Barbie Cassidy with one of the small, wool-knop filled pillows she makes, which are decorative and multi-use.
Barbie Cassidy with one of the small, wool-knop filled pillows she makes, which are decorative and multi-use.
Barbie Cassidy has been a frequent face around Waipukurau, Central Hawke’s Bay, for many years, and if you stop and chat to her about wool, you need to put half an hour aside.
Her wonderful smile and quick wit are what she is known for.
For almost 35 years, Cassidyhas produced woollen dog beds under the name V.I.P. Beds, for Very Important Pets.
They have found their way into homes all around the country.
For the past few years, Cassidy has lived at a beautiful, remote beach with an enchanting shed to work from, watching the waves and enjoying the smell of the sea.
Here she can be found spending hours of her day sorting out the special wool balls she uses in her dog beds.
Once a week, a trip is made into town to give the courier her orders to be dispatched around the country.
Over the years, she has also taken to developing wool-filled pillows for beds and travel, using the same knopped wool as her dog beds.
Cassidy supports the vision-impaired community by gifting her labrador-sized “Mutt Mattresses” for guide dogs.
“It was a gift of two bags of knopped wool and a concern for animal comfort that sparked my business, V.I.P. Beds,” Cassidy said.
Having previously been a veterinary nurse and labrador breeder, she noticed that large dogs often suffered from arthritis and sore joints and were either living in pain or on expensive drugs.
She thought they’d benefit from comfortable and warm bedding.
She had seen various versions of pet beds that offered draught protection, but said they were filled with cheap, synthetic material.
The idea of using the gifted wool and easing the dogs’ plight galvanised Cassidy to design and produce an improved version for her canine friends.
She saw the possibility of using the woollen knops she had been given.
Cassidy had a surge of inspiration early one morning and made some sketches.
She persuaded a saddler to make up the first beds in two sizes, one for a Jack Russell and one for a labrador, and they sold immediately.
Barbie Cassidy's woollen dog beds are a hit with pooches. Photo / Warren Buckland
That was in 1991, and there has hardly been a day since that an order hasn’t been made for a wool-filled dog bed.
“Knopped wool is the secret ingredient to a comfortable and therapeutic dog bed, and if you have a woollen pillow, there is every chance that is what the filling is,” she said.
A unique knopping process is used to partially form tiny wool balls, which move slightly to massage inside the covers and do not “felt down”.
Knops are little balls of cross-bred wool fibre created when tiny tufts of wool are whirled in a machine with centrifugal force and blown into partially formed ball shapes.
The transformation of fleece into these tiny balls further enhances the insulating properties of wool.
Mattresses filled with these wool balls massage a dog’s joints and help relieve and combat arthritis.
It retains its bulk, does not flatten and does not smell.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and after almost 35 years, it is time for Cassidy to devote some time to herself, so she has reluctantly decided that it would be beneficial for some younger legs to take over V.I.P. Beds.
Cassidy is having an Open Day on August 30 at her bed shed, 248 Pōrangahau Road, Waipukurau - dogs are welcome, of course.
It will be her last, and she has her fingers crossed that someone with the same passion for wool and dogs will carry V.I.P. Beds on into the future.
