Barley, a dog, sems to strike a particularly dainty pose while considering her manta ray toys. One of the great joys of pet ownership is how often they coincidentally stumble into some or another amusing pose. When Barley gave this head-turn, I was immediately struck by a sense of a belle with a fan and coy reserve, who knows more than she’s telling. The reality, of course, is that Barley was likely curious if I was going to help her disembowel her prey or not.

Barley, a dog, sits happily in the sunshine with a lone palm tree in the background. With the weather finally feeling like summer, I can’t quite verbalize how disorienting it was when this palm tree came into view. Barley is, as noted in the past, a Florida Dog, but we’ve not been back to Florida in years at this point. There’s no sign that this is a freshly planted tree - I’ve surely walked Barley past it dozens of times - but it somehow never registered until I beheld it standing tall against a clear blue sky, as the hot sun beat down on our backs. Barley, for her past, betrayed no signs of any such nostalgia, and was simply happy to be out in the sunshine.

Barley, a dog, pointedly ignores a toy duck that appears to want her attention. One of Barley’s more curious quirks is that her desire to play flips on and off very suddenly, like a switch. She might, for example, bring me a toy with a hopeful look, tail wagging, and proceed to chomp, tug, thrash, and keep-away with all due enthusiasm. And then, just like that, sometimes after only a minute or two, the mood will pass. The toy, which she had been so happy to imagine as conquered prey, becomes inert in her eyes, just another pebble on the road. Even, as pictured here, when the toy would very much still like to play.

Barley, a dog, squirms vigorously on her back, her legs blurred from the motion of it. Barley only rarely gets proper tear-around-the-house zoomies, but that doesn’t keep her from getting all wound up. Unlike her outdoor wiggles, which usually reflect a need to cool off her sun-warmed back, her in-house waggling usually presages a bout of insisting that it’s Time To Play. If I hear her kicking at the sky on the futon and knocking pillows around, I can count on her happily approaching holding one toy or another moments later, hopeful that I’ll tug or chase.

Juniper, a dog, stands excitedly in her kiddie pool with a tennis ball in her mouth. Juniper’s relationship with bodies of water is… fraught. Some dogs happily paddle along once their feet no longer touch the bottom, but if Juniper finds herself in the deep end, her eyes go wide and she tries to get the bottom underfoot against as soon as possible. She’s gone to the ocean (and mostly hated it), and has been in a backyard pool or two (and hated those as well). Her ideal water depth turns out to be just about ankle deep, enough to make splashies and keep the water cool. Given a kiddie pool with that manageable depth of water, she’ll happily jump in when she’s hot, splash around, then jump out again, refreshed and ready for nonsense.

Barley, a dog, has spotted a duck! While the photo does not quite capture the urgency of the situation, I can assure you that Barley is very aware of the mallard she has just spotted, whose plumage is just barely visible at the top of the frame. A second, better camouflaged female is nearby, but Barley didn’t have a line of sight on her. Fear not, the ducks were not approached and I’ve since given the area a wide berth, but it took some considerable effort to get her to disengage from these intriguing additions to the neighborhood.

Barley, a dog, cares not for the Caution Tape! She will step right over it, never you mind! As much as this picture might paint Barley as a rebel who makes her own rules, the reality is that Caution Tape is an immaterial deterrent, especially once it’s on the ground. To her eyes, it’s probably not even a noteworthy color, being merely whatever color the sky isn’t. That said, tape that’s still up and properly in place has a pretty good chance of bothering her if it flutters in the wind. Get her that sort of tape barrier and she’ll duck-and-jog like a politician nervously exiting a helicopter as if fearful of the rotors.

Barley, a dog, meticulously removes the back ridges from a stegosaurus toy. Barley’s toys stand up to her attention pretty well these days, but the one thing she cannot abide on a new toy is a Stitched Ridge, or similar flappy bit running some length of the animal. Such ridges, along with similar features like fins or frills, get worried away with her molars. Back when she had her incisors, she’s snip these right off (and usually disembowel the toy in the process) within the first five minutes, but now it’s a more protracted affair, more akin to Andy Dufresne making incremental progress toward freedom.

Barley, a dog, licks her nose after a particularly intense session of sniffing. Being the avid sniffer that she is, it’s no surprise that Barley really gets her snoot into the thick of things. Occasionally, she’ll sniff and sniff and sniff for what seems like an unreasonably long time, like she can’t quite figure out some faint trace. I’ve noticed that after these most intense of sniffvestigations, she invariably gives her schnoz a hearty lick as her attention turns elsewhere. I conclude from this that these big licks bring her nose back to a nominal status.

Barley, a dog, displays the business end of a black rubber chew toy in the shape of a hollow bone. While Barley’s teeth are no longer suited to true skeletal remains, she does enjoy a few more durable toys, and this bone has been the reigning champ. While she’s made gradual progress in wearing it down, the rubber remains surprisingly resilient! Frustratingly, I’ve just noticed that the local store where I’ve bought this toy before no longer carries it, so as a precautionary measure, I’ve just received an extra copy of this toy from an online seller. I probably won’t need it for another year or so, but Barley’s been such a consistent fan (and it has stood up to her so reliably) that I’m willing to invest over the long term.

