Fleegle gives my new doo a sniff when I get in the car after getting my hair cut

“Ooo-ooo, hair in my nose,” he stammers and sneezes.

“Gesundheit,” I say.

“That’s a good looking haircut,” Fleegle says. “It can’t be any longer than the fur on the top of my head. When you asked your barber for a haircut, did you ask for a Labrador cut? Did you point out the barbershop window at me sitting in the front seat of the car and say, ‘I want to look just like that awesome looking dog out there’?”

“Fleegle, when you sleep at night, I cut your hair so you look like me.”

“No you don’t, and it’s fur, not hair.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Hair makes my nose itch, fur doesn’t. Hair keeps growing and growing, thus your need for barbers.” Fleegle points his nose at the barber in the shop window. He’s a big guy pushing 300 pounds, with no neck and a crew cut. “I bet he has an English bulldog at home.”

“He does. How did you know that?”

“Dogs don’t look like their people, people look like their dogs. That’s the real reason people go to barbers. If it weren’t for English sheep dogs and those dogs with the dreads, Komondors, there’d be no reason to sell hair extensions. Dogs are simply the dominant presence in the relationship.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Dogs are consistent. People are not. What they like one day, they’re bored with the next. Where as I’ll always love you. And my ball, of course.”

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