Julie Thornton Johnson could feel a dog sleeping between her and her husband when she woke up around 4AM. She figured it was one of their three dogs that often find their way onto the bed at night. But after a few hours, as the sunrise lit the bedroom in their Tennessee home, Julie woke up to her husband’s quiet yet stern voice. He was asking, “Julie, whose dog is this?” Confused and half-awake, Julie rolled over to respond to her husband’s strange question. That’s when she saw the 90-pound bulldog-lab mix sprawled out on their king-size bed. Julie told her husband, “That’s not our dog.”
… The dog was friendly — nuzzling up against Julie’s husband. She took pictures of the dog lounging alongside her husband and posted them on Facebook. Two hours later, Cris Hawkins and Felecia Johnson responded, claiming the dog as their own. Her name is Nala, they said, and they lost her the afternoon before while on a walk in their rural neighborhood. Nala had slipped out of her collar and ran off. They searched the woods but had to turn back when it got dark. They assumed Nala would find her way home. But Nala appeared to have found herself a new address. When one of her owners arrived to pick her up the pup refused to leave. The woman had to go into the house to force the dog out of bed.