Julie Thornton Johnson woke up at 4 a. m. one night in May. She could feel one of the dogs sleeping between her and her husband, Jimmy. The couple owns three dogs. Their pets often climb into bed during the night. Julie went back to sleep. She woke up again a few hours later. She heard her husband talking quietly.

"Julie, whose dog is this?" he asked. She was half-awake. She saw a 90-pound dog on her bed. "Jimmy and I were surprised. And I was like. That's not our dog," Julie said. The dog looked well cared for. It belonged to someone.

Julie posted on Facebook at 8:30 a.m. She posted pictures of the dog lying next to her husband. "This is the strangest post I have ever had to make," Julie wrote. "Is this your dog?" She shared the post on local Facebook pages. Two hours later, Cris Hawkins and Felecia Johnson wrote back. They said the dog was theirs. Her name is Nala. She left her home the day before and ran away. They thought she would find her way home.

Julie thinks Nala got inside when the couple let their dogs out for the last time that night. It was after 2 a.m. on a stormy night. Jimmy didn't lock the door. High winds must have blown it open.

The couple's three dogs are named Zeppelin, Mollis, and Jupiter. They often bark (吠叫) at other animals.

But they didn't bark at Nala. They didn't seem to mind her being there at all. "I guess they had a secret pact (条约) to have a spend-the-night party," Julie said. "They chose not to tell me about it."

Felecia came to pick up Nala at 11:30 that morning. The two Tennessee couples met up for an ice cream party about two weeks later.