The Elevated Dog Feeder Built for Large Dogs and Skis
There is a specific sound a big dog makes at dinnertime, and if you own one you already heard it in your head. The scrape of a steel bowl chasing across tile, the dog pinning it into a corner with one paw, the water dish two feet away with a tide line around it. Our house had a lab who could relocate her bowl into the next room without appearing to try. That is the small daily nuisance an elevated dog feeder for large dogs is built to solve, and the Ski Dog Bowl Set from Colorado Ski Chairs solves it with two steel bowls set into a raised stand handmade from real retired skis and wood.
The floor slide is a big dog problem, and it is fixable
Watch a seventy pound dog eat off the floor and you notice a few things at once. The neck drops way down, the front legs splay, and the bowl skates because a dog that size has real leverage. On a hard floor the bowl travels. On a rug it flips. Either way the feeding spot creeps a little farther out into the room every week until the dog is eating under the kitchen table and you have made peace with it.
A raised feeder brings the bowls up off the ground so a taller dog does not have to fold itself in half to reach breakfast. It also parks the bowls in a solid frame that a paw cannot send sliding. The Ski Dog Bowl Set stands 9 inches tall and holds two bowls in a wood cradle that does not scoot. It is a small thing. Most good fixes are. You notice it the first morning the bowl is exactly where you left it the night before.
None of this is a medical claim, and we are not going to pretend a dog bowl stand cures anything. Plenty of dogs eat happily off the floor their whole lives. But for a large breed, an older dog with a stiff neck, or a household that is just tired of the daily bowl hockey, an elevated dog feeder for large dogs makes dinner calmer. That is the whole pitch, and it is enough.
What it actually is, made from real retired skis
Here is the honest description, because the honest one is the good one. The Ski Dog Bowl Set is a raised feeding stand built from real retired skis and solid wood, cut and fitted into a low frame that measures 24 inches long, 12 inches wide, and 9 inches tall. Two steel bowls drop into it. The old ski top sheet graphics stay part of the look, so you get the color and the faded logos and the little scuffs from actual seasons on the mountain, not a factory print made to look worn.
These are skis that were done skiing. Retired, donated, pulled from the back of somebody’s garage, the pairs that were too good to throw out and too old to ride. Rather than let them rot in a landfill, they get a second job holding up a labrador’s dinner. It is the same reclaimed material that goes into the shop’s chairs and benches, scaled down to something that fits next to a fridge.
Because this is a small build and not a chair, it does not eat a whole quiver of skis, so nobody has to hand over a garage full of gear to get one. That matters, because a full ski chair takes four to five pairs of skis and a snowboard chair takes at least three boards. A feeder stand is a different animal. It uses far less, which is exactly why it lands at a friendlier price than the seating does. If you want a piece made partly from a specific pair, say the skis a family member used to ride, the shop can work those colors into the build and match the rest from its own stock of retired and vintage skis. More on that later.
Why elevated feeders make sense for a bigger dog
The taller the dog, the more sense a raised bowl makes, and this is not complicated math. A dog that stands knee high or higher is reaching down a long way to eat off the ground. Lifting the bowls up to a more natural height means less of a stoop, less of a mess, and a feeding station that reads as a piece of the room instead of a plastic tray shoved against the baseboard. At 9 inches the Ski Dog Bowl Set suits mid to large dogs, the labs and shepherds and doodles and the occasional very confident beagle who thinks it is large.
The steel bowls lift out, which is the part people forget to ask about until they own the thing. You pull them, wash them, drop them back in. No wrestling a fixed dish under the faucet, no scrubbing around a frame. Feed, rinse, repeat, and the wood stays dry because the finish is water and weather proof. That last part is why some folks put one on a covered porch or in a mudroom where wet paws and spilled water are just the weather.
Is it going to change your dog’s life? No. Your dog does not know it is eating off retired ski gear handcrafted in Colorado. Your dog knows there is food. But you will know, every time you walk past it, and the people who come over will ask about it, which is more than a plastic mat has ever done for anybody.
Ski Dog Bowl Set, Pick Your Colors
Pick your colors, because the plastic mat was bothering somebody
The whole point of this particular listing is the color choice. Same raised feeder build, but hand painted to whatever you have in mind instead of whatever the shop happened to have on the bench. People match a kitchen. People match a mudroom. People match a favorite team, or the colors of the skis somebody used to ride, which is where this quietly turns sentimental without anybody planning it. The shop has painted paw prints, simple mountain lines, a dog’s initials, and one very specific shade of hunting orange that a customer was extremely particular about, and rightly so.
