Health & wellbeing · Dog care

She stopped sleeping on her bed. It took me too long to understand why.

By the Loll Hound team · Makree Ltd, England

Off the cold floor and properly supported — where an older dog should be resting.

For years I did everything for Susan. Best food. Vet checks. A supplement when she started slowing down. I told myself I was on top of it.

But there was one thing I completely missed — and it was the thing she spent most of the day lying on.

Susan is my old girl. She's nine now.

Around seven, she started circling three, four times before lying down — as if she couldn't find a position that didn't ache. She'd get up in stages: front first, a pause, then the back end with a little groan.

Then one winter I noticed she'd stopped using her bed altogether. She was sleeping on the cold kitchen tile instead.

I couldn't understand it. I'd bought her a memory foam bed — £45 from a big pet shop. It looked fine from above.

So I pressed my hand into it. And my palm hit the floor.

The foam had flattened to nothing. She'd been lying on a thin sheet of fabric over hard ground, night after night, and I'd never checked. The cold tile was firmer than her collapsed bed — so she chose the floor.

That's the part that stung. Not that I'd ignored her — I was buying beds. I just kept buying the wrong ones. Cheap foam that bottoms out in weeks, with no real support under the hips and elbows where an older dog carries her weight.

A senior dog sleeps 16–18 hours a day. The surface under them matters more than almost anything else we buy — and it was the one thing I'd been cheapest on.

So I stopped replacing £45 beds every few months and looked at what actually holds up: high-density orthopaedic memory foam — the kind that doesn't flatten — thick enough to keep a heavy dog off the floor, with a bolster to support the head and neck.

That's why we made The Big Loll: 8 cm of orthopaedic memory foam that keeps its support, a supportive bolster, and a cover that comes off and goes straight in the wash — built for dogs who feel every ache.

The first night, Susan circled once. Lay down. And stayed.

She's slept on it every night since. She chose the bed over the cold floor — and hasn't gone back.

I'm not going to tell you a bed fixes everything. It doesn't. But your old dog spends most of their life lying down. If the thing they lie on has quietly flattened to the floor, that's one problem you can actually fix this week.

Give your old friend somewhere that finally holds them.

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The Big Loll is a comfort product designed to support rest — it is not a medical device and makes no medical claims. 30-day money-back promise: if your dog doesn't settle into it, contact us within 30 days of delivery for a full refund. Loll Hound is a brand by Makree Ltd, registered in England.