Post for: #dogs of cohost ^{(669 Posts)}

Barley, a dog, investigates a favorite crawlspace vent on a building that’s been stripped of its siding. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that this hole retains its magnetic pull on BArley’s attention, but I’m struck by how little interest she has in all the siding having been stripped off. It’s a good reminder that even though humans, as a rule, tend to pay attention to big changes in their environment, dogs are keyed into a different set of changes. Barley can surely see that the siding has changed, and (I presume) has some memory of the area, so it’s more a matter that she does not consider this change to be interesting or relevant to her.

Barley, a dog, lies calmly on her side with her legs sticking straight out, but her eyes have popped open and her ears have pricked up, suddenly alert. It’s hard to imagine Barley being too tired to bother. Even when properly tuckered out (we see her here recovering from an enthusiastic playdate with a dog buddy), the spirit is eternally willing if some clue presents itself that mischief (or snacks) might be afoot. Seeing this photo now reminds of the very first day she came home, when she met Juniper for the first time, and proceeded to rough-house with Juni for about six hour, almost uninterrupted. By the time the sun set that evening, they were both lying on the living room floor, delirious with exhaustion, and even then, Barley was sort of waving a paw at Juni from across the floor as if to say, “hey, hey, let’s go again.”

Barley, a dog, trots down the middle of a neighborhood street on a sunny day, beneath a cloudless sky. I don’t know if it’s the “look both ways” mindset that was drilled into me during my youth, but I’m never entirely comfortable walking Barley through neighborhoods that don’t have sidewalks. It’s not as though there’s ever much traffic, nor do I walk in the middle of the road or anything, but I end up maintaining a degree of vigilance that’s tiresome to maintain for a full walk. given this, imagine my annoyance at crossing paths with more and more electric cars, which, while not quite silent, can still get way closer to me without me hearing them than combustion engines, especially if it’s rainy enough that I have my hood up. I’m all for reducing our use of fossil fuels, but would a commitment to sidewalks really be too much to ask? That said, this only bothers me when I’m walking Barley. It’s not that I think a car is at all likely to hit me. It’s that I’m nervous about the combination of a car passing a little to close at the precise moment Barley makes an unexpected move. The further way I can hear the car coming, the more time I have to shorten her lead.

Barley, a dog, snoozes in the fluffy corner of her new, absurdly proportioned dog bed, whose surface area is perhaps four times that of her old bed. Barley has, of late, been very fussy with her dog bed, and because it’s not very heavy, whenever she tried to stomp it flat before curling up, she ended up just sliding it along the carpet. So when I saw a deep Black Friday discount on this ridiculous object, I decided to bite the bullet. It’s truly enormous surface, which can fold and unfold into various configurations. Since it arrived, Barley has been very enamored with it, spending most of her snoozing time wedged into its nooks and crannies. Hopefully it holds up OK over time, because Barley might find it tough to go back after this level of luxury.

Juniper, a dog, is photographed in a bed from up close, her head reading on the pillow beside that of the photographer, tucked in a comforter up to her shoulder. A minute can seem like an eternity. It's beginning now... ten seconds... Oh, those seconds... how long they last... The minute isn't up yet... Now it has gone.

Barley, a dog, sniffs at a grassy shrub crowded about on all sides by fallen autumn leaves. Her shadow is long despite the brightness of the sunshine. Once again, it’s that time of year when the noonday sun often slips behind rooftops, or gets lost in the trees, and even at its most direct rays warm you more from the side than from above. Work has not been especially forgiving to my schedule during daylight hours, but I try to make sure Barley still gets her share of sunlight every day. Fingers crossed that next week we’ll be able to go about things at a much more leisurely pace.

Barley, a dog, snoozes on the futon with her now-defeated cow, happily sleeping of the excitement of breaking the new toy in. No matter how exciting a plush toy is, Barley almost never sustains that high energy for more than perhaps 10 minutes or so before her mediocre stamina signal that it’s nap time. I can sometimes extend this play time a bit, but Barley generally knows when she’s done and simply stops reacting to toy, transitioning instead to giving me kisses and affection directly. In her mind, I think every one of these sessions is a hunt, and once the prey is subdued (and immobile), there’s no further need to subdue it. What follows is instead the celebration amongst pack-mates for another successful hunt.

Barley, a dog, chomps and worries at her new cow toy, slapping it with one paw while holding it in place with the other. When we first rescued Barley, she was very mouthy, almost exclusively so. She didn’t really seem to know what her paws were good for, and would push toys around on the ground until they got wedge somewhere. She also used her mouth, somewhat problematically, to get our attention or otherwise interact with us, so we had to dissuade her from doing so quite diligently. Mostly, we got there by reacting to even the slightest nibble as if we had been bitten hard, play-acting yelping in pain and shrinking away. As we shaped Barley to avoid nipping at us, we also shaped her to give “Paw.” Then, and even somewhat today, she doesn’t so much give you a paw to shape as she slaps her paw into your hand with quite a bit of force. We noticed, during those early months, that as she got better and more controlled at handshakes, she was also starting to manipulate her toys more with her paws. She seems to understand, now, that she can stabilize a toy by wedging it between her paws to facilitate chomping, so she’s become more dextrous, but her approach remains rather short of delicacy.

Barley, a dog, is a predatory blur rapidly approaching a plushie cow toy. While Barley has strong preferences about her chewin’ toys, she treats her plushies as mostly interchangeable. The exception to this is that she’s quite good at recognizing a new toy, which is much more exciting. Older toys that have been out of circulation for a long time are also something she gets very jazzed about. Here, a doofy little cow, brand new, is about to get mauled for the first time. After being told to sit and “Stay!” we see Barley releasing her pend-up excitement and sprinting into action.

