Juniper, a dog, stands next to a patio fire pit that is halfway unwrapped. Juniper’s neck of the woods is rapidly approaching Peak Backyard Wood Fire Season: Cool enough after dark that a warm spot to gather around is a pleasant option at a gathering, but not so cold but everyone would rather just stay inside. For her part, though, Juniper is somewhat suspicious of such gatherings. The fire pit itself is worthy of suspicion (which, frankly, is a much more welcome reaction from a dog than excessive curiosity), but more generally, gatherings in the dark seem to heighten Juniper’s need to Protect, lest some heinous creature (such as, gasp!, a possum) tries to crash the party. So rather than withdraw to her chambers to relax, Juniper is given under such conditions to remain a bit high-strung, prowling the perimeter with restless energy.

Barley, a dog, plays with a golden retriever who, despite being on his back, has grabbed a hold of the chest plate of Barley’s harness with his teeth. Now that summer’s over and work obligations have come back with a vengeance, Barley’s had fewer opportunities to go on play dates. Even so, I’ve been very encouraged by her adventures this summer. Between the pandemic and a lack of fenced dog parks in this area, she’s had fewer opportunities to play with other dogs than I would have liked since she came across the country to live here. Playing with her buddy has been good for shaking off the rust and flexing those social muscles anew.

Barley, a dog, lies on a sofa with her paws on the arm rest, and looks past the photographer with an air of weighty consideration. As obvious as it seems to me that Barley experiences an rich inner world, I sometimes wonder just how full or empty her head is at any given moment. My biases are such that I look at this photo and see her grappling as hard as she possibly can to understand a world beyond her ken (and all our kens, frankly). She seems, often, to actively ponder. But it’s also possible that she is a cork bobbing on an ocean of sensation, experiencing the world as it washes over her without that very relatable need to crack its code.

Barley, a dog, is unimpressed by the list of pool rules on a locked gate that, among other things, forbid her entry. I have to admit, it’s quite an innovative strategy to make your pool entirely insect free by simply forbidding entry to all animals, but it seems a shame that in doing so, humans are also forbidden from entering the pool area. I guess this apartment complex caters heavily to plants and fungi.

Barley, a dog, sniffs a large, weathered piece of driftwood that leans against a bike rack, as if it was left there as someone’s vehicle. I haven’t the foggiest idea where this very substantial hunk of wood came from, or why it was left to occupy a slot in this bike rank, but I can’t imagine the real story is as amusing as the prospect that, lacking a particular obscure tome, the Beach Warlock surfed across the sky all the way from the coast atop a raw wood board and was, at Barley as I passed, inside this library combing the stacks for a sufficiently ancient edition.

Barley, a dog, curls up against an egg-shaped cushion with the words “wake me up later” printed on it. While she remains a committed fan of soft surfaces, Barley’s sleep preferences vary with the ambient temperature. Over the summer, she has spent more time retreating to my bedroom to sleep (rather than her crate), and I suspect it’s because she can sprawl a bit more and keep from being overly warm. As winter approaches and my apartment gets that little but more chilly, my bet is that she’s gravitate back toward her crate, which her body warms up pretty quickly once she’s settled in.

Barley, a dog, trots along a forested path alongside a series of large ferns. I’ve had a soft spot for ferns ever since they became tied conceptually to dinosaurs in all manner of illustrations. Famously old, their ancestral roots go back over 400 million years. Since they predate the evolution of flowering plants, and are so strongly tied by scientific illustration to the dinosaur period, ferns have felt “old-fashioned” to me for as long as I can remember. Now, encountering them as I often do with Barley in tow, I have a newfound appreciation for how conveniently they are shaped: Broad enough for Barley to peek under inquisitively, but floppy enough to be easily brushed aside as needed and growing from a rugged central cluster that I don’t need to worry about Barley damaging if she rampages through the underbrush.

