Lying Here, Thinking

Barnaby and I spend a lot of time together. In the kitchen, he waits for every half ounce of scrap he can get, just beneath and between my feet.

He usually joins me in the bathroom while I shower, brush my teeth, or clean the litter box. We cuddle a lot: In bed, he curls up along my back or my legs, or alongside my ribs so I can hold him. He has his spots on the couch and I have mine, but eventually, he ends up laying on me somehow-draped or tucked or mushed against me. Sometimes, and I admit he is a weird dog and I am weird for letting him, he likes to put his mouth around my finger, gnawing my hand gently to pass the time.

“That is when it gets really weird.”

And other times it is my toe. That is when it gets really weird. Maybe he likes the smell of my feet? I don’t know, it tickles and makes me laugh and he seems to like it. It only lasts seconds at a time, but he is a quirky duck and it happens often enough that I think he really must have a foot fetish…and then he looks at me with those amazing brown eyes of his and I realize that his fetish is a comfort thing, maybe like all fetishes are, and he settles in, and rests like he meant to all along. He is my shadow pup and I can’t imagine it being any other way. I can see his mind working, in all its mystery, as we lie on opposite ends of our big blue sofa…or not on opposite ends and he tends to wind his way up to lay suffocatingly on my collarbone. As for now, he rests at my feet, or on my foot as depicted below, his thoughts unbeknownst to me. But I sure can feel the love…