When Julie Thornton Johnson woke up in the middle of the night in her Tennessee home she noticed a dog snuggled up in bed with her and her husband. That is a pretty normal occurrence in her household as they have three dogs. Except the dog cuddling with them was a complete stranger!
That fact became known when the couple woke up in the morning and noticed that the “big, brown and furry” intruder that had been laying on the pillows was “absolutely not” their dog!
Needless to say, it came as quite a big shock.
“I rolled over and I stared at [at my husband] and he stared at me, and we were like, is this going to hurt us? You know, what do we do? Where did this come from?” Johnson told CBC Radio’s As It Happens. “Within a few seconds we realized that we were fine and there was no harm. But it was a very weird couple of minutes waking up.”
The couple noted that the dog looked well looked after – groomed, clean and friendly. So Julie took to Facebook and wrote the following:
“It is absolutely normal to wake up in our house with one of OUR dogs in the bed with us. One small problem, THIS IS NOT OUR DOG, nor do we know how she got in our house.”
“At first, we thought it was one of ours, but they rarely lay on the pillows! In pitch darkness, I just assumed it was. Wouldn’t we all?” She continued, “As daylight began to creep in through our curtains we realized we were snuggling with someone else’s dog. This is the weirdest post I have ever had to make. Is this your dog?”
It didn’t take long to track down the dog’s family – only an hour in fact. Her family lives a few doors down and contacted Julie, telling her the Labrador-bulldog mix’s name is Nala and she has a “long list of Houdini acts.”
“Our overly friendly pup, Nala, has hit an all time record for ignoring personal space and added yet another trick to her long list of Houdini acts,” her dad Cris Hawkins later posted on Facebook.
He goes on to explain, “She slipped her collar yesterday while being walked, ran down the street to a neighbor’s house, somehow managed to get IN their house, and climbed into bed with them in the middle of the night. The woman and her husband have 3 dogs of their own that all sleep in bed with them.
“None of their dogs reacted to a random dog climbing into bed with them and the couple didn’t even realize that it wasn’t their dog in bed with them, until the sun started to come up; Shame Nala for somehow breaking into a strangers house and invading their personal space.” Hawkins added, “Thankfully, the couple thought it was hilarious and they aren’t even mad about it.”
Julie thinks Nala’s conjuring goes further than sneaking into their house. She’s amazed that her three dogs didn’t alert her or her husband to Nala’s “break-in.”
“I mean, if the wind blows the wrong way, they bark,” she told As It Happens.
Nala wasn’t in any rush to leave her new “home away from home” either. When Nala’s mom came by to pick her up later, she refused to budge from her snuggle spot.
“Nala was happy with my husband in bed. Her mom was standing on our porch yelling, ‘Nala, come here, girl! Mama’s here!” Julie said. Nala’s mom had to come inside and go to the bedroom to get her dog out of bed!
Hawkins is grateful that Julie and her husband are such “good sports” about Nala’s intrusion and thanked them for “keeping her safe, treating Nala like your own, and making sure you got the word out for us to find her!”
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