Juniper, a dog, lazes atop an oversized leather couch, giving her a clear view out the window. One of Juniper’s favorite posts (and I say post because, never forget, she’s a Dog With A Job in her own mind) is keeping watch from atop the sofa where it abuts the wall. Overstuffed as it is, there’s just enough of a surface for her to lie on comfortably and sleep, and this position also affords her a clear and elevated view of most of the block. Nobody’s crossing this property’s perimeter undetected!

Barley, a dog, slips briefly into consciousness before continuing a nap in her crate. Barley’s position is unambiguous: Naps should be a team activity. Her ideal world, I think would consists of many additional hours of the two of us lazing about in various states of consciousness. With this in mind, I’ll sometimes grab a book and park myself right outside her crate while she sleeps. She groggily appraises my presence and, seemingly approving of my staying put, slips back into the land of dreams.

Barley, a dog, is featured in a newspaper. I often joke that Barley’s the star and I’m merely her manager, but I cannot understate how much that’s what it felt like while being present during the interview that I brokered between Barley and the reporter who took this photo.

Barley, a dog, wears a very bright slightly large floatation vest. Barley has had a couple opportunities to experience being On A Boat, so in the interest of safety, she is the proud owner of a floatation vest that is almost too big for her. When we went to buy her the vest, this was the only size in stock that technically worked. So when out on the open ocean, she looks like she’s straddling the line between Neon Taco and Free Horse Armor DLC.

Barley, a dog, scales a flight of stairs weathered and ancient-seeming. When poking around with Barley, there’s something very surreal about suddenly finding oneself somewhere that is at once not nature but also no longer getting much human traffic. Doing so with Barley taking the lead feels much, much more like I’m being led by a Stalker into The Zone than crossing through such an area would feel if I were by myself.

Barley, a dog, viewed in profile against a rolling expanse of grass and trees. The old cartoon gag is that dogs think trees and fire hydrants are resplendent oases, and indeed those upright objects command Barley’s attention on walks, but when I walk across large open expanses (fields of grass, empty parking lots, etc.), it really becomes clear what she does and does not consider a visually interesting landmark. Fundamentally, I don’t think dogs see our sidewalks the way we do, as linear tracks to be followed to a destination. It’s more like a natural 3D space has been collapsed to 2D, with every interesting landmark squashed along the margin. So, of course, she needs to stop and smell every interesting thing we come across; there’s so many all in a row! To Barley, pedestrian walkways seem (I think) a bit more like supermarket aisles. In a more naturally open environment extending in every direction, her walking pace feels like a more natural mix of walking, jogging, and running.

Barley, a dog, stands up as tall as she can to see something out of frame. Barley is so scent oriented that her approach to the outdoors is predominantly a hunkering saunter, trotting along while scanning for compelling smells. However, there is one sound her ears are always scanning for, and that’s any jingle jangle in “pet collar tag” territory. Any tag jangles could mean a new friend! Upon jangle detection, she stands as tall as she can and scans the horizon, her ears pivoting to triangulate the point of origin. Anticlimactically, in this photo, it turned out to be someone’s car keys instead.

Juniper, a dog, relaxes in the grass with a tennis ball clutched in a toothy grin. Juniper, a dog, pants happily in the Florida heat. In keeping with her habit of treating toys as objects of affection and comfort, Juniper will often take her ball with her from place to place. She’ll do this whether or not people are home, almost as if she’s giving the ball a tour as she patrols. She’s no stranger to fetch, of course, and will sometimes signal her desire to Give Chase, but in this instance, she was simply discovered to have posted up with ball in a grassy expanse, doing so before any humans in the house had even thought to look for her outside.

Barley, a dog, looks past the photographer, scanning the perimeter. Given that Barley has no idea what a camera is, and (I presume) any bystanders who happen to be nearby also don’t know why someone would keep kneeling next to their dogs, I must admit that taking Barley’s photo in public can feel a little foolish. However, part of Barley’s complete, Zen-like acceptance of each moment she experiences is that she always seems to assume I have a good reason for doing whatever I’m doing. So while I’m trying to capture her on camera, she’s usually scanning the horizon for the next points of interest toward which she will guide me.

