Barley, a dog, examines a sidewalk chalk drawing of cartoon dog Bluey, from the show of the same name. By all accounts, Bluey is a triumph of children’s television, a work of considerable quality that embodies values and thoughtfulness in a way that even television for adults often doesn’t bother including among its aspirations. But seeing this photo, my main thought is: Isn’t kinda weird how Bluey is pretty much a photo negative of Barley? Try it for yourself, invert the colors on this photo, and see just who becomes blue!

Barley, a dog, snuffles at the edge of the goat enclosure. A goat, for once, seems interested! The goats generally have zero interest in Barley on way or another. I think the recognize that dogs are creature that will never, ever feed them a snack through the fence. So imagine my surprise when Barley approached, and this goat approached with clear intent! It didn’t take long to realize why: A previous passer-by had given the goats some popcorn, and a few remaining pieces lay on our side of the fence. Barley managed to snag a few, but I was hardly going to leave the goat hanging, so I managed to snag a couple additional pieces before Barley got to them and passed them through the fence.

Barley, a dog, steps between two posts marking a properly line, stepping on grass that’s just a little bit more lush and unkempt than the yard she is leaving. I feel like so many of these posts are opportunities to reflect on things I understand that Barley does not, but I promise that I, at least, find that I do not tire of this disconnect! Boundaries are, generally, a major area of disagreement. In so many ways, we segment space and establish magic circles, and Barley is fully immune to these human games. In this respect, she’s also not nearly as canine as she might otherwise be: Barley doesn’t seem to have any durable notion of “territory” that might belong to her or to others. She goes where she pleases, and the only reason why she would never call for an end to borders is because she can’t even conceive of their existence in the first place.

Barley, a dog, sniffs intently at a crude facsimile of a cat made from wire, googly eyes, and thick black pipe cleaners. I can generally see things coming before Barley does, partly because I have a height advantage and partly because vision isn’t where Barley directs her attention a lot of the time. So I saw this very unconvincing cat from quite a ways off and thought to myself, “OK, this ought to be good, let’s see how this plays out.” And sure enough a few seconds later, Barley saw the “cat” as well, and got very excited. With all the enthusiasm of a kid running to the dessert section of the buffet, she bee-lined toward her prey, only to become befuddled once she got within a couple feet. She sidled back and forth, trying to examine this object, and eventually gave up and walked away with an audible “huff.”

Juniper, a dog, sprawls awkwardly against Barley, another dog, as the two ride in the back seat of a car. It’s been nearly five years since Barley and Juniper have cohabitated, but the memories of their silly times together remain strong. Ultimately, I think each is very happy and settled in their respective lives, as I’m not persuaded that they really “miss” each other in the sense two humans would. Each lives mainly in the moment, after all. And yet, I feel somehow responsible for the emotions they cannot feel, that I somehow have an obligation to miss the “them” of their being a duo on their behalf. Quite literally, they don’t know what they’re missing. But I do.

Barley, a dog, stands near some flowering cherry blossoms. They hold no particular appeal to her. As the saying goes, “dumplings > flowers,” and boy does Barley embody that aphorism. Hard to believe that it’s been over year since a post last marked the cherry blossoms (the photo was admittedly taken a little while ago), but Barley remains resolutely herself, and is unlikely to stop for the flowers unless they’re made of fondant.

Barley, a dog, photographed up close while lying on her side on a futon. There’s something very silly about a dog’s ability to lie on their side with their legs straight, especially when a cushion provides just enough neck support that they simply look like someone rotated them 90 degrees. Because this keeps their belly exposed, this is generally the sign of a dog who feels both comfortable and warm, so it’s more of a cozytime vibe. Keep this in mind the next time you open Blender and reach to yank on one of those Rotate Manipulators. As yourself, “Is this object at ease? Does it feel safe?”

Barley, a dog, sniffs at a heap of yard clippings lying in the gutter, among which are visible wild dandelions. Heaps of yard waste tend to draw Barley’s immediate interest, and I suspect that this is because they tend to be fresh. As a rule, if someone is organized enough to not only do yardwork but also to gather the resulting detritus into a heap, they’re generally also organized enough to fill up one of the dedicated yard waste bins provided by the city. By the same token, these heaps tend to be fleeting. Walking past this spot the following day, the heap had already disappeared.

Barley, a dog, gently roasts on a sunny porch, her slightly tanned belly visible. Now that we’re finally getting at least some direct sunlight free of cloud cover every day, Barley is doing more to take advantage of its warming rays. She’s doing quite a bit more wiggling in the cool grass, as well as flopping contentedly on warm wood. Either way you slice it, it’s fun to go forth on each walking knowing there’s only a low chance of rainfall (literally) dampening her spirits.

Barley, a dog, sits in the driver’s seat, as seen through the windshield! She can drive! (She can’t drive. Can you even imagine? I’d leave her in the car as I went into the store and she would then drive the car through the front door to try to be reunited with me.)

