This puppy wasn’t playing dead.
A distraught dog owner says she’s suffering from “unbearable guilt” after accidentally strangling her 9-month-old pooch when he became trapped beneath her reclining sofa.
Claire Hilton, 53, was tidying her living room in Dorset, England, last Thursday when she tried to put the leg rest of her new electric couch down to its original position.
Hilton thought her French bulldog, Kobe, was playing in the kitchen with her daughter, Kerry, and didn’t realize he was underneath the piece of furniture until she heard him cry out in pain.
“We heard him yelp and Kerry said ‘Oh my God, Kobe is under there’ so we tried to open it,” Hilton told Kennedy News and Media of the lounge — which she had just purchased earlier that week.
“We thought we’d put it back up and he’d be alright, but he was stuck in the mechanics and he was panicking,” she further explained.
The pet owner claimed Kobe’s head was stuck under one of the bars which was “tightening” and started to “strangle him.”
“Every time we moved it, it got tighter. We both tried to get him out but we just couldn’t,” she mournfully recalled.
Hilton was forced to call the fire department for help but by the time they arrived 10 minutes later, Kobe had fallen unconscious.
Once he was freed from the sofa, the pooch was given CPR and an oxygen mask but it was tragically too late.
“We’re devastated. We only had the sofa for five days, we wish we’d never got it but it never occurred to us that something like this could happen,” Hilton cried. “We felt absolutely helpless and the guilt is now unbearable.”
Hilton has another, older French bulldog, Pepper, who is also devastated by the death.
“After Kobe passed away, we put him in a quilt and laid him on the floor and Pepper was going over to him. It’s best for her to see because dogs know,” Hilton stated. “She lays on the sofa where Kobe died.”
The Brit now says she wants to spread the word about the dangers of reclining sofas: “I want to make people aware of how easily they can get underneath without you realizing. It’s dangerous for little children or cats [if they climb underneath]. The bars are very thick and the mechanism is strong, it can just crush you.”
The mom bought the sofa secondhand, and admitted it didn’t come with any instructions.
She says she’s now going to throw the piece of furniture out as it reminds her too much of her beloved Kobe.
“We’re just devastated,” Hilton stated. “Kobe was full of life, he got himself into mischief and he just wanted to play all the time.”