What next, Lord?

My son's 90-pound dog, Charley the Golden Retriever, is passing a week at my house while Son vacations in Puget Sound. This is fine, by and large, because Pup and Charley play like puppies (they are puppies...Charley at two is still an addledescent), and Cassie I'm sure is relieved to have Charley here to distract Ruby from her usual pestering activities.

Last night Ruby, who has graduated to sleeping on the bed with Cassie, woke up at 3:30 in the morning and started lobbying to go out (or so I thought). As I dragged myself into foggy consciousness, I heard this strange scrabbling on the tiles sound. Wh-a-a-a-a?

Turned on the light.

Where was Charley? He usually sleeps on the floor next to the bed.

scrabble scrabble scrabble scrabble

Uh oh... Down on the floor, look under the bed, and by golly, there he is.

Yes. This vast dog has managed to get himself underneath the bed, and not only that but somehow he has squiggled himself all the way across the floor under the queen-sized bed and is over against the side of Ruby's (formerly his) large wire crate, which blocks the space between the bed and a sliding exit door. My son got that thing in there by assembling it in place -- although I can move it away from the spot where he has managed to get himself, I can't push it far enough out of the way to get him out from behind the bed...assuming I can get him out from under the bed. Which is not at all a given.

I can't lift the bed -- the frame is made of wood and the mattress is one of those stupid extra-thick things they peddle these days. The mattress alone, I can't lift -- it takes my son or the yard guy to help me rotate it! -- and so it looks the dog and I are in a serious predicament.

scrabble scrabble scrabble scrabble

Ruby becomes frantic. She starts trying to get under the bed. I grab her, lock her writhing little body into the crate, and tell Cassie to STAY! Which she kindly does.

Now I'm thinking, I'd better call 9-1-1. Hoooboy, just imagine THAT conversation:

--Ni-yun One One. Wot is your emergency?

--My son's dog is stuck under the bed.

--Is your son under the bed with him?

So as I'm reaching for the phone, I hear more frantic scrabbling. A tail appears. Charley has managed to BACK UP by shuffling his paws and pushing his body toward the open side of the bed.

Once he hits the bed rail, though, he gets stuck. He's too big to fit under the side of the bedframe.

Reaching under the bed, I force him onto his side and from there I can get a grip on his fur and drag him out. Thank heaven (for the berjillionth time!) for tile floors.

Hot dang! That was an entertaining little interlude. Needless to say, I haven't been back to sleep. Have to leave for campus in an hour. Fortunately, the stoonts will be in the library, so I won't have to work much -- plan to use that two hours to do course prep for next fall's online 102 section, since if I have to have surgery next month I won't be able to do that work when the new boss expects it. Hm. It also  means I won't be able to go to the fall faculty meeting. Which means I'll miss that opportunity to meet the new boss. Interesting.

Oh well.

How on earth Charley contrived -- or why -- to get UNDER the bed defies comprehension. He must have rolled under there in his sleep somehow, waked up in the dark, and not been able to figure out how to escape. The only source of light would have been the moonlight and the frequent alighting of the neighbor's motion-sensitive security searchlight seeping in under the blackout curtains. He probably tried to crawl toward that light, which would have taken him all the way across the room.