Barley, a dog, holds her toy manta ray in her jaws. The manta ray is weirdly into it. Barley’s manta ray always seems to enjoy getting thrashed around - that “looking over my shoulder” effect really is quite striking. It’s a favorite toy because of its secret weapon: layers of crinkly plastic inside its fins and tails on par with the very loudest of Sun Chips bags. I don’t know of an evolutionary argument for why this is a fun sound for dogs, but I have my own hypothesis: Barley has a lot of experience hearing me open plastic food bags and now gets wound up by any crinkly plastic noises.

Barley, a dog, lies upon a dog bed, atop a comforter, itself on a full human bed. While Barley is no longer actively frightened of the vacuum cleaner, she still prefers to give it a wide berth. So, imagine my surprise when, having put her dog bed up to get it off the floor, I return to discover that Barley approves of adding another layer to the comfort onion.

Barley, a dog, has rolled into her back and is gleefully wiggling back and forth, paws in the air. Thankfully, Barley has never seemed interested in rolling around in “scentful patches” of ground. However, she does still find herself needing to wiggle from time to time. This behavior serves two purposes. If she finds an especially nice patch of dry, pokey grass, she may take a minute to give herself a vigorous back scratch. On the other hand, when the weather is especially hot and she is panting up a storm from the sun beating down on her back, she’ll find a patch of the lushest, greenest grass that has remained in the shade all day and flop onto her back to shed the extra heat.

Barley, a dog, goes for the throat, but because her prey is a starfish, all she can get are arms. When it’s play time and the toy has the squishy softness of prey, you know Barley’s going to give that toy a thrash. Once she has a solid grip from them chompers, she really whips everything from the shoulders up with unsettling force. I can say with complete certainty that if I committed to that particular bit(e) with her level of commitment, I would be spending a few weeks wearing a neck brace.

Barley, a dog, stares intently into the camera. In a way, the shortness of Barley’s fur is cheating, because it makes the wrinkles of her brow and scalp immediately and intuitively visible. Lots of shaggier dogs are just as emotionally expressive with their eyes, but we humans are none the wiser because those crinkles of interest get lost in the fur.

Juniper, a dog, sports a beige cable-knit sweater with which she is quite happy. Juniper’s relationship to fashion is very funny to watch. When you show her that she’s going to wear her sweater, she gets very excited and playful. She then will happily wear the sweater for long stretches. And then, when the sweater comes off, she has a fresh round of playful, happy excitement. So, really, putting a sweater on her is all upside. Well, so long as she doesn’t take it outside and get a bunch of dirt and mulch all over it.

Barley, a dog, is unwilling to proceed any further along the rocky banks of a very shallow river. Barley is not a fan of watersports. She can swim passably well, but the only bodies of water she’s entirely comfortable with are perfectly still ponds whose shore has a very shallow grade, ideally one she can comfortably stand in about thigh deep and no deeper, letting her splash about and cool off without actually having to swim. When the terrain is a little more uneven and the water is visibly moving, she’s not interested. More than that, she is visibly distressed at the sight of her companions going further in. I don’t think the call of the open ocean is being broadcast on her frequency.

Barley, a dog, snoozes in the living room while her grand dogmother reads a newspaper. When visiting my parents, Barley immediately settles into a different routine than she maintains at home. Food first, obviously, and then a walk, but her next port of call is to hang out with my mom, whose own morning ritual follows a similar clockwork reliability. Like so many other dogs, the main thing Barley really wants most of the time is to hang out with loved ones (in direct sunlight where possible).

Barley, a dog, blends in suspiciously well with a bed of fallen leaves. Each of the seasons has its appeal and as we transition into Spring, I thought I’d cast an eye back to last Fall. Given Barley’s love of underbrush, it should come as no surprise that “leaves on the ground season” means every outing is a treasure hunt. Even then, though, it’s rare for Barley’s striking coloration to bend in as well as it did on this particular walk.

Barley, a dog, snoozes comfortably in her crate. Barley loves her crate. Its door is almost never closed, so rather than associate it with captivity, she instead associates it with being warm and dark and soft, the ideal place to withdraw later in the day when the needle shifts from “power naps” to “beauty sleep.”

Barley, a dog, tries to be her tallest self in order to see where a squirrel has gone. One of the many blessings of caring for Barley is that she has so little proficiency with the vertical. She is very hesitant to jump onto things and even more hesitant to jump over things. Despite some decent thigh muscles, her attempts to “be tall” have a hesitant, dainty quality, never a gymnast and always a kid trying out stilts. She’ll only stand at her full height if she has a visibly solid surface (or person) to “walk up” and lean against, as she has here in trying to figure out where a squirrel has run off to.