Worth being clear about how the painting works, because it comes up. Scenes, colors, paw prints, mountain ridgelines, a name, those are hand painted in exterior oils and they look it, in the good way. A company logo is a different story. A logo never gets hand painted, because a mark has to hold its exact shape and color to look right. Those go on as a clean logo decal floated over the painted background, with aluminum or plastic appliques as alternatives, and branded work is quoted on a call. For a dog at home you will never think about that. For an office or a brand, it is the difference between looking sharp and looking homemade.
Because it is made to order, you are not picking from three preset options. You describe what you want, the shop paints it, and it ships. That is the trade for a hand built piece. It is not instant, but it is yours, and it is not going to show up looking like the one your neighbor has.
Where an elevated dog feeder for large dogs actually lives
The natural home is wherever the dog already eats and you have quietly stopped enjoying the view. For most people that is the kitchen corner or a mudroom by the back door, the spot that sees muddy paws and shaken off snow and a water bowl that never quite stays full. The water and weather proof finish means a feeder can take that abuse and a wet mop without the wood swelling or the paint lifting.
Plenty of these also go on covered porches and patios, especially in the warm months when the dog is living half outside anyway. A Colorado summer evening, a dog that just came in off a hike at Garden of the Gods, a bowl of water waiting at the right height on the porch, that is the use case the shop hears about most. It works indoors year round and outdoors under cover, which covers most of how a dog actually lives.
It also just looks like it belongs in a mountain house. A cabin, a ski condo, a Front Range place with antlers on the wall and a season pass on the counter, the Ski Dog Bowl Set fits that room without trying. It reads as part of the house, not as pet gear you tolerate. For a lot of people that is the real reason they finally replace the plastic tray. The dog was fine. The mat was the problem.
The gift nobody expects and everybody keeps
Here is how this product came to exist, more or less. Dog people buy one for themselves, and then they buy three more as gifts, because they know exactly which of their friends is impossible to shop for but has a lab. You cannot buy that person another sweater. They do not want a gift card. But a handmade feeder built from retired skis, painted in their dog’s colors, with the dog’s name on it? That one lands. That one they keep, and they tell people where it came from.
It works as a housewarming gift for the couple who just bought the mountain place, a closing gift from a realtor who wants to be remembered past the paperwork, and the go to for the skier who genuinely has everything except a nice place for the dog to eat. Because it is a smaller build, it comes in at a gift friendly price, currently 149 dollars, marked down from 199, without feeling like a cheap thing. It feels like somebody thought about it, which is the entire job of a good gift.
And it is a ready to ship item in its standard form, so it is a rescue when you have forgotten a birthday and refuse to admit it. Pick your colors if you have the lead time, grab the ready to ship version if you do not. Either way you look like the friend who nailed it, which, let us be honest, is the point.
Built one at a time in Manitou Springs
Every one of these is built by hand in Manitou Springs, Colorado, the same shop that turns out the ski chairs, the snowboard benches, and the chairlift pieces. That matters for a couple of plain reasons. One, a real person cuts and fits and paints each stand, so when you ask for a particular color or a paw print you are talking to the people who will actually do it. Two, the material is genuinely reclaimed, real retired skis and solid wood, not new stock dressed up to look vintage. What you see in the top sheet is a ski that earned its scuffs.
Colorado Ski Chairs ships nationwide, so a dog in Vermont or Georgia can eat off Colorado ski gear just fine, and the finish holds up wherever it lands. The shop has been building furniture and decor out of recycled skis and snowboards for years, which is a long way of saying they know how to make a piece of old gear carry weight and stand up to a wet mop for a decade. A feeder is a small piece of that, but it gets the same hands and the same finish as the big stuff.
If you want to talk through a color idea, or ask whether the shop can work in a specific pair of skis, the number is 303.775.7273 and a person answers. That is the entire ordering process for anything custom. You call, you describe it, they build it.
Care, durability, and the long game
People ask how a wood and ski feeder holds up around a dog, which is fair, because dogs are hard on things. The short answer is that this one is built to take it. The finish is water and weather proof, so slobber, spilled water, a wet mop, and the occasional muddy paw print are just Tuesday. You wipe it down like a counter. The steel bowls lift straight out for a real wash, then drop back in, so the food surface stays clean without you fighting a fixed dish under the tap.
