The Curse of the Orvis Dog Beds

Have you ever been shopping and seen someone wearing something that they are selling in the mall and you think to yourself - "wow, that looks really awesome!" You don't really pay much attention to the fact that the person wearing it is 10 years younger and 20 lbs thinner than you are. Those, let's say, leather pants, must be found and must be had.

Well, you look around for those leather pants. You may even take the time to try them on. While you study yourself in the mirror in the dressing room, you say under your breath, "damn, I look good." Just forget the fact that all department store mirrors are really fun house mirrors in disguise. Those pants make you look hot.

You get home, put the pants in the closet, all tucked away, ready for your big night out on Friday. Friday night gets here, and it's finally time for you to slip into that sexy number. When you take a look in your own mirror what's staring back at you resembles a teenage wannabe, who's thighs look more like her mother's than Gisele Bundchen's in those hideous excuse for a pair of trousers.

I've bought my share of "leather pants" during my shopping tenure. And sometimes they have nothing to do with clothing. The latest such purchase was a pair of Orvis dog beds for my girls that I bought just two weeks ago. These beds have little foam beads inside as stuffing instead of normal polyfiber stuffing, which offers little support for their bony bums. My girls have tested out beds just like these at Patti's house and seemed to enjoy them while we were there. They even raced the other dogs to see who would get to the bed first. In my head, they had thoroughly tried them on for size and seemed to be pleased with what they found.

So when the beds arrived, I was disappointed in the girls' reaction to their new snuggle beds as I placed them on the floor for them to break them in. Not only did they not immediately run to them, dig and nest on them until they were perfect and then plop down on them for a nap - they wouldn't go near them. In fact, they wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole.

I e-mailed Patti and asked what I should do. She told me to take out some of the beads inside of the beds so they would be a little less firm and that should remedy the problem. After unintentionally spreading some Christmas cheer throughout my house with little white foam beads (stupid static electricity) I successfully deflated one of the beds and found that the second bed was actually damaged (that one was returned to Orvis the next day with no problem). Still no interest from either of my two princesses after all that work.

I then decided that maybe they didn't like the way the cover smells and that maybe they would like it better if it smelled more like me. After all, they covet sleeping between me and Kev every night. So, I spent the entire day using the bed as my personal bean bag. I'm sure we were quite the site: me, sitting on a dog bed, laptop and spreadsheets all around me in the floor, while there are two hounds sleeping peacefully on the sofa behind me. Not really the commercial Orvis would want for their dog bed, I'm sure.

Now worries - the next day my sister and her two dogs would arrive for Thanksgiving. I thought for sure that her two pups would claim the new dog bed as theirs, which would cause Seka to become a giant cranky pants about it and then take sudden interest in the evil Orvis bed. So much for that plan. Both visiting dogs would rather lay on the hardwood floor in the kitchen than on that bed.

So the slightly deflated Orvis bed continues to lay dog-less in our living room floor. I've thought of a few solutions that could help with this dog bed of doom dilemma. I believe it is the sound that the bed makes that freaks them out so much and has them avoiding it at all costs. So, I wonder if I add some polyfil stuffing in with the beads to cut down on the rattling if it would help? I even thought about shredding up some of Kev's old underwear that are in the rag pile and put them in the stuffing, since that would kill two birds with one stone. The cats seem to like it as is, but that doesn't satisfy me. I've posted a poll to get your feedback on this topic since I'm really at my wit's end on this subject.

At this point, sending the darn thing back isn't an option in my book. I'm the kind of girl that even when the outfit looks like a mistake in the mirror just before you leave the house, I stick with the decision I made and let the chips fall where they may. That's why I rocked a pair of black leather pants and a purple sweater with black fur trim in Vegas just six years ago.