Guy Shows Girlfriend He's Serious By Building Her Senior Dog A Ramp To His Bed

When Melissa Meiners and James Killen first started dating, she made it very clear to him that if it was going to work out, he was going to have to get along with her dog Sammy too. 

“I told him that if Sammy didn’t like him, we wouldn’t be continuing to see each other,” Meiners told The Dodo. “I was half kidding — that would definitely be a red flag because Sammy loves everyone, but sometimes it takes a time or two meeting someone for him to warm up to them. Turns out I had nothing to worry about, it was instant love between the two of them. Sammy has claimed James as his other person, and their relationship is the sweetest thing in the world to me.” 

Meiners and Sammy often go over to Killen’s house to have movie nights with him and his three teenage daughters, and whenever the girls are watching a movie the couple isn’t into, they take Sammy up to Killen’s room and the three of them watch a movie together there instead. Almost immediately, Meiners realized that Killen’s bed was a bit tall for Sammy to jump up and down from, so every time they went over, she started lugging Sammy’s special stairs back and forth with her. Killen didn’t want her to have to go through such a hassle every time she came over — so he came up with the best idea. 

“It wouldn’t be possible for Sammy to get up to the bed, unless he became ‘Air Bud,’” Killen told The Dodo. “So in order to keep Melissa from having to drag the stairs over for movie nights, I wanted to make some stairs for my buddy. I decided on a ramp instead, because I thought it would be easier on his hips and back.” 

Once the idea was formed, Killen got to work building Sammy’s ramp. The original plan was to have the ramp be foldable so that Killen could put it away whenever Meiners and Sammy weren’t there, but he quickly realized that if Sammy jumped on it the wrong way, it could topple over. The last thing he wanted was for Sammy to get hurt — so he decided to just screw the ramp into his bed frame instead, making it a permanent fixture. 

“I can’t imagine Melissa and Sammy not being part of our lives, so there was no thought to it other than his safety,” Killen said. 

When Meiners and Sammy came over for the first time after the ramp was finished, Killen brought them up to his room — and Meiners was immediately moved to tears seeing just how much Killen cared about her and Sammy. 

“James built the ramp at the end of May, a few days shy of us dating for four months,” Meiners said. “We have always kind of known that this is it for us, but this just solidified it even more for me, especially when I found out that it was now a permanent fixture. When I saw the ramp, I instantly teared up at the thoughtful gesture he had made. With me, it’s all about the little things, and he shows me that he loves me with sweet gestures like this all the time. He is so good to me, and so good to Sammy as well.” 

After showing him how to use it, Sammy immediately fell in love with his ramp. He loves being able to snuggle up on the bed whenever he wants, and Meiners feels so much better knowing that he’s always safe no matter where in the house he is.

Meiners made it clear in the beginning that Sammy is a very important part of her life — so Killen quickly made sure that Sammy is an important part of his life, too.