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.

Barley, a dog, is nervous about scary lights in the living room’s sky. Barley’s most consistent fear is storms, no doubt having been caught in her fair share while living as a stray. Even the slightest hint of inclement weather puts her on alert and in search of shelter. However, since her concept of “storm” is rather broad, there are a number of false positives she regularly identifies as risky, and the most innocuous of these is when a lamp flickers (as happens from time to time with modern LED bulbs). Sometimes, the interruption is so brief that I only realize it has occurred when she quietly slinks beneath my desk, tail between her legs, to take shelter.

Juniper, a wee pup, snuggles with her first ever plush friend, a “baby” shark. Unlike Barley, Juniper was born in a shelter and was less than 4 months old when we rescued her. She was born in a little of 11 puppies, all of whom went up for adoption at the same time. We knew she was special right away because her many siblings focused their attention on the other dogs that were around us, but Juniper focused her attention on the humans instead. The entire time we’ve known her, she’s never not been trying to suss out what’s going on. One of her first toys, which she has taken care of all this time and still treasures to this day, was the above “baby shark.”

Barley, a dog, turns to ascertain the source of some distant sound. Indoor Barley and Outdoor Barley feel very different to interact with, because Outdoor Barley is in a state of continuous captivation by the world of stimuli she finds herself in. And she leans hard into those stimuli. Her head sort of flies through the world like a guided missile, with her body barely managing to keep up. I’ve heard it said of academics that many “treat their body like a vehicle for moving their brain from place to place,” and I acknowledge the validity of the shade that comment casts, but I’ve never met an academic as vehicular as Barley in her efforts to get her nose, ears, and eyes from one Point of Interest to the next.

Barley, a dog, sits at attention and stares intently at the action unfolding offscreen. From time to time, Barley will strike a particularly distinguished pose. This is almost always by accident, because “distinguished” is not how I would describe the way in which Barley carries herself. Consider this photo, which could easily serve as reference for a classical painted portrait. The context that this photo omits, without which Barley’s motivations could be misunderstood, is that she is watching a dad play laser tag with his kids about 40 yards away and is very keen to know what’s going to happen next.

Barley, a dog, peeks out from beyond the veil of sleep in response to the sound of the camera shutter. Barley sleeps a lot in any given day, but she’s also a very, very light sleeper. She can go from seemingly out cold to Ready For Launch if she hears the right cue. This makes catching photos of her sleeping quite difficult, even with a zoom lens. In the event that you do manage a candid snap, your follow-up option is almost always a photo of her checking out what you’re doing and whether she needs to get excited about anything.

Barley, a dog, balances a carnival mask on her nose and, in so doing, becomes someone’s sleep paralysis demon. I have to give Barley credit for being a good sport whenever the spirit moves me to balance something ridiculous on her head. In this case, however, the result was sufficiently disturbing that I don’t think I’ll be doing it again.

Barley, a dog, is partially submerged in a nest of cozy bedcovers. At first, I fundamentally misunderstood Barley’s comfort preferences. I own a number of extra pillows purchased for her benefit that she completely ignores. No, the acme of comfort is, well, the comforter. What Barley desires most in a sleeping surface is a loose heap of insulating softness that she can really make a nest in.