Barley, a dog, is photographed passing quickly through the halo of a bright street light during an otherwise dark night. Taking photos of Barley after dark is generally an exercise in futility: The much longer exposure time of digital cameras photographing under low-light conditions doesn’t play nice with Barley’s tendency to be in motion at all times. I had hoped to fool my camera by taking a night photo in a relatively illuminated place, but this was the best shot I got from about a half-dozen attempts. Even so, maybe there’s an aesthetic to how bad a photograph it is.

Barley, a dog, sleeps nose-to-nose with a plush snake dog toy. By virtue of their shape, some dog toys sort of get bullied out to the edges of the room more rapidly than others, and although Barley like this snake toy well enough, it keeps ending up under tables and such. Thing is, Barley also gets herself under furniture more often than you might suspect, whether it be due to fireworks, or thunder, or people stomping around upstairs, or the sound of my desktop restarting (which must be making some sort of ultrasonic noise because she acts like she’s been jumpscared every time it happens). So I was pleased to see that she and the snake had a reunion during one of her recent taking-shelter-from-scary-noise naps.

Barley, a dog, pulls hard on her leash to try to get to a cat, who views her with appropriate skepticism. I happened to have my phone out anyway when we crossed paths with this cat, allowing me to catch this candid moment of Barley expressing her unsavory level of interest in cats. Normally, these pass so quickly as to be unphotographable, and it wouldn’t be responsible of me to stage such an encounter. I need to be entirely clear: She does not want to be friends. She’s looking to wreck shop. For this reason, I keep Barley well away from cats at all times, and hustled her along to the walk we were taking as soon as I got this one snap of the encounter.

Barley, a dog, twists her head to snap at her sloth toy, which descends from out of frame with visible motion blur. Barley’s toys get flung about a lot, mostly away from her to give the illusion that they are escaping so she can give chase. Sometimes, however, I like to mix things up and throw her toys at her, whether directly or with an arcing trajectory. I figure these lobs give her a sense of accomplishment, because she is very good at snapping fast-moving objects out of the air.

Barley, a dog, sniffs enthusiastically at some fresh animal tracks in a shady patch of mud. Barley’s much more of a sniffer than a sled dog, so our walks always proceed at a leisurely pace with many stops. I figure it’s best to just be patient about it and let her sniff - surely, there’s a reason that particular spot is very interesting. Every once in a while, the zero points I’ve spent in Tracking nevertheless give me a glimpse into the sorts of trace evidence she’s no doubt sniffing around for all day every day. Here, for example, evidence of recent animal traffic is plain to see.

Barley, a dog, stands in a vast expanse of rough, poorly maintained concrete. Barley rarely seems disoriented, either because there’s some enticing edge to move toward, or because we’re already moving in a direction and momentum carries the day. In this instance, as we were crossing a large paved area, free of cars, I stopped to check on a text I had received. This took a moment, and when I looked down at Barley, she seemed unusually hesitant. It was about the same distance to a wall in all directions, and there was really nothing around at her eye level to look at. Given how little she relies on long-distance vision to navigate, I think the space was so barren of any landmarks that she lost her bearings and was waiting for me to take the lead.

Juniper, a dog, delivers a submissive grin to the camera as she glances away from the rocky beach she overlooks. This summer has afforded Juniper several opportunities to deepen her relationship with the sea. For the most part, this has been valuable growth, and she enjoys approaching the water under the right conditions (accompanied by her people, without big waves and with a shallow grade). Her early life experience of being chased by waves as big as herself has not been forgotten, however, and sometimes she’s still nervous at the water’s edge. Here, we see her signalling, “This is plenty close enough, thank youuuuuu!”

Barley, a dog, is photographed in profile, the flow of her fur clearly visible. Being somewhat nearsighted, I often fail to notice the intricacies of texture until I get very close to something. This gives photography a slightly spooky quality, in that a good camera that’s in focus “notices” more of the texture in a scene than I do when taking the picture. When I first examined this photo at full-screen resolutions, I was transfixed by the delicate currents of Barley’s fur. Observe the gentle trade winds along her cheek, and note where they crash with the flow from around the top of her ear, filling the loose skin of her neck with furry turbulence. Note the downey-fine hairs of her ear, so thin that her pink skin is visible beneath. Appreciate her whiskers, made of sterner stuff than the surrounding fur and jutting from the surface like narrow, tilting obelisks.

