They call me Ham, sometimes they call me Big Ham, sometimes they call me Cutie Patootie with lots of neck scratching. That last one is my favorite. Long and rumbling, I answer these new names with purrs of I like you. I thread thank you so much around and around their ankles. I even rub their chair legs with my throat to say I want to stay here. And I do want to stay here. I want out of the big dry hungry outdoors. But this in not my home.

I do love their laps, especially in the soft of the evening, when the man person plays with paper and the woman person plays with string. My woman used to play with string sometimes. I learned never touch but I will show my approval by sitting on the strings whenever it is left out for my admiration. I miss my woman and her balls of string. My woman is my home. Our place was crowded and everything smelt of her and me. Those memories sit always just behind my nose.

Some days I sit in the new tidy house by the sunniest window. The new persons will open the door for me. So strange. Once the man brought me outside to the shade of a tree. Terrified I ran back inside. i think they think I want to go outside. Ridulous! Persons are very difficult to understand. I sit in the windows to remember. I watch the trees and the birds and things to remember the ache of being inside then outside with my woman. She couldn’t hunt; couldn’t get warm. I needed to help her.

“Ham,” the new woman calls out.

I run to her before she rattles the treats, before she opens the can of yum. She pets I love you on my head. They feed a lot of us outside by the cars. The others knew I was different, a homed not a wildborn. We fought over food and they won. Despite the hurt, I stayed hoping. When the man person saw me he called me the name that would become my favorite. He knew I was homed. I cried save my person, save my person until the man carried me away to my not home. I like it here. I want to stay. I want out of the big hungry outdoors. But I wish my home could come inside too.