Juniper, a dog, is curled up on top of a comforter, her body partly covered by a pillow with a fuzzy pillowcase. Juniper’s general fussiness extends to her sleep preferences. She would like to snuggle up close, until she doesn’t and prefers something soft within earshot of humans, unless she instead wants some full-blown solitude. the precise combination of factors that set her moods is always mysterious, but those moods also rely on the stability of her circumstances. So if (for example) a bit of painting temporarily necessitates sleeping on a futon in the living room, such that her circuit of snooze spots is off limits, she will default to her core preference for uncertain times: Keep it close, and keep it cozy.

Barley, a dog, sprawls on the floor in an office, waiting for some visitor or meeting to add some zest to the work day. In keeping with the theme of waiting raised last week, Barley surely finds much of my in-office work to be quite dull. Her initial reaction to staying in the office was quite ambivalent, I think because she must find it to be almost spookily sterile locale. Now that she’s used to it, of course, she’s much less nervous (and her in-office crate no doubt has a comfortingly familiar ambiance), but there’s very much time that still needs killing. Fortunately, she never needs to wait longer than 20-30 minutes for someone who wants to say hi to pass by my open door, in which case she can trot up to the gate and receive a friendly hello from some fan or other.

Barley, a dog, sleeps deeply, konked entirely out on a sofa with her head nestled into the angle of the arm rest. As we approached the home of my parents on a recent visit, I rolled down the window to give Barley a sniff of the neighborhood air and she became very excited. Even as the car was still in motion, she became awkwardly pacing around in her back-seat hangout zone, and was all jazzed when I parked and let her out. She proceeded to bonk around the first floor for several minutes, only for her bonkers to be further elevated by being fed her dinner. Her arrival was so athletic that, twenty minutes later, as the three of us sat on the couch and chatted, Barley was out like a light on the adjoining love seat, sleeping off her exhausting opening number.

Barley, a dog, lies on her back in the grass, harness on and paws in the air as she wiggles. Motion blur reveals that she is giving an especially strong kick with her left hind foot. We are rapidly approaching the end of wiggle season. To my great relief, Barley isn’t much interested in wiggling in grass that’s wet, especially if the underlying soil is muddy. She craves a dry wiggle that yields satisfying scritches. I find her tendency to swing her hips by making big, alternating kicks to be especially endearing. I wonder if it’s tapping into a similar motor scheme as that which dogs use when doggie paddling through deep water.

Barley, a dog, stands in a college hallway beneath a bulletin board marked with various tags. One reads, “We are situated within the collapse of a civilization and the noise is deafening. Act now and the community will make it through.” Having now had a few days to ponder cohost’s closure as a platform and the not-too-far-future reality of the whole site being deleted, I find myself in a bit of a mood about the theme of community. I don’t intend for this to be a whole thinkpiece about social media platforms - you came here to see photos of my dog - but I nevertheless think there’s an opportunity here to reflect on what community means in a digital space. Some of you found Barley through the tags and have come to know her through my photography and authorial voice, without our ever having interacted directly. Cohost made a lot of those sort-of-one-way observational relationships possible, and I get the impression that some of the distress that people expressed stemmed from feeling that those cozy, safe connections were going away. Well, if you’re reading this, you’re still here, and I’m glad for it. All of us were already somewhere and many of us have planted new flags and tilled new fields. Additionally, I felt compelled to reach out directly to folks in September, and I have very much appreciated the fruits of that contact. With hindsight, I am willing to admit that I squandered many opportunities to be in community with people while it was easy, and found myself scrambling to do so when I learned that time was short. Come what may (and the whats are inevitably coming), you can only treasure a friendship with someone who you’ve worked at becoming friends with, and you can only be in a community that you have put in the work to join.

Barley, a dog, viewed in closeup as she lies on a hill of dry summer grass, chomping the heck out of a stick and seeming very satisfied as she does so. Barley gives me the impression that she’s a real creature of the senses. Unlike Juniper, who always seems to be trying to deduce something, Barley is quite content to lose herself in a pleasant experience. With a belly full, a back warmed by the sun, a friend close to hand, and a branch coming apart under the force of her jaws, she has all she needs in the world.

