↓ Evelyn’s Response

I’ve received quite a few letters this week, and I want to address the most pressing concerns before anything else — Margot, yours is at the top of the pile, and I’m pleased to say this situation is more manageable than you might fear.

First, let me say: Biscuit is doing something genuinely intelligent. Dogs, and goldens in particular, have a social instinct that cuts right through the kind of anxious hesitation that gets humans into trouble with reclusive entities. She has opened a line of communication that you, frankly, could not have opened yourself. The Hidebehind is, at its core, a creature of avoidance — it does not want confrontation, it wants proximity on its own terms. Biscuit has understood this instinctively and responded with the most disarming possible gesture: a rope toy and, eventually, a hot dog. That is diplomacy. Do not punish her for it.