Grade: A+

Barley, a dog, sleeps on her belly with her head turned toward the camera, her snout resting on her paw as if she is striking a demure pose.

I often crack wise about the limits of Barley’s stamina, but the truth is that mine isn’t anything to write home about either. As such, while she will sometimes come home from a long walk rather tired, she’s rarely so thoroughly knocked out by a walk that it would be fair to say she’s exhausted. The one terrain for which I hold a clear advantage, however, is hills. She gets tired very easily by steep uphill grades, possibly because they engage some of her secondary muscles differently. In this photograph, we see a Barley freshly home from a summer’s walk up various 15° to 25° grades, so pooped that she flopped onto the bed in a full sploot and could not be bothered to stand up again when sleep came for her.