Barley, a dog, sits in view of a cluster of cherry blossoms. With the weather finally (if intermittently) warming up, the local flora has finally begun to respond in kind. Various fruiting bodies have gone all flowery, no doubt presaging the berries of summer. For the time being, however, Barley is uninterested. Her disinterest in flowers has come up before, but the exciting new development is that she has almost completely lost her Heat Stamina. Even a walk of moderate length on a somewhat sunny day results in one pooped pup!

Juniper, a dog, sits and stares intently at The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Juniper is an unnervingly screen-savvy pup, and will contentedly watch television for hours, usually doing so from some vantage in which she can lie relaxed and either stare or snooze. She was unusually keen on the goings-on in Breath of the Wild, however, showing much more interest in it than she does in most games. Apart from barking at the game’s various excellent dogs, I think she was very intrigued by its rich diegetic soundscape. Its winds, subtle nature sounds, and other atmospheric details seems to have held her attention in ways that more conventional soundtracks and cinematic editing do not.

Barley, a dog, sploots in front of an office doorway, blocked by a dog gate, waiting for some friend to bring her a kind word. As much as Barley dislikes the carpet in my office, she’ll put up with it near my office door when she can reasonably anticipate that nearby friends might materialize to say hi and reach over the gate to scritch her behind the ears. Here, she’s been faked out by an ongoing conversation in the hall, just outside of her sight lines, and what moments ago was an expectant sit has now devolved, with a dramatic sigh, into a disappointed sploot. But she nevertheless remains vigilant. Surely, those people talking in the hall will pass the door any moment now…

Barley, a dog, lounges on a futon with her head on a toy, and with a single eye suddenly open and intent. Sometimes, while lost in a wiggly reverie with some toy or another, Barley will freeze when some detail in the wider world interrupts. In this case, owing to my having just turned off my headphones, she was suddenly able to hear a second voice in the room from an ongoing Zoom call. She froze, and her one uncovered eye opened wide and swiveled dramatically to assess the situation. Being a certified Screen Idiot, however, she quickly determined that it was nothing of import (“just the wind, no doubt!”) and went back to lazily chomping at the limbs of her faceless sloth.

Barley, a dog, sniffs at the base of a mossy decorative yard stone. It’s a real blessing that Barley sees the world around her as, in almost all particulars, immutable. In the video game of Barley’s life, all level geometry is static and non-destructible! And thank heavens, because it means I can leave her in my office or at home when I need to and there’s no fear of returning to find a pillow torn to pieces, or a yard full of holes. Even doors, which she clearly understands afford some passage, are seen as largely beyond her control, opening only by the magic of human manipulation. Pretty sure this pup’s going to reach the level exit with SECRET: 0%.

The hind paws of Barley, a dog, fill the frame, and a light dusting of green can be seen on the toes of one foot. I’m not sure what, exactly, is the nature of the green dust that slowly accumulates on some of the surfaces at my parents’ home. Best guess is that it’s some form of Chrysothrix that is able to just barely maintain a toehold on some of the more porous surfaces. Here, we see that Barley, in doing a big stretch to absorb as much sunlight as she can, has brushed the underside of this railing (where one wouldn’t think to wipe down) and come away with a fresh dusting.

Barley, a dog, pins her toy quasi-pig Hieronymus to the floor by the face, covering its eyes in the process. Hieronymus remains a favorite among the set of toys currently in rotation. The blue space pig has the advantage of being especially round and squishy (and thus withstanding chomps) while appearing to have interesting extremities worthy of a solid grab-and-thrash. I presume, however, that Barley has no particular sense of where its “face” is, and that she is not, in this moment, trying to spare its innocence.

Barley, a dog, is about to spring into action to chomp on a toy duck blurring towards her as close range. It takes a little forethought, but I do love an action photo in which Barley is mere moments from being the one in motion. Here we see her, anticipating the duck, jaw agape for chomping and her pupils blown out wide to capture every stray duck-related photon. A frozen moment during which the world has fallen away and only duck matters.

Juniper, a dog, stands in the sun near a fence with a pensive look. Juniper’s yard is separated from that of a neighbor by a tall fence through which only narrow diagonal sightlines are possible. From time to time, a neighbor’s dog named Wally will bumble out and scamper about on the other side of this fence, eliciting a whole song and dance from Juniper. Rumbling and grumbling, she’ll zoom back and forth along the relevant stretch of the perimeter, kicking up mulch as she does so. (The pavers in the picture keep her from scrabbling at the base of the fence itself.) For his part, Wally seems to find this to be great fun, matching her energy if not her tone.

Barley, a dog, cleans her teeth with the benefit of chicken-flavored toothpaste and a curiously shaped chew toy. The above is a quote from a guest visiting from out of town, upon seeing this particular toy soaking in my kitchen sink after a round of dental care. You see, this toy has a hollow interior, which can be filled with dog toothpaste (Barley likes the chicken-flavored variety), and its flared base gives Barley an easy way to anchor it as she chomps and monches to squeeze out every last bit of the stuff. And having been filled with a savory fluid, it needs to be cleaned after use. Hence it soaking in the sink. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how high-friction this toy is, designed as it is to clean teeth. It definitely, absolutely, does not have any other uses. I can’t help but wonder, though, why it is that Amazon no longer sells this particular model.