Our two 10 week old foster golden retriever puppies made the trip to northern Illinois with us, but they were quietly sleeping in the crate at the foot of the bed. Amos was sleeping soundly on his bed of pillows that we brought with us. Jasper was presumably hiding somewhere in the darkness.

As my wife searched the room for Jasper, from the comfort of our bed, the room is filled with a muffled whimpering. No Jasper. The bedroom door is closed; So he hadn’t left the room. The closet doors are closed. Looking down at the side of the bed, my wife discovers the top of Jasper’s head. OMG, HE IS STUCK UNDER THE BED!!

After several futile attempts to pull him out, without leaving the comfort of our bed, my wife awakens me and tells me that Jasper is stuck under the bed and she doesn’t know how long he’s been there, although the logistics of the situation suggest it’s been at least an hour or two. She has managed to get his head out, but that is all.

Unlike my Mother-in-Law’s dog, a West Highland Terrier who can and does run under the bed all the time — usually to escape the rougher play of the big golden retrievers — Jasper is a 90-pound Golden Retriever whose torso is nearly as wide as the distance from the hardwood floor to the bottom of the bed. I get up, crawling off the foot of the bed because my side is pressed tightly against the wall and walk around to my wife’s side of the bed. What I see reminds me of a horse-on-a-stick toy.

Jasper’s big head and 3 inches of his neck are visible with the rest of his torso hidden beneath the bed. His feet are pointing inward and not visible. His right eye is staring upward and watching me.

“Jasper, How did you get under there?”

Jasper just lays there, totally motionless, except that his eye follows me. He is clearly happy to see me; I can hear the muffled thump, thump, thump of his tail against the wall on the far side of the bed.

I reach under the bed and grab a handful of dog hair in the middle of his back and quickly pull him toward me. He slides easily on the hardwood floor, so I’m not hurting him with my tug on his hair. It takes only a few moments to get him far enough out that I could get my hands around him. I wrap my hands around his torso, I pull him the rest of the way out. When he is completely out from under the bed, he just lays there, unmoving.

“Jasper, Did you hurt yourself? Are you alright?” He lays there totally motionless.

Slapping his butt gently with the verbal command, “Okay” he pops right up. Clearly, he had been under the bed long enough that he had stopped struggling to get up and didn’t know to try again until I told him to. Immediately he is licking my face and trying to climb into my lap. Jasper is clearly upset. Pointing to my spot on the full-size bed and he hops right up and snuggles in next to my wife. He does his best to keep her awake while I work out a solution to prevent him from doing it again once I go back to sleep.

Over the years we have frequently had to deal with the dogs getting their backs under the bed with their feet stretched into the room, but this was the first time that his feet were pointing under the bed and the first time that he was completely under the bed. Generally, our dogs sleep on their side, with their backs pushed up against something — the bed frame, the wall, me, my wife, etc. — with their feet extending outward. As they stretch in their sleep or run in their sleep, they slowly push themselves under the bed — but never more than their head or two or three inches of their backs. Jasper had managed to push himself completely under the bed, and then turn around so his feet were pointing toward the far side of the bed.

I placed a row of pillows, end to end, on top of a blanket and folded the blanket over the pillows. Then I wedged the whole thing tightly under the side of the bed. Now, he could lay on the pillows and when he moved to the cool floor, the pillow wall would prevent him from going under the bed. It worked! Once I coaxed him out of my spot and back onto the floor (this bed isn’t big enough for my wife, my big golden, and myself) we were all able to go back to sleep for a few hours before the puppies’ built-in air raid sirens went off signaling time for morning potty.

On Memorial Day weekend, 1995, we trekked to Farmington to interview a breeder about their golden retrievers and quickly discovered that it was us, who was being interviewed. On that day, we put down a deposit for our golden retriever. In November, a beautiful litter of golden retriever puppies were born, complete with AKC registration papers and a certified bloodline. A week later we were there for an introduction to the litter. A few weeks later, we were there to assess each puppy. Mr. Green, as he was known to the breeder, due to his length of green yarn tied around his neck like a collar, asserted himself early – pushing the other puppies aside to saunter up and nip my wife on the upper arm. We looked at several other puppies, but at 8 weeks, Mr. Green came home with us where he got the new name, Cody.

Throughout his life, Cody had to endure numerous surgeries to remove cancerous tumors, and the weeks of recovery afterward, and a 3 month run of chemotherapy. I took on the role of caretaker – looking after him, changing his bandages, cleaning the incision sites, making sure he was comfortable, and even administering his daily chemotherapy drugs. During these periods, I often slept on the floor beside him so I could check on him during the night, or listen for his tell sounds of pain or discomfort.

Cody started slowing down in late 2007. We expected to lose him by summer 2008, then by Labor Day, then by Christmas 2008. But he made it through all of those dates, and even New Year’s Day, 2009. But on January 3rd, 2009 at about 5 pm in the afternoon, he collapsed while heading for the backyard. Except for a quick jaunt outside much later, and a quick bite of dinner, he laid nearly motionless the rest of the night. It would be the first time in his 13 years that he would be unable to walk upstairs for the night. I slept on the cold vinyl floor beside him. It would be my last night to sleep beside him.

The next morning, he bounced up like nothing was wrong. He played with my wife and I, and our two rescued golden retrievers all day. He walked up the street and down the street, running past the house as if to say “not yet, I want to walk some more”. That night, he bolted up the stairs and positioned himself on the floor at the foot of the bed – his usual place. Sunday, he was a bit slower, but still very full of life. But when he refused to climb the stairs to the bedroom Sunday night, I figured he would come up later and let him stay downstairs.

Every day when I think back to that Sunday, the guilt tears me up. That night would be his last night on Earth. I should have been on that floor beside him, but I didn’t realize his time was so short. I didn’t realize that we would have to euthanize him before Monday’s sunset. On January 5th, 2009, he didn’t get up; he wouldn’t eat; he wouldn’t even eat peanut butter! By noon, he would try to get to his feet, but fall over. I would help him stand; watch him stagger to a new spot; and help him lie back down, gently. Throughout the early afternoon, with my help, he visited every one of his favorite spots. As early afternoon gave way to late afternoon, he stopped trying to get up. He was done. Except for a brief struggle to his feet as we drove him through his favorite park on the way to the vet, he would walk no more. I carried him to the truck when we left; I carried him into the vet.

#uknowulovedogs when after 6 months you can still feel guilty for not being on the floor beside him during his last night on earth.

#uknowulovedogs, when you want to rip anybody’s head off that, brushes the emotion off with “he was only a dog”

#uknowulovedogs when you miss him every day!

Note: For those of you unfamiliar with the # tag. #uknowulovedogs was a trending topic on Twitter.