Barley, a dog, sits on hotel bed somewhere in the Southwestern United States. The tale of how Barley came to cross America corner-to-corner in six days involves a longer and more delicate backstory than I’m comfortable elaborating upon here. We will begin our tale in media res on a November Monday in 2019, at Orlando International Airport. The employee working the cargo desk took a look at Barley and declared, “Nope, I don’t care what the paperwork says, that’s a pitbull and we don’t fly pitbulls.” Suddenly, the plan for Barley to fly cross-country was dashed against the rocks. She couldn’t stay in Florida, however, so something needed to be done immediately. I remain forever grateful for those who rallied immediately to begin the drive from Florida to Dallas, starting at the crack of dawn on Tuesday. Meanwhile, I rallied my own forces. I couldn’t leave work until Thursday after lunch, and I needed to be back at work Monday morning. So my mother and I arranged to fly to Dallas separately. After two days of nail-biting stress, my Thursday consisted of work until noon, then going straight to the airport to fly to Texas. Once united, my mother and I spent the evening getting ourselves prepped: renting the car, stockpiling supplies, making reservations, working out how to cover the remaining distance. Late that night, Barley was delivered to us; a little antsy from being cooped up in a car for days, but ever her enthusiastic self. Without complaint, she…

Barley, a dog, is Number 4 in a lineup of Polaroid photos of dogs. Much is made, and rightly so, of the many large projects around the world that were derailed by the pandemic. I feel like there is an additional, hidden cost in all the small projects that met a similar fate. In late 2019, Barley had her photo taken by a staff member as part of a fun little side project to make a photo board of all the dogs at my place of work. Clearly a film camera fan, he had only just gotten started, and mere months later, he and almost everyone else started working remotely, ending the project before he had enough Polaroids to finish even the first row on the board he had planned to fill. Not a huge loss, perhaps; just another project in the limbo state of “maybe abandoned, or maybe on the back burner.” The truth is, though, the world is richer for our many expressions of creative nonsense, and is poorer for each one it loses. Projects like these, that compel a kind of sharing with others, build community. They give people an excuse to meet and get to know one another. The older I get, the less trivial these qualities seem to me. Which is my way of saying: It’s not just you who needs hobbies. Everyone around you, in a certain sense, needs your hobbies too.

Barley, a dog, patiently waits for permission to do something about the treat balanced on her head. Barley doesn’t really understand the command “Stay.” In general, it’s much more difficult to train dogs to not do things they want to do than it is to train them to do something they wouldn’t otherwise. So Barley treats the command as a sort of general-purpose “Don’t!” Whatever she’s doing, she musters enough will to very reluctantly hold her position. However, she won’t really stay put - if you tell her to stay, and leave the room, she’ll probably follow you unless you keep shouting “Stay!” from the other room. Still, she’s good at waiting for permission to eat, at least for a moment.

Barley, a dog, looks directly into the camera with what seems to be mild disappointment. In a live context, there are a whole host of dispositions that Barley doesn’t appear to display. She’s incapable of looking sarcastic, for example (everything she does is sincere), and I wouldn’t say she’s ever struck me as resentful (if something “bad” happens, her reaction is simple distress). However, when frozen in time by a photosensor, her face sometimes happens to thread some expressive needle, and you get Exhibit A, above, which I would describe as “serving the judges chicken nuggets.” But of course, that’s how you know it’s a photographic illusion: Barley would love some chicken nuggets.

