I’ve been quiet because Ellie was gone for so long I almost forgot her. Well, let’s just say that Mark tried his best to take care of me. He gave me food and walked me, but it isn’t the same. When Ellie opened the door I was scared at first. She marched in with that rumbling suitcase. “Hi, Foxy. How’s my little guy?” I ran away at first but then I started to remember her smell and her sound. Soon she was clomping around the house and I was following her.

I don’t eat all my food when Ellie is away. Well, actually I don’t ever eat all my food. I forget it’s there or I’m not hungry or it just doesn’t smell as good as what she is eating. Since her return she’s been feeding me a lot of new stuff. The yucky food in the cans has disappeared. She’s been cooking up a chicken storm, filling the whole house with great smells. Let me at it! I get chicken mixed with rice or with some other grainy thing that is easy to spread all over the floor. Also my usual carrots, although she must have noticed after a couple of bites on a carrot I leave it somewhere on the rug, because the carrots in my food are soft.

Ellie is doing something else funny. First she puts my food in my bowl. Then if I don’t eat it right away, she comes with a big spoon and spreads most of it over a big plate, like the ones she uses. She leaves the plate on the floor next to my bowl. It helps me to sniff what is there and pick out the pieces of chicken.

Today she gave me some wonderfully stinky stuff that smells like the little treats she tosses on the floor for me to gobble up–salmon? And some string beans from a can, which I like OK. I wish she would just give me exactly what she is eating with all the sauce and good smells. Why can’t I have that?