PLOP!

I don’t know this guy from the Moon! (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

—“It looks like Killian isn’t getting enough attention.”
That was my hairdresser, and Killian had just plopped himself in the lap of my hairdresser’s next appointment.
My hairdresser is a dog-person, and wants me to bring Killian.
“He’s starved for attention,” I said. “He’s rescued from a broken family, divorce. I’m all he has; I’m not a family.”
“Do you think he notices?” asked the plopee.
“Probably not,” I said; “but you are the third plopee.”
Every time a human appears, the tail wags, and Killian starts pulling, especially if the human smiles.
“You sure are a friendly dog,” the human says.
A velcro dog, a leaner. “Pet me, pet me;” nuzzle-nuzzle.
Killian is not my previous dog: Scarlett, another rescue Irish-Setter.
Scarlett was very much at home in my house, even after my wife died.
Scarlett was from a puppy-mill; we were her first family (my wife and I).
As soon as Scarlett died I started physically falling apart. “Get another dog, or else.”
Scarlett did the “bellies to the sky” bit. I’ve yet to see Killian do it.
I probably exercise Killian way more than I did Scarlett. But I’m not a family.
Killian follows me room-to-room. If I turn down a divergent path in my woods, that silly dog looks for me, then zooms past.
I don’t know if Scarlett woulda; I never let her run loose in my woods. I always walked her somewhere on-leash.
If I pass Killian nearby in my house, his tail starts thumping, and he paws the air: “pet me, pet me.”
“You’re lucky that dog so readily attached,” a lady told me.
“But I’m not a family,” I say. “I’m all he has;” except for complete strangers he befriends.
Every night we sleep together: me in my bed, and Killian on the bed, me petting.
“Here we are,” I say. “You and me in our strange little life.”