"It's for the slobbering," she explains. "He slobbers. It's genetic."
The "he" is Bailey, a 170-pound Newfoundland that almost defies description. His head is larger than mine. He is coated with deep brown, almost black fur. There are bears that are smaller.
I am visiting Bailey at his elegant Evanston home with Maya Liparini, who is both a dog walker and a dog artist -- she'll walk your dog, and then paint its portrait -- one of those delightful combinations of career that young people pursue before the tumblers of life click into place.
"I like to take the supposed ugly and make it pretty," says Liparini, 25, adding that one advantage of painting portraits of dogs -- as opposed to those of people -- is that dog owners expect to see their pets in all their wrinkled, saggy, floppy glory.
"People love their pets but they're not judgmental about their looks,'' she says. "With people, you have to de-emphasize the crow's feet."
I heard about Liparini through a mutual friend, went online and was relieved to see that unlike the work of most young artists, her paintings are not amateurish crap, but actually capture the essential goofy, dignified, loving, moist, panting quality of dogs, only in bright hues of maroon and green and yellow that somehow seem right. And unlike dogs, her paintings don't smell like a dog.
We're here to photograph Bailey for his portrait, but first Liparini spends about 10 minutes on the floor, petting him, while Randhava gives me insights into drool.
"This stuff hangs from the dining room table and solidifies," she says. "This viscous saliva, with pieces of chewed-up dog treats in it. I'll have a visitor, and notice it hanging off his jacket. Bailey shakes his head and it splashes on the ceiling, the walls. It takes some getting used to."
I say a polite form of: And yet you keep him...
"He's very loving, but very needy," she explains. "You go to the bathroom, and he's there, outside the door, waiting."
That's how she met Liparini -- Randhava wanted to go on vacation, but was reluctant to leave Bailey behind. A kennel was out of the question.
"We've never left him," she says, explaining a complex regimen of anti-inflammatory medicine that must be administered. Enter Liparini, who, in addition to walking your dog and painting your dog, will housesit your dog, giving him love and attention and bringing her $50 a day and other side benefits.
"The poor artist gets a mansion for a week," she says, explaining that she is working toward the "holy trinity" of financial stability: air conditioning, cable TV and health insurance.
Space doesn't permit me to explore all the nuances of our conversation -- people are into mixed-breed dogs: Golden doodles and puggles and wild blends.
She began painting dogs when an art school teacher criticized her paintings for being all over the place -- various styles and subjects -- and, to show her, Liparini did a series of dog portraits.
"I'm not even a pet fanatic,'' she says. "I thought: Wait, that would be a great business idea." She has learned to love dogs, though business has taken a toll on a loved one; her cat, Orangina, is not happy.
"She's mad at me," says Liparini. "I would walk in and have the scent of about 12 dogs on me. It was like I was cheating on her, as if I had lipstick on my collar."
I admire her technique as she deftly leads Bailey's owner to agree that, why yes, a 4- by 3-foot canvas would be best for such a large dog.
"I've been lucky so far," says Liparini, that most fortunate of artists: one actually making a living at art.