Barley, a dog, encounters a blue Yard Orb. Slight motion blur suggests that she is already moving on to other things as the photo is being taken. I will, at times, try to make photographic fetch happen. While I wouldn’t say I stage photos I take of Barley, I will sometimes inspire her natural curiosity with an encouraging “whazzat?” to get her to investigate something so I can take a picture of her doing so. Turns out, Barley has no time in her schedule for the pondering of orbs. Get outta here, orbs, you don’t even smell interesting! Thus concludes Barley’s brief adventures in orbposting, regular posting resumes tomorrow.

Juniper, a dog, is hidden beneath a futon. Only her hind legs peek out, as viewed from above in this photo. Like so many Internet denizens, Juniper must sometimes take steps to quell the exquisit agonies of Being Seen. Fortunately for us, her limited canine perspective taking is such that she often doesn’t quite achieve full stealth mode. These days, she mostly retreats to her crate, but back in the day she used the cozy stratum beneath the guest room futon as her refuge of choice, and her skooch-to-get-under technique almost always left her toes exposed.

Barley, a dog, sploots in a fenced yard beside and parallel with a golden retriever. Each chews a hunk of wood enthusiastically. Barley was very fortunate to have many playdates over the summer months, and in doing so was able to share in her passion for chewing on crumbly hunks of wood. Her interest in “social chewing” turns out to be quite general, and is practiced in the context of acquaintanceship. She chews while hanging out with guests, whereas when she’s with people in her close ingroup, she’s much more inclined to relax or sleep. So the question is: Does she love to chew socially because it’s an outlet for her excess excitement, or is it a social performance?

Barley, a dog, relaxes in the grass with a pensive look. Not too long ago, I took Barley on a longer-than usual walk on a lovelier-than-usual day. Our route was largely familiar, but one of Barley’s great strengths is that she finds an eternally renewing interest in the world, so she was no less enthusiastic for it. As we made our way back and came within sight of the doorway that would bring us back indoors, her pace slowed, and she resolutely plopped down onto the grass. There she stayed for some minutes, sniffing the light breeze, soaking up one last coatfull of afternoon warmth as I waited, before we returned to the office and the remaining work of the day.

Barley, a dog, glaces up from a nondescript concrete alcove. In the foreground, out of focus, is a secure keypad/callbox, on which is balanced a textbook titled “Introduction to Nuclear Engineering.” There nothing noteworthy about walking past a locked door. Best to assume most doors you walk past are locked, frankly. And should that door have a card-swipe, no big deal, you see that all the time. Now, a door with a card-swipe and a number pad? That’s a little more unusual, how come you need a multi-factor locking mechanism. And if that electronic lock has an armored camera pointed at it? Then maybe, maybe you take notice. What I want to know is, do you finally start asking questions when someone drops off the copy of Introduction to Nuclear Engineering that they borrowed?

Barley, a dog, lies sprawled on her side, her hips on her dog bed, her body relaxed, but her ears flopped into an upward position, and her eyes open. For all my efforts to give Barley a full and interesting life, there is no denying that she spends a great deal of time waiting. She hovers in the early afternoon when she anticipates that she’s due a walk. Her stomach marks the hour for dinner like clockwork, and she’ll gently remind me if it seems I might need reminding. For the most part, however, she appears to simply take for granted that I must be waiting for that same event to occur. Not resentful, not impatient, but vigilant. Something is coming after this, in just a little longer, a little longer…

Barley, a dog, pauses to drink from a broad, shallow stream of water flowing down a sidewalk from a broken sprinkler head at the edge of a patch of grass. I try to avoid letting Barley drink from standing pools of water, mostly out of an abundance of caution. I recognize that, if some fresh rainwater gathers on a shady, sleepy sidewalk, there’s probably not much harm in Barley wetting her whistle, but my prior experiences of living in urban environments makes it hard for me to shake the memory of such pools being rainbow-slick with visible films of motor oil. In this particular instance, the day was hot, a sprinkler head had broken, and water was bubbling forth in real time as if from a natural spring, so I relaxed my ordinary paranoia and let her shed some heat with an infusion of delicious Underwater Cool.