During the day, there is almost nothing unusual about Jasper.

The six-year-old Doberman mix walks around his kennel.

He eats.

He drinks.

He lies on his bed.

He watches people pass through the hallway without showing much interest in the blank concrete wall at the back of his run.

Then the shelter becomes quiet.

Doors stop opening.

Voices disappear.

Most of the dogs settle.

And sometime around 2 A.M., Jasper gets up.

He walks directly to the same corner.

He stares at the wall.

Then he begins scratching.

One front paw.

Then the other.

His nails scrape repeatedly against concrete.

After several seconds, Jasper abruptly stops.

He lowers his head all the way to the floor.

One ear presses against the concrete.

His body becomes completely still.

It looks almost as though he is listening for something beneath him.

Nothing is visible.

A few minutes later, Jasper starts digging at the wall again.

And by morning, he is back on his bed as if nothing happened.

Jasper Was Found Alone Inside an Empty House

Jasper came to the shelter after being discovered inside a vacant home.

There were no major visible injuries.

But his nails immediately attracted attention.

They were unusually worn.

Several were much shorter than expected.

The wear did not reveal exactly what had happened.

Dogs can damage or wear their nails in different ways, and no one had enough information to reconstruct Jasper's time inside the property.

Still, his feet suggested repeated contact with a hard or abrasive surface.

Then the nighttime scratching began.

The First Night Looked Like Restlessness

Shelter dogs sometimes have difficulty sleeping.

The environment is unfamiliar.

Other dogs move.

Doors make noise.

Lights change.

Jasper getting up during the night was not remarkable by itself.

What happened next was.

He did not pace randomly around the kennel.

He went to one specific section of wall.

And started scratching.

The Second Night, He Chose the Same Spot

That made the behavior harder to dismiss.

Jasper approached the same corner.

His nose moved along the lower part of the wall.

Then his paw came up.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

He alternated between paws.

Sometimes he scraped at the wall itself.

Sometimes his nails dragged across the seam where the wall met the floor.

Then Jasper stopped.

He lowered his head.

And pressed the side of his face toward the concrete.

At First, It Looks Like He Is Resting

But his body says otherwise.

Jasper's legs remain underneath him.

His eyes stay open.

His ears move.

He is not lying down comfortably.

He appears focused.

After several seconds, he lifts his head.

Sniffs.

Scratches again.

Then listens again.

The Time Is Surprisingly Consistent

The behavior does not begin at exactly the same minute every night.

But it repeatedly appears after the kennel has been quiet for a long period.