Pepper had been home for about a month when the first confrontation took place. I was snoozing on the couch between classes, with no one else home. Pepper was sleeping at my feet, when she started to emit a long, low growl. I lifted my head up to look at her, and she was still completely laying down, just growling with her eyes fixed in the middle of the room. I said her name, but she ignored me and sat up. Every hair on her back was on end and her whole body was shivering, as she started barking at the center of the room. Then, with a snarl, she jumped off the couch as if attacking. She stood planted where she had landed for a moment, and then cautiously got back on the couch. I tried to ignore it, thinking that she's just a strange dog.

Again, these occurrences became common. Pepper would wake up in the middle of the night and fly to the bedroom door, snarling at something unknown on the other side. Sometimes, she would bare her teeth slightly as she appeared to watch something cross the room. It was around this time that the disarrangement of our things started happening nearly every day, and both my boyfriend and roommate confessed to having been "tugged on" or "smacked" on several occasions.

One night, Pepper refused to come into the bedroom to sleep. We tried letting her out and feeding her, but there was no apparent reason - she just didn't want to come. We didn't think much of it and went to bed, but when I opened the door a little while later to go adjust the thermostat, I noticed she was sitting upright outside the door, just staring down the hallway. This became a nightly routine. One time, I heard her yelp, and her nails quickly came clicking back to the doorway. I picked her up and brought her into the bedroom, where she insisted on sleeping right next to the door.