Barley, a dog, takes a break beside a drinking fountain that memorializes Marion Pattullo and her dog Angus. I first walked past this memorial almost 25 years ago. It’s hard to miss, but it’s also easy to miss that it is a memorial. While I’m certain that I’ve read the plaque before, doing so never before made enough of an impression on me that it formed a memory I can today retrieve. Perhaps, in writing this entry, I can make a very slightly more durable mark on my mind. Once you start to watch for them, you realize that public spaces are full of such memorials. A bench here, a water fountain there. A brick wall, with names etched into the bricks. In modern life, even as we live less among the dead than ever before, we cannot help but be crowded from all directions by the memories of the living made physical. As I write this, I have within line of sight and arm’s reach two desk accessories. Each is engraved with the name of one of my grandfathers, at a time that the two lived on opposite sides of the world. They are with me still, but only and solely as memories. Marion Pattullo died in 1993, and she and her terrier Angus were beloved enough that a memorial was erected in their names. The man who designed and built the memorial in turn passed away in 2009. I did not know the woman or her dog, nor…

Barley, a dog, investigates a malevolent “deep gnome” who has no doubt emerged for an unholy observance of All Hallow’s Eve. I’m generally inclined to agree with the criticisms that the gnomes of Dungeons and Dragons are irredeemably twee. A good case for this is how difficult it is to take “deep gnomes” seriously. Goblins, by comparison, can cover the full spectrum, from silly to terrifying, but no hero has ever trembled at the prospect of being overrun by deep gnomes. That said, the gnomes described by Wil Hugen and Rien Poortvliet are a lot more compelling, and I think you could really make the case that their Unseelie counterparts could be very frightening indeed.

Barley, a dog, tolerates having eyeglasses draped over her face as she tries to sleep. In her longstanding opposition to headwear, there’s never really a time you can put glasses on her for comedic effect. The other day, however, I just about managed while she was sprawled out on the carpet in contented nap mode. She was a good sport about it, and I didn’t overstay my welcome.

Juniper, a dog, eats a large carrot with tiny, dainty nibbles. Juniper, a dog, makes incremental progress on her carrot, leaving many morsels by the wayside. Juniper’s overall level of daintiness is ridiculous, but her approach to carrots is especially royal. Over an extended periods, she will carefully nibble away the carrot, seeming to consider whether each morsel is acceptable. Some, she deems tasty and chews contentedly. Others fall from her mouth, never to be retrieved. She’s very pleased to be given a carrot, and proceeds in this manner becalmed for quite a long time, but the mess she leaves behind could strike fear into even the most hardened crudité.

Barley, a dog, sniffs a little too eagerly around a picnic table. Aside from Canadian goose droppings, the Things Barley Shouldn’t Eat that pose the greatest risk always seem to find themselves around picnic tables. Of course, I get it: People eating at a table outside aren’t going to be as vigilant about food waste as they are when they eat inside. But I’ve begun to view picnic tables with a sort of vigilant suspicion and have Barley locked in my sights as we approach. You wouldn’t believe how many chicken bones I’ve had to get out of her mouth because I was just a tiny bit slower on the uptake than she was while near a picnic table!

Barley, a dog, curls herself up for a nap and somehow seems to shrink in the process. I sometimes catch Barley napping in a way that feels as though she somehow shrank. Intellectually, I know it’s all a matter of angles and partial cover (there’s a whole shoulder behind that pillow on account of how she has slinkied her neck), but I figure there’s no harm in going over and giving her a hug just to make sure.

Barley, a dog, sits in a parking spot and looks up at a sign saying RESERVED PARKING FOR AUCTION WINNER. Don’t you worry none, Barley, you can park it wherever you like.

Barley, a dog, is completely oblivious to a skeleton sitting in a tree swing. An amusing discovery I’ve made this Spooky Season is that Barley categorically does not recognize skeletons as person-like. Sure, if they moved she would probably be startled, but she’s often fooled by silhouettes, at least momentarily. Stuff a shirt and some jeans with straw to make a scarecrow and she’ll at least check it out. So such luck for the xylophone crew: She treat skeletal yard decorations with a disinterest that borders on blindness. As such, this photo was particularly difficult to get. She kept just walking past the skeleton, back and forth, and even when I got her to stand still in front of the thing, she was convinced that surely I was trying to draw her attention toward something else.

Barley, a dog, has her paws on two toys at once. Since Barley is pretty ham-fisted with her paws (just stomping them around in the vicinity of their target), she occasionally gets herself into a pickle. Here, she was trying to wrangle the blue bone and wasn’t quite getting it because of its round ends. So in trying to stomp it into a fixed position, she coincidentally found herself on top of this dinosaur. As benign as this may seem, her paws ended up getting entangled with the dino, and she could not manage to get her right paw over onto the other side of the bone because the dino was in the way. At the moment of the photograph, she is pausing and looking up at me as if to say, “Uh, little help here?”

Barley, a dog, tromps around in some lush green ivy. Ivy is a common low-effort landscaping option in sufficiently damp climates, and Barley has a particular interest. I think she appreciates that you always know about how deep the ivy is, so she can trundle through it all-a-sniffin’ without there being a risk of her foot suddenly dropping into a hole or hitting a big patch of mud. You’d think it would be more trouble in terms of Barley finding something she shouldn’t be eating to snarfle up, but generally not! So I’m happy to let her scope a patch out so long as she doesn’t drag me out into it with her.

