Footage has gone viral of a toddler caught on room night camera sneaking out of bed to sleep and snuggle up with his 4-year-old ‘best friend’ Brutus the boxer dog instead of his own. The video caught 23-month-old Finn Knudston sneaking out of his bed in the middle of the night, grabbing his teddy and blanket, then snuggling up in Brutus’ bed.
Paige Knudston, a mother of 4 from Richmond, Virginia, set up a night vision camera in Finn’s room to discover how her son ends up on Brutus’ bed when the morning comes. Paige says that the 2 had been inseparable since her son arrived from the hospital. Finn has a heart defect and has undergone many procedures before undergoing open heart surgery to save his life.
In the video clip, the toddler seems to have waited for all lights in the house to go out before sneaking out of bed to sleep on Brutus’ bed. After Finn climbs in, he seems to be fidgety and tries to get comfortable by finding a position he wanted. He also tried to sit on the dog’s back. However, Brutus does not seem to wake up even when Finn fidgets.
“Finn just started sleeping in his ‘big boy bed’ a little over a month ago, which is when Brutus began crawling up and sleeping in bed every night; it was as if he laid next to him to prevent him from rolling out of bed,” Paige said. “Finn then began climbing out of his bed and sleeping on his floor, so naturally, Brutus began sleeping next to him there as well. The dog bed came into play recently, so we now have one downstairs and one upstairs, which eventually made it into Finn’s room, and the rest was history.”
Paige noticed that the dog started sleeping next to Finn since he knew the toddler needed extra protection.
“When I was 20 weeks pregnant with Finn, the anatomy scan showed that he had a cyanotic heart defect called transposition of the great arteries,” Paige said. “We were extremely lucky to have found this out prior to his birth, or he would not be here with us today. Finn underwent multiple procedures immediately after his birth in order to keep him alive until he could have his open heart surgery. Finn had his arterial switch at 11 days old and did great, and after seven weeks, a few unexpected complications, and an additional surgery, Finn was finally discharged home. Once we got home, it was as if Brutus just knew Finn needed some extra close monitoring, and he has been by his side ever since.”
Since the dog bed arrived, Paige and her husband Nate, a 38-year-old car shop worker, took photos of the inseparable duo snuggling on the bed. They felt intrigued when they found Finn on Brutus’ bed every morning.
“I actually watched the footage in real-time from my phone in the next room. There was no watching the footage back or rewinding it. I was right on the other side of the door listening the whole time,” Paige said. “I synced the camera with my phone so I could control when it recorded and when it just monitored. Immediately prior to me hitting record from my phone, I tucked Finn back in bed again because I saw him on the camera climbing on the edge of his chair, and I didn’t want him to fall. I went back to my phone and hit ‘record’ because I saw him untuck himself, and I didn’t want to miss it if he was going to get out of bed again to go lay with Brutus, which is exactly what he did. I was not concerned Brutus would get annoyed because he has tolerated and behaved so incredibly well in other situations, so Finn rolling and climbing around him was something I knew he would not be fazed by.”
“Brutus insists on being in Finn’s room, and he’s not the kind of dog to do something he doesn’t want to do. No one is forcing him to be in that situation,” Paige continued. “He has never shown any signs of aggression toward humans, or else he wouldn’t be trusted around Finn or any of our other children.”
As long as Finn is comfortable, Brutus does not mind being used as a pillow at all.
Images credits: © Kennedy News and Media