Because it is solid wood and real skis rather than a molded plastic tray, it does not crack when the garage gets cold or warp when the porch gets hot. That is the quiet advantage of an elevated dog feeder for large dogs made from actual gear. The plastic setups turn brittle and get replaced every couple of years. A handmade one gets a patina and gets handed down. It is the same reason people keep the shop’s chairs for a decade and then order a matching bench. Good material plus a real finish equals a thing that lasts longer than the trend that sold it.
Maintenance is close to nothing. Keep it out of a spot where it sits in standing water all day, wipe it when it needs it, wash the bowls like you would any dish, and it will keep looking like a piece of the room for years. An elevated dog feeder for large dogs should be the last one you buy, not the first of several, and this one is built with that in mind.
A quick word for the dog friendly office
This one is for the business readers, because a dog bowl stand quietly makes a good case at work too. Dog friendly offices are not a gimmick anymore, they are a real part of how a lot of companies signal that they are a decent place to spend a Tuesday. A tidy, good looking feeding station in the break room or the lobby corner says the dog on the team is genuinely welcome, not just tolerated near the door. It is a small, cheap piece of culture that people notice and post about, and it costs less than most of the swag that ends up in a drawer.
For an office, the shop can match brand colors and add a company logo as a decal or applique, never hand painted, so the mark stays crisp, with branded and bulk pricing quoted on a call. Order a couple for the offices that have dogs, or a small run for a pet brand that wants something real at a trade show. It is the rare branded item that lives in the room long after the event, gets used every day, and makes people smile instead of reaching for the recycling bin. Reclaimed material, made in the USA, actually useful. That is a better story than another logo water bottle.
How ordering works, start to finish
Simple version. If you want the pick your colors build, decide roughly what you are after, a color scheme, a paw print, a name, a team, or a nod to a specific pair of skis, and call 303.775.7273 to hand it off. The shop confirms the details, hand paints it in exterior oils, seals it water and weather proof, and ships it to your door. If you just want the standard look with no wait, the ready to ship version goes out fast.
Two steel bowls come with it, they lift out for washing, and the 24 by 12 by 9 inch footprint fits most kitchen corners and mudrooms without taking over. It works indoors year round and outdoors under cover. And it is built to outlast the plastic setup it is replacing by a wide margin, because it is skis and hardwood, not a molded tray that cracks in a cold garage. Buy it for your own dog, or send one to the friend with the lab and take the easy win.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is an elevated dog feeder for large dogs actually better than a bowl on the floor?
For a taller dog it usually makes dinner more comfortable and a lot less messy, since the dog does not have to stoop as far and the bowls stay put in a solid frame instead of sliding around. It is not a medical device and we make no health claims, but at 9 inches tall the Ski Dog Bowl Set is a sensible height for mid to large breeds and it ends the daily bowl chasing.
What is it actually made of?
Real retired skis and solid wood, built into a raised stand that holds two steel bowls. The original ski top sheet graphics stay visible, so the color and the worn logos are from actual skis, not a printed fake. It is handcrafted in Manitou Springs, Colorado, and finished water and weather proof for indoor or covered outdoor use.
Can you paint it to match my dog or my house?
Yes, that is the whole point of the pick your colors version. The shop hand paints it in the colors you choose and can add paw prints, mountain lines, a name, or a team look. Call 303.775.7273 with your idea. A company logo is applied as a clean decal or applique rather than hand painted, and branded pricing is quoted on that call.
Can you use a specific pair of skis that means something to me?
The shop can work a meaningful pair into the build and match the rest from its own stock of retired and vintage skis, so a feeder can carry the colors of skis a family member used to ride. If those skis are long gone, the shop can source a close match by brand and era rather than pretend it is the original pair.
Give the big dog a better spot to eat
If the bowl sliding across the kitchen has been a low grade annoyance for years, this is the fix that also happens to look good. Pick your colors, put your dog’s name on it if you want, and let a handmade piece of Colorado ski history hold up dinner. Take a look at the Ski Dog Bowl Set, or browse more small builds under indoor decor and furniture. Your dog will not thank you. Dogs are like that. You will still be glad you did it.