Juniper, a dog, is curled up on a lap. She is very small, and extremely puppy. Juniper is a rescue, but unlike most rescues, she was born in the shelter. As such, she was as fresh-faced and puppy as they come when she was rescued. She and her ten litter-mates were bumbling around an enclosure when we met her, as part of a larger adoption event involving dozens of dogs. Even then, she was different. In that chaotic scene of puppies playing, most of her siblings were keenly interested in all the other dogs that were around, so much so that they’d barely look at you. Juniper, instead, was interested in the people. “Who are you?” she seemed to ask with huge, piercing eyes. It quickly became a mutual fascination.

Barley, a dog, sits uncharacteristically, with her legs beneath her, while enthusiastically chewing on a toy that is just out of sight. As noted earlier, Barley does not generally sit with her legs beneath her body, and when she does, it’s not a relaxed, low-energy affair. We here see one such case: Dinner with my parents. While we are eating dinner, she stakes of her station next to the dinner table and spends maybe the first 15 minutes or so champin’ and chompin’ on one of her robust rubber toys, doing so with all the potential energy of a wound spring. Even here, however, she can’t quite sphinx her legs up beneath her, resulting in a look that undercuts her gravitas somewhat.

Barley, a dog, extends her prodigious tongue skyward on a bright day with clear blue skies. Most dogs, in my experience, lack decorum. Even if they’re pretty reserved, they’re generally pretty easy to read. So I’m under no illusion that Barley is especially expressive. But boy howdy, is she uninhibited compared to nearly all humans in my day to day life. She’s just taking a big bite out life, every day, and yes a second helping would be lovely thank you. No need to hold back, there’s unlimited world out there. The sky’s the limit.

Barley, a dog, is only visible form the waist down as she lies on the floor in one of her characteristic sploots. When lying down, Barley almost exclusively adopts one of two poses: She turns her hips at a jaunty angle, or she Supermans her feet straight back in a dramatic spoot. She will occasionally crouch on all fours with her hind legs beneath her like The Sphinx, but only when she is amped up and ready to spring back to her feet at a moment’s notice. I think this is because her hips fundamentally don’t have all that much flexibility, owing no doubt to all that beef she keeps in back.

Barley, a dog, sits on a couch while wearing a novelty “tie plus shirt collar” accessory, giving her a very business-like demeanor. I’ve not played around with dressing Barley up very often, and I probably should indulge a bit more because she’s a pretty good sport about it. So long as the costume consists of either something unobtrusive at the neck, or some sort of vest, we’re good to go. Hats, not so much. She’s not a hat girl.

Barley, a dog, sniffs her way along an artificial indentation in the muddy earth. A few years ago, some landscapers overhauled this patch of grounds, digging a shallow pit (visible in the lower left of the frame as brackish water), ringing that pit with young plants, and then, at a slightly wider radius, planting another ring of shrubs. I presume the idea was to give these plants room to grow, and this spot looks natural enough at a distance, but up close you can still see what looks like a path between those two earthen embankments. That hint of artificiality has always reminded me of a Mario Kart track; it’s certainly a turn Barley could drift through, given the chance.

Barley, a dog, sports a fishy accessory on her brand new harness. Recently, I was tasked with organizing an day trip for a work retreat, necessitating an all-day dog-sitter. One of Barley’s big fans was kind enough to look after her, and when I got back to the office at the end of a long and tiring day of helping others relax, I was delighted to discover this adorable fish. My dog-sitter, it seems, had brought Barley to a study group, and the resulting consensus was that Barley was to be inducted into the Biology Club as an honorary member. Certainly, she’s done enough field work to earn it by now.

Juniper, a dog, peers at the viewer through a gauzy curtain. Since becoming the undisputed queen of Big Couch, Juniper’s perch has become indispensable to her role as a lookout. She can often be found, holding vigil, between the sheer curtain and the window itself. Consistent with her reputation as a meticulous pup, she has been very good at slipping around the curtain, never stepping on it in a way that would pull it down. Contrastingly, chances are good that Barley would have torn the curtain rod mount out of the wall by now.

Barley, a dog, pauses an indoor wiggle session in anticipation of possible belly rubs. I hope my last post didn’t make all you wiggle hopefuls out there nervous. As promised, wiggling continues, but strictly as an indoor activity. One of the big perks for Barley is that indoor wiggles often translate into belly rubs, which reduce her to an almost feline semi-liquid state. I suspect this is due to two complementary effects. On the one hand, the belly rubs themselves seem to be very pleasing. On the other, the gentle pressure on her back is almost certainly an independent source of relaxation. In effect, receiving belly rubs allows Barley to briefly wear the futon as a thunder shirt and really luxuriate in full-body snuggle vibes.

Barley, a dog, wiggles vigorously on her back, on a patch of dry grass. Barley, a dog, continues to wiggle. Barley, a dog, can’t stop wiggling! Barley, a dog, will wiggle even further, when summer returns. There’s no question that this has been Barley’s wiggliest year on record. Just an unreasonable amount of wiggling. Bless her, I think she’s truly discovered a new hobby. While wiggling with no doubt continue at home (the futon is her preferred wiggle zone), her inclination to do so outside has since dropped dramatically as the temperature has gone down and the ground has become consistently moist. Here, then, is photographic evidence of what I believe is the last of her summer wiggles, taken during the last serious heat wave before the rains came.