It's a good job I'm not near you, T, because a story like that brings out the devil in me!
Imagine if she got a letter delivered through her door from pud telling her not to worry and he had got bored waiting for her to come home and feed him so hitched a ride and gone off on his own hols? Perhaps it was one of those working holidays and he's now living at a salmon farm in Vancover? Or got adopted by a passing famous actress and living in Holywood being fed hand peeled shrimps?
Oh, the places a pud could end up in!
Just like the gnome in Amelie.