I exclaimed, "Brice, you're something else! You're a real whirlwind!"

Marcel corrected me seriously. "He's very well-behaved. It's just that when I went back to the old house recently, my friend didn't take good care of him, and he developed separation anxiety."

Brice stared at me with his round eyes, still laughing with me.

I patted his head. "You didn't get your walk finished earlier, did you? How about I take you for a walk now?"

Brice laughed, and Marcel, while finding his shirt to put on, said, "He's very alert and won't follow strangers—"

He paused halfway through his sentence, as Brice obediently followed me to the door.

"Brice, you..."

I winked at Marcel. "I'm not a stranger."

I'm definitely not a stranger; Brice is a dog I picked up.