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thought I was crazy, too. Only the owner of a dog with EPI could understand my anal-retentive dog feeding ritual. Rene even teased that—in addition to my fear of beards—I was developing a brand new Kate-specific neurosis: orthorexia nervosa by proxy. Sufferers of orthorexia nervosa obsessed about the purity and quality of the food they ingested. In my case, I obsessed about Bella’s: the ingredients and quality of her kibble, the exact amount she ate daily, and the rigid specificity with which it must be prepared. The only thing I monitored more closely than Bella’s input was her output. But I tried not to think about that so close to mealtime.
    Neurotic or not, my ritual had proven effective. Six months of obsessive-compulsive food preparation after she entered my life, Bella was only three pounds shy of her goal weight.
    Michael pulled on his boots and clipped Bella’s leash to her harness. “Kate, we’re waiting …”
    I tipped Bella’s food bowl to check the mixture’s consistency. It seemed runnier than normal. “I don’t know, Michael. Something’s not right. I should make it over, just in case.” I pulled container number two off of the countertop, prepared to start over.
    Michael snatched it from my hands. “Come on, Kate. Making dog food isn’t rocket science, and I should know. I sell it for a living. Let’s go!”
    I looked skeptically at the goop incubating inside Bella’s bowl. Maybe the water was different on Orcas …
    Bella let out a series of three sharp barks.
    â€œAre you coming or not?” Michael opened the door and Bella bounded through it. The screen door slammed behind them, leaving me in the cabin, alone.
    Michael was probably right. Being neurotic was bad enough; there was no need to act certifiable. I grabbed the Yoga Chick off the counter, checked quickly for messages, then tossed her into my jacket pocket and jogged out the door.
    â€œHey you guys, wait for me!”
    When I caught up with them, I grabbed Bella’s leash in one hand and held Michael’s fingers in the other. The three of us crunched along the center’s network of interconnecting trails as we explored our new territory in the daylight. Bella weaved happily back and forth at the end of her leash, sniffing for hidden treasures, while I took deep breaths of pine-scented air, which was still redolent with ozone from the prior night’s storm. Golden oak leaves waved from the branches above and peppered the permanent carpet of pine needles covering the ground.
    Last night the grounds seemed desolate; this morning, they bustled. Fellow vacationers sipped mugs of coffee and smiled friendly hellos. Maintenance staff scurried by on electric golf carts. Gardeners harvested, fertilized, and planted cover crops in a huge, fenced-in garden. A sign at the gate read, “Welcome to the Garden of Eden. Visitors are welcome, but please keep pets outside.” I smiled at the word play. Eden was the name of Elysian Springs’ organic vegan restaurant. The garden must supply at least some of the restaurant’s produce.
    We wandered along the fence past beds of dark green kale, deep purple cabbage, and beige, peanut-shaped butternut squash. A few feet from the end of the garden, we discovered the free range enclosures of several of the center’s happy-looking animal residents. A dozen clucking hens seemed to smile as they pecked at the earth around their whitewashed henhouse. Next door, several ducks splashed happily in a bright blue wading pool, near a pair of fluffy white rabbits who sunned themselves in the corner of a huge fenced-in hutch. We even found a half-dozen floppy-eared goats eating their way through a wall of blackberry bushes in an otherwise vacant field.
    We hiked on the center’s property for over forty-five minutes, discovering quaint wooden cabins, hidden camp sites, even an old, rusted-out boat that had been