Julie and Jimmy Johnson were sleeping soundly one recent stormy night when the Ocoee, Tennessee, couple awoke to find a doggie buddy in bed with them. Having three dogs, they were not alarmed. They just snuggled the doggy body and went back to sleep, vaguely wondering why one of their dogs was sleeping high up on the pillows when they never had before.
It wasn’t until they woke in the morning that they made a shocking discovery. The dog they had been cuddling all night was not their dog.
After the initial shock of finding a totally strange pup in their bed, they realized the interloper was a very good doggie and Julie hopped on Facebook to see if she could track the snuggly stranger’s point of origin.
This led to the strangest, and most hysterical, Facebook post Julie had ever made.
“Is this your dog?” written under a picture of the sneaky snuggler, supine in the Johnson’s bed.
She quickly received a reply letting her know the stranger was Nala, who lived with her family over two miles away. It turns out Nala is afraid storms and is also a long-time believer in the old adage “any port in a storm.”
Shortly after, Nala’s mommy came to get her and take her home, but not before a doggie play date was arranged. It went great and everybody involved has brand new friends. And of course, the post went viral.
“I never thought my time to shine and make people smile would be laying in bed with a strange dog, in my nightgown with unbrushed hair and sleep in my eyes,” Johnson said in an interview.
