it was about 2 ½” thick. This pet bed is intended for either dogs or cats and is filled with a white polyester stuffing that reminds me of the material used in fish filters or some giant cotton ball which is clearly made out of a synthetic. The outside covering of the pillow is cotton and a blanket-like material that reminds me of chamois, which seems to be what people call fleece. This is clearly intended to have the fleece-side up for the comfort of the animal and the friction from the stiff cotton side being down helps to keep the pillow in place.
Unfortunately, the Comfort Pet Products Pillow Pet Bed quickly turned into a disappointment. While the Medium bed was certainly the right size and Mitzie initially went right for her bed, our twenty-two pound dog quickly made the pillow bed into a mat. Having been used for a month and washed once, the pillow bed is now only an inch thick and when Mitzie lays down on it, it compresses to about a quarter inch thick. The stuffing compresses so drastically that within two weeks of nightly use, Mitzie stopped sleeping on it. The reason for this was simple; it was comparable to sleeping on the floor, so she'd just pick a spot on the floor where she could sleep. Brillo, however, soon took over our dark blue Pillow Pet Bed. That annoyed my partner.
So, I dug around the house for all of our old pillows and I lay them on the floor and placed the two pet pillow beds, including the new Comfort Pet Products Pillow Pet Bed, on top of a layer of human pillows. Essentially, we now have a row of four pillows laying side by side with two pet pillow beds atop them to make one long corner pet bed. The only thing that keeps the pet pillows from compressing into the floor and essentially being mats or blankets are the real, human, pillows below.
In other words, the Comfort Pet Products Pillow Pet Bed utterly failed at what it was supposed to do. For more than the cost of a human pillow which does not flatten out (at least for over three months of nightly use), one may buy the Comfort Pet Products Pillow Pet Bed, but for a dog it is likely to quickly be rendered useless. It has far too much “give” and as such does not offer comfort to dogs, though Brillo still seems happy to sleep on the compressed pet bed when we're cleaning up the corner.
The Comfort Pet Products Pillow Pet Bed is machine washable in cold water and we throw it in with our dark loads whenever we have room and remember to, so our dog bed has not carried an animal scent. The tag indicates that the product should not be bleached and we've had no reason to do that. For ease of cleaning, I usually shake the bed out outside before washing it in order to get as much cat and dog hair off before it goes through the washer. It takes about a full day to dry and it is recommended that it be air or line dried; I suspect excessive heat from clothes dryers melts the stuffing inside.
It’s not like it matters much, though; the stuffing inside is pretty well worthless from the outset with its excessively high compression. Those looking for a pet pillow which will support a dog, especially an older dog which might need a little extra support, will find this is a woefully inadequate pet pillow bed. All that saves it from the complete panning is that Brillo uses it regularly and as a cat bed, it seems adequate, even if it is not terribly supportive.
For other cat and dog products, please check out my reviews of:
Millers Forge Small Shedding Blade #520c
United Pet Skunk And Tough Odor Eliminator
Millers Forge Nail Clippers
3/10
For other pet product reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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