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.

Barley, a dog, stands in a selection reticle, awaiting the player’s instruction for her next move.    MENU • Move • Action • Wait • Status

Barley, a dog, sniffs curiously, and possible with disappointment, at a Halloween decoration depicting a 2D silhouette of a black cat wearing some flowers. I’ve described in a previous post the unseemly enthusiasm Barley has for cats. She reacts to them differently from any other animal, drawn toward them with saucer-wide eyes and claws digging into the earth for traction. So imagine my amusement when she thought she had her prey in her sights, and charged with vigorous abandon, only to find herself face to face with this Potemkin village of a cat. She sniffed at it for quite a while, and scoped out its edge from the side as if to confirm that, yes, this cat really is a flat sheet of metal and not a cat at all.

Barley, a dog, sleeps exhausted on a blanket in an unfamiliar place. The roughest patch Barley has been through in my time with her began when I returned to my apartment after spending six weeks with my parents. This was during the darkest depths of COVID, and Barley, normally a social butterfly, had only the three of us with whom to bond. Returning home, it was just me and her. And my apartment. Which had flooded in my absence. (Pet medical issues discussed below the fold) The flooding was, in the grand scheme of things, very mild. I’m shocked to this day how few of my possessions were water damaged (the lesson in this: Clean up your apartment before a long trip and get everything up off the floor; it’s nice to come home to a clean apartment, it’s very nice to lose almost nothing to a flood). Still, the carpets had to be completely redone and the drywall had to be sanitized and fully dried out, which meant all of my stuff needed to be packed into a storage container. My apartment complex stuck me in one of their “model units,” used in simpler times to give prospective tenants guided tours; in the Lockdown Era, it had instead laid dormant and unused. From Barley’s point of view, we returned not to a familiar apartment, but to a weird new space full of very uncomfortable furniture, bereft of any contact with the two other humans she had become used to…

Barley, a dog, is honored by a salute given by a sun-faded garden gnome. I’m tickled by the prospect that this gnome believes himself to belong to some form of military hierarchy in which he is outranked by every single traveler who crosses his path. Certainly, this is the first time anyone has looked at Barley and concluded, “Hmm, yes, this one must have an officer rank.”

Juniper, a dog, lies atop a bed on her side next to Barley, another dog. Both are in the same position, their bodies aligned. It’s still shocking to me when I reflect on how long it has been since Barley and Juniper were in the same physical space as one another. Once upon a time, they lived as sisters, as one another’s found family. As different as their personalities have always been, they were thick as thieves. Each has a good life today, rich with creature comforts, and I don’t doubt that we’ve done right by them. Still, I can’t help but wonder: When Barley sleeps, does she remember? Can she in dreams revisit a memory of sleeping beside her sister?

Barley, a dog, visibly pants. A spray-painted arrow on the ground indicates where the pant-zone is located. A dog is here. This is the location of the dog. The arrow indicates the pant zone. Any exposed parts of the body entering the pant zone are subject to above-room-temperature dog kisses. Please exercise appropriate caution in and near the pant zone. Have a nice day.

Barley, a dog, lies on a dog bed with a big, panting smile. It’s cheating, in a way, that a dog who has been worn out by a long walk happens to also look like they’re very, very happy. Quirk of our coevolution, no doubt - we love a species that has a big smile, even if we willfully misread what that smile means. For my part, it’s an extra little treat I receive when Barley gets enough exercise, so even if I know her “smile” isn’t always a smile in human terms, I know it’s signaling that she’s getting enough exercise and is keeping healthy.

Barley, a dog, snuffles around in accumulated dead leaves. With the unambiguous arrival of fall and the onset of Spooky Season, Barley’s odor landscape is utterly transformed and familiar paths become newly interesting. This is driven by two forces. On the one hand, regular rainfall helps to mobilize odorants in what I imagine is a brightening of the odor landscape, an enhancing of its vividness. On the other hand, as leaves begin to fall and inevitably accumulate (whether naturally or at speed due to grounds crews wielding leaf blowers), a whole new collection of Snack Opportunities present themselves. I don’t doubt that Barley has uncovered many a tasty morsel concealed from view amidst the leaf litter, and I need to be extra vigilant on walks so I can notice when she gets a little too interested in any given pile.

Barley, a dog, stands on a log and looks off into the distance. Having committed to posting a photo a day, the need to take more and more varied photos makes itself known almost immediately. For the most part, this has worked to Barley’s advantage, as it’s a good incentive to bring her to different neighborhoods and generally to give her more varied experiences. Sometimes, however, the temptation to stage a photo can be pretty strong. In this case, I saw these logs and thought, “it would be cute if she stood on these logs!” It then proved remarkably difficult to get her to do so. So while I could have easily spun a tale of Barley leaping up to get a better view into the distance, the truth is that she probably would never have stood on this log without a lot of encouragement from me.

Barley, a dog, stands on the wedge of sidewalk at an intersection corner, from which no sidewalk extends in either direction. Given that Barley’s enthusiasm exceeds her stamina, it’s quite common at the end of a long walk for her pace to slow to a crawl, one foot in front of the other, effortfully slow-and-steady. Naturally, if she seems too tired, my inclination is to let her rest a moment before proceeding, but I often find myself walking in neighborhoods without proper sidewalks. These are the sorts of low-traffic residential side-streets where people on foot are at no meaningful risk, but I’d rather not get yelled at for sitting on someone’s lawn and would rather not sit on a curb in a way might make us harder to spot by a car. So usually, we end up taking a breather on these ‘sidewalk islands’ that appear at many intersections. That way, Barley can take a breather until she seems a little less wiped before rounding that final base and heading Home.

Barley, a dog, rests her big block head acros the body of a soft stuffed toy in the form of a blue monkey. I am regularly surprised by what a good investment these big soft toys have been. They were purchased from PetSmart on impulse at the unreasonable price of $5 each, because in spite of the obviously flimsy materials, I figured Barley would at least get a brief kick out of some new toys before their inevitable demise. Instead, they’ve stuck around for months, needing only small repairs from time to time despite getting some pretty heavy use. I’m particularly pleased to see how often Barley uses them as pillows, their friend-shaped bodies apparently having hitherto-under-appreciated ergonomic qualities.

Juniper, a dog, wiggles on her back on a big soft bed. Whereas Barley has taken to wiggling hither, thither, indoors, and out, Juniper has a more delicate sensibility. A wiggle is a matter to be undertaken privately, in one’s bedchambers, on a suitable surface. Less a twist than a sway, less a juke than a shimmy, Juniper’s wiggles are downright dainty.

Barley, a dog, sits upon a stone bench and looks upward, as if thinking deeply. οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχθροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὼ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα σώσω.-Stobaeus, iii. 13. 44