Growls At Night

I've gone through a few things that just scared me really bad. I'm not sure if they are "bad" experiences, but they were not pleasant. See in my perspective people only get scare because of the lack of understanding, so I am sure I was afraid for I did not understand at the moment what was happening. Right now I am more calm about the situation, but I still lack understanding. I hope you can try to help me understand what exactly occurred to me.

It was around 11 Pm, and I was dosing off. I was listening to music, like I always do before I go to sleep. Suddenly I thought I heard a bark, but it sounded far away. I then led my self to believe it was probably just a neighbor's dog. I then went back to listening to my ipod. After a few minutes I heard another bark, but this seemed closer, way closer. It seemed like it had come from the corner of my room! I sat up right away, and inspected my room. There was no dog. (I own no dog, pets, by the way) At around 11:30 I decided to go to sleep, turned off my ipod. I was starting to fall asleep when I heard a growl next to my bed. I was afraid at this point, for there is only so much I can take. I wanted to run out of my room, but then decided against it. For what excuse would I give, who would believe what was happening, and most importantly it was my room; whatever was growling and barking was what had to go and not me.

I told whatever was barking and growling that it had to go, I was tired and in no mood to put up with it. I closed my eyes and was falling asleep again when all of a sudden a felt a weight on me! Whatever was on me was growling, but it wasn't growling like if it was mad. It was more of a playful growl. I was sleepy and no longer afraid, just very annoyed. I turned around, and pushed the invisible thing, (which I believe was a dog), off me. I told it to go away and be good.

After that I fell asleep completely. The dog did not come back. I kept checking for growls or barks at night for a whole week, but the dog never came back.

Are there animal ghost? Like dogs?

Why would it come to me? I've never had a dog before, so I can't say it was my dead dog or anything as such. Then again, dogs always seem friendly to me for a reason, like they always follow me around even thought they don't know me.

Ex. I went to my boyfriend's house he has a dog, the dog came up to me like if he knew me./ I went over to my friend's house she has a dog, I was sitting on a sofa, and there was another empty sofa, the dog curled on the sofa I was on. It surprised my friend because her dog isn't a friendly dog./ My neighbor's dog the first time we moved to our house came up to me and was playful like if I had known the dog for a while now.

Thanks for Reading my story & thanks for any comments you may have, I appreciated it.