Dog Who Broke Into Home, Crawled Into Strangers’ Bed Gives Us The Laugh We Need Right Now

OCOEE, TN — The weeks since her dog crawled into bed with Julie and Jimmy Johnson, strangers in a foreign house, have been a dizzying ride for Cris Hawkins.

If you haven’t heard the story — and people on every continent except Antarctica have — here, in a nutshell, is the tale of the 90-pound nighttime interloper, a bulldog-lab mix named Nala:

Nala moved from her northern Georgia home in advance of Hawkins and her girlfriend, Felicia Johnson (no relation to Julie and Jimmy). Nala has been staying with Felicia’s parents while the couple close on their first home near Ocoee, located about 40 miles northeast of Chattanooga, and her unfamiliarity with the area may have contributed to the nocturnal mix-up, Hawkins told Patch.

Nala slipped off her leash during a walk, ran into the woods, somehow broke into the Johnsons’ home without sending their dogs into full-on guard-dog mode, and stretched out between the couple like a third fully grown adult, waking Julie Johnson, who posted a hilarious photo of the intrusion on Facebook and asked:

“Is this your dog?”

“It is absolutely normal to wake up in our house with one of OUR dogs in the bed with us,” she prefaced the question. “One small problem, THIS IS NOT OUR DOG, nor do we know how she got in our house.”

Social media networks solve such mysteries, and everything has been sorted out — with howl-worthy footnotes such as Nala’s refusal to budge when the Johnsons tried to coax her out of their bed, and Hawkins’ observation that Nala was undoubtedly “snoring like an old man.”

But the story is just beginning.

And it’s one the world needs right now, at this exact moment, Hawkins said, the melodious mirth in her voice conveying her sheer joy at the idea of people all over the world laughing about her dog’s antics.

“Right now, there’s so much negativity going on,” said Hawkins, 31, who settled in Georgia after seven years in the Army. “There’s Ukraine, political stuff, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard — so much negativity.

“Share the laughter,” she continued. “Right now, it’s what the world needs.”

Hawkins gives full credit to Julie Johnson for the opening salvo in this internet stand-up comedy routine. It was masterfully delivered, she said, prompting the viral circulation of the story.

Hawkins returned it with her own social media post. “Our overly friendly pup, Nala, has hit an all time record for ignoring personal space,” it began.

Patch was unable to reach Johnson by phone or social media, but she told The Washington Post she figured the dog who snuggled between her and husband around 4 a.m. May 1 was one of their own.

But at sun-up, she awoke to her husband’s question: “Julie, whose dog is this?”

She wasn’t quite awake, and the sight of a strange dog sprawled out in their king-size bed confused her.

“He and I locked eyes for a second and were just silent. And I was like, ‘that’s not our dog,” Johnson, 42, told The Post.

The Johnson dogs politely allowed Nala into their domain. How that happened is a mystery, but the working theory is that, while trying to escape a brewing thunderstorm, she was able to nudge open a door that needs a shove to completely latch.

Her dogs “bark at everything,” but were mysteriously silent and, “even weirder,” Johnson wrote on Facebook, “is that none of my dogs even mind she is in the bed.”

“What kind of guard dogs are they? Did they open the door for her? Cook her dinner? And invite her over for a sleepover without their parents' permission?” she wrote.

Like Hawkins, Johnson loves the fact the world is smiling.

“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,” she wrote on Facebook.

The middle and end of this puppy dog tale are still being written.

Nala and the Johnson dogs recently got together for an ice cream social. More dates are planned once Hawkins and her girlfriend move north for good in June.

Hawkins hopes the story will continue to make people smile and laugh.

“Everyone has to see it,” she said. “I want other people to join in this laughter.”

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