Barley, a dog, wades through a sea of green ivy alongside a street. Decorative ground ivy is perhaps Barley’s ideal ground cover. It’s soft (unlikely to contain any pokey or sticky bits), and its low density provides ample cover to conceal goodies, but it also doesn’t generally grow deep enough to impede Barley’s movement. As such, if we walk past some ivy, you can bet Barley’s going to want to check it out (which I’ll allow, under close scrutiny). It is also, to my occasional chagrin, a popular zone for bathroom breaks, which can leave me really having to do some spelunking if I’m to live up to my neighborly responsibilities and pick up after my dog.

Juniper, a dog, lies contentedly in a yard of patchy grass with a tennis ball between her front paws. As a dog with a well-defined turf and a duty to protect the homestead, Juniper shows a clear preference in how she relaxes in the yard. She keeps the house to her back, such that she can glance back only if needed. This lets her scan the yard to her left and her right, while keeping her front view faces towards a potential Wally encounter.

Barley, a dog, view up close in profile, with a mossy tree as a backdrop. Even during a week in which my workload keeps Barley’s walks short, she inevitably meets at least a few new people. The overriding theme of these encounters is (a) how sweet she is, and (b) what a good looking dog she is. It feels very silly to “be proud” of her winning good looks (truly something I had nothing to do with), but when some rando standing on a balcony shouts, “Hey, that’s a nice lookin’ dog!” from 100 feet away, I can’t help but feel my heart swell as if I somehow deserve a share of the credit.

Barley, a dog, sniffs at a bulky, chainsaw-hacked tree stump. If one looks closely, one can see that Barley is sniffing a concrete birdbath nestled amid the stump’s lumpy form, mostly occluded from the camera’s view. I was quite struck by this “statement stump,” which I presume was once a noble tree that fell sick and died (the newly-planted sapling beside it is no doubt a long-term investment), and Barley seemed quite taken with it as well. It was only after having taken the picture and advancing another few degrees around the stump that I saw a birdbath filled with very stagnant water, at which point I was much more discouraging of Barley’s curiosity.

Barley, a dog, rests on the futon, with her head beside her blue monkey toy atop a throw pillow. I’ve mentioned before how Barley has brief, intense “play” periods in which she thrashes the ever-loving dickens out of some soft toy, which end as abruptly as they begin in a big flop onto the futon. Here, we see Barley in the immediate aftermath of play, her heart still racing. What she seems to really love is me getting real close to her and the toy and just sort of hanging out for a bit. I suspect this is tapping into some primal instinct she has to “share the kill” following a successful hunt, which here presents as a sort of sit-down post-play debrief.

Barley, a dog, sniffs along the fringe of a concrete footpath. Just past her in frame, beside the path, is a body of standing water. On balance, smellier is better, particularly measured as the plurality of smells. Sure, there are specific strong smells that Barley isn’t wild about, but even “bad” smells warrant some level of investigation. All of this to say: Barley is absolutely down to investigate a murky pond. With floating greenery, ooh baby, even better. This requires some vigilance on my part, as she will get herself elbow-deep in some very viscous mud chasing down an olfactory lead if I let her.

Barley, a dog, speeds past a bench without giving it a second glance. This is a pretty bad picture, but know, dear reader, that it captures the chaotic energy of Barley setting off on a walk. She would certainly sprint through the halls like a lunatic if allowed to, so great are her dreams of the possibilities of the Outer Place.

Barley, a dog, stands amid a mostly empty expanse of gravel small rocks, and very short greenery, only to be dwarfed by a decorative pot large enough that she could curl up inside it. It’s perfectly reasonable that this yard seek out some planters, as the soil is very rocky and quite poor (probably because the surrounding terrain is very hilly), and I think this is quite a fetching object! I especially enjoy how it makes Barley look like she’s been hit with a shrink ray, or perhaps that she stumbled into a tavern for giants on Shots Night. Just so long as they spring for another couple planters when they’re able.

Juniper, a dog, holds one of her tiny toy chipmunks in her mouth. Two others lie beside her, as does the “hollow log” that the ‘munks can be stuffed into. Juniper remains a big fan of her trio of chipmunks. She has now learned how to play “rescue” with the hollow log that te chipmunks came with. She will watch intently as the chipmunks are stuffed into the log and, upon being given the green light, she then enthusiastically paws and snuffles about to extract each of the chipmunks in turn from inside the log. I presume this satisfies some deep, inscrutable hunting dog urge to pursue prey that have gone to ground, but she remains adorably gentle with her ‘munks otherwise.

Barley, a dog, stands on a staircase beneath a sunny window. A series of bottles and glasses, all made from different colors of glass, line the windowsill and capture the light. It’s very funny to me how most dog toys use bright, vibrant colors, given that dogs have very limited sensitivity to chroma along a blue-to-yellow spectrum but are otherwise colorblind. I know Barley has basically zero interest in or conception of human aesthetics (I feel quite confident that she’s never had a thought analogous to, “Hey, that looks pretty!”), but it tickles me that the appeal of this array of brightly colored glass is probably doubly inscrutable to her.