Dogs’ lives are made more comfortable by tough bedding

Kris Hill

Monday, Jan. 29, 2001 | 9:35 a.m.

Sheri Spurlock arrived home one day recently to find that the new dog beds she had spent $600 on the day before for her Labrador, Dalmatian and Labrador-Chow mix had been destroyed by her pets.

"My husband was furious," Spurlock said.

About the same time her company, Colossal Images, which designs advertising banners and billboards for McCarran International Airport and other businesses, had begun using a new vinyl material for some of its products.

Spurlock wasn't sure what to do with the leftover vinyl after a banner or billboard was made. A believer in recycling, she was inspired by the mess her dogs had left. Maybe she could use the leftover vinyl to make dog mats for her pets.

She spent two weeks playing around with the idea, making prototypes of the product for her dogs, for her friends' pets and for everybody who could use them while she was perfecting the design, she said.

Each pad uses a pair of 2-foot-square vinyl pieces as the top and bottom layers. Foam padding is placed between the vinyl layers, which are stitched together with fishing line.

After a reasonable amount of vinyl accumulates to make several of the dog pads, her production staff starts cutting and stitching. It takes about an hour to make one pad, Spurlock said.

The mats can be washed, which will help keep them disease-free. The use of the fishing line to stitch them together is also intended to keep the pads free from disease, she said.

Once the process was perfected, Spurlock brainstormed ways her new product could be used.

"I'm a big fan and supporter of the Animal Foundation," she said.

While at a foundation board meeting discussing some of the signs and banners Colossal Images created for the new animal shelter that opens on Feb. 8, she offered to provide mats for the canines who will live there.

"I had this new product and they thought it was a great idea," Spurlock said.

It will be a new luxury for the pets. Mats were not provided in the old shelter, because there wasn't space. The new Lied shelter will have enough room for each animal to have its own space, Mary Herro, president of the Animal Foundation, said.

Herro was thrilled for the animals when Spurlock brought the idea up, she said.

"Sheri is such an animal lover," and her efforts mean the animals will be healthier and happier during their stay at the shelter, Herro said.

Each pad is about 3 inches thick, which is more than enough to make a dog comfortable while sleeping on the shelter's concrete floors, Spurlock said.

And compared with the expensive beds she purchased for her pets that didn't make it through one day, the dog mats are tough.

"My puppy was only able to chew a corner off," she said.