Barley, a dog, lies on the floor with a manta ray toy whose face conveys a naked enthusiasm in stark contrast to Barley’s relative seeming stoicism. I suppose it’s very sensible that most dog toys have either neutral or happy expressions - even a slightly worried expression would add a grim subtext to any photos of a good-natured thrashing. Even so, Barley’s manta ray takes things to another level. The key, I think, is the choice to have the eyes looking somewhere - if they were pointing straight ahead, the manta ray’s happiness would seem unfocused and nutty. In any normal environment, however, there’s going to be something in the direction the eyes are pointing, so long as they’re pointing in any direction at all, making it much easier to tell ourselves a story. And if the manta ray is making eyes at Barley herself… Well! 😀

Juniper, a dog, seeks out dog kibble hidden among the felt petals of a large snuffle pad. Juniper gets excited whenever her snuffle pad comes out. I find this especially endearing because she’s one of the least food-motivated dogs I’ve ever known. A bowl of dry food sitting out, waiting to be eaten, has big “I’ll get to it when I get to it” energy for her - she just can’t be bothered unless she’s in the mood. But the snuffle pad! That’s a game and eating all that food yields praise! Or maybe she sees it as work? After all, she wants nothing more than to be a Dog With A Job, so maybe she interprets the cheering she receives as she snuffles as a sign that, “Yes! I’m absolutely knocking this mission out of the park!”

Barley, a dog, sniffs along the transition from patchy grass to dense shrubbery. Put Barley in any relatively open area, and unless she’s in the mood to flop and sun-worship, the first thing she’ll usually do is walk straight to the edge of the area and start checking its boundary. Whether it’s following along the base of walls, or checking out trees, or scoping out a drop-off, her understanding of a space seems to be principally focused on tracing its edges. No doubt, this is for two reasons. On the one hand, such boundaries are generally likely places for other dogs to have left behind socially compelling scents. On the other, wind and weather have a way of gathering crumbs along such edges, so if you’re going to find some Floor Snacks in an unfamiliar place, that’s probably where you’d want to check.

Barley, a dog, turns her head to the left, presumably in order to give everybody’s favorite look, Magnum. Barley places so little emphasis on vision that I routinely find myself perplexed by her head movements. My primate brain finds the narrative that she’s “looking” in whatever direction she’s facing hugely compelling, but I suspect the truth is that sometimes, she’s swinging her head around in service of her other senses with her vision unfocused and zoned right out. (Also, love when she does this dainty paw tuck.)

Barley, a dog, sits in front of a painted metal sculpture of a panda and a painted wooden sculpture of a grizzly eating a fish. Walking past this yard, I couldn’t help but feel that its terraced structure felt a little empty, as though something belonged in this spot. Barley happily obliged, of course, but I don’t think she really understood the brief. Let’s face it, Barley would definitely be That Person who ignores the direction everyone is facing in an elevator, and who instead turns around and starts talking to everyone. I don’t think she’ll be cast as a yard ornament any time soon.

Barley, a dog, lounges in a sunbeam on a sofa beside her favorite toy, and looks back at the camera. Here, we see Barley with four of her five fundamental Wants being satisfied: Soft, Sun, Toy, and Friend (in the form of the implied photographer). The only thing missing is Food.

Barley, a dog, rests on a patch of grass and looks back at a hilly street she has just climbed. Barley’s stamina is middling at best, especially in hot weather. She’s a trooper, of course, and will do what she can to keep pace, but from time to time, she signals that it’s time for a break and doesn’t so much lie down as let herself plop. In this case, a half dozen consecutive blocks up steep hills was just about what she could manage before it was time for a 5-minute breather.

Barley, a dog, is collarless and still visibly moist after a bath. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m always unnerved whenever I see Barley without her collar on, even when I’m the one who took it off to give her a bath. What I’ve further realized is that really any dog without a collar grabs my eye as it passes. It’s precisely akin to a shirtless Donald Duck: “Nudity is occurring, one should at least remain vigilant.” The generality of this effect impressed me recently when Barley and I encounters a tiny collarless dog, standing defiantly in our path. Even from a ten pound dog, standing around outdoors collarless is an undeniable a power move. (The tiny dog was fine in the end, by the way. He had managed to back up out of his collar and freed himself from a yard tether. I was able to keep him in a standoff long enough for his owner to find us and retrieve him.)