Barley, a dog, tromps about in some freshly fallen leaves on a sunny day. November gave us a mix of sunny and rainy days, with few long stretches of sun (and then, always at a low angle in the sky). For a while there, piles of leaves, once rain-soaked, were not really getting fully dry again. As such, you could only count on finding piles of of crispety, crunchety freshly fallen leaves on day 2 or 3 of a sunny spell. Fresh leaves have the fewest opportunities to gain fruitful treasures that Barley might want to snarf down, so I’m happy to let her root around. Once patches of leaves had made their transition to damp, slippery carpets, I needed to be more vigilant of her exploratory sniffing, ready to intervene if she discovered something questionable. Now, however, temperatures have become sharply colder and the weather drier, and the longer stretches of cold, sunny days make it a lot harder to tell which leafpiles are new and which have merely been moved around by area leafblowers.

Juniper, a dog, holds a plush beachball in her mouth. She seems somewhat at a loss how to proceed. Juniper loves her big ball toy, as she does all her toys, but she also seems somewhat confused by it. On the one hand, it’s a ball, and she loves balls. Great to chase, great to chomp, no notes. But on the other hand, it’s also fuzzy, like all of her beloved creature toys, and those are her friends with which she must be gentle and nurturing. So if playtime is signalled, she’ll rush to chomp it, and then sort of… hang out with it in her mouth for a while. Eventually, it of course must suffer the secret fate of all toys, which is to be squirreled away in her crate for safekeeping.

Barley, a dog, sits politely with a purple llama toy leaning affectionally against her, ear-to-ear. I will admit to posing some of my photos, but only mildly. Barley was already in this expectant sphinx pose after having played with her llama, which lay beside her. I merely picked it up and gingerly laid it against her, which she did not object to in the slightest. I am, as always, bemused by the daffy, oblivious cheer that toys like this are designed to express. If you had seen what unfolded mere moments before this photo was taken, you’d be wondering what the llama was so darned happy about.

Barley, a dog, stands at the start of a chalk hopscotch grid drawn in a parking space. Had I grown up with family members my age, I suspect that various guardians (parents, teachers, babysitters, etc.) would have taught me some of the “child distraction tech” that has endured across the generations. Surely, “keep the kids busy” must be a major factor motivating instruction in the deeper mysteries of such timeless low-tech games as marbles, four square, jax, and hopscotch. Being on my own, I never encountered the rules in the wild, and the school playgrounds I grew up in were altogether too wild for something requiring this sort of setup and turn-taking. I know, vaguely, that it involves some process of dropping objects to complicate one’s trip across the grid, but that’s about it. So every hopscotch grid I encounter, even now, has the aura of arcane runes established for a ritual that I’ve heard of but never been inducted into. I have chosen, quite deliberately, not to satisfy this curiosity by looking hopscotch variants up on Wikipedia. Beyond my confidence that it’s probably not a Game Of The Year contender, I like the idea of letting some of the ritual mystery of youth remain the purview of the young.

Barley, a dog, sniffs around at the base of several enormous hunks of wood cut years ago from the trunk of a huge tree. In a post from some time ago, I described my experience of being temporarily displaced from my apartment by a (thankfully minor) flooding problem, which resulted in a Bad Time for Barley. While that story turned out fine in the end for her and for myself, I didn’t mention the sting in the tail for the awful model unit that we stayed in as an emergency measure. Not two weeks after we had moved back into my apartment, a monster ice storm swept through the area and overburdened one of the tallest trees in the neighborhood. In came down like an axe and split the building clean in half, wrecking the very model unit I had stayed in. Fortunately, it being a model unit, it was empty when the tree fell, so no one was hurt. Still it was quite a sight to behold when walking Barley the following morning. Before long, the ice had thawed, but even then it took nearly a month for a work crew to begin the disassembly of the beast. They had to bring in a crane to support the trunk from above while taking chunks off, to avoid the risk of it settling further and damaging the foundation. Gradually, bit by bit, the tree came apart and various bits were either carted off or mulched on the spot. Today, years…

Barley, a dog, snoozes on her dog bed with her head entirely beneath a coffee table, blocking every light source in the room. Generally, Barley simply curls up and sleeps. Ambient light has never been enough to talk her out of a good snooze. And since she tends to plop down first and get comfortable later, that’s generally the best she can do. In this case, however, she somehow managed to thread the needle and get her head entirely under the coffee table and away from any annoying lights. Not that I worry she’ll manage this feat too terribly often, but this is a good reminder that I need to vacuum under there.

Barley, a dog, is facing ahead, but is trying her hardest to walk sideways toward a nearby tree, stretching her leash taut. Barley often has strong opinions about the direction she would like to go while on walks, and these preferences often must be disregarded. For example, I’m generally going to keep my distance from busy streets, because Barley invariable gets it in her head that such streets must be crossed with great urgency. When our objectives are at 90 degrees from one another, Barley will often sustain this sort of “scrabblin’ crab walk” for a few dozen feet, making nominal progress in my intended direction, but facing and pulling the direction she wants to go. Normally, I’m happy to give her the impression of sled-doggin’ by pulling my along with the back clip on her harness, but at moments like these, I’m reminded that the harness also has a front clip. Would that I could switch where I was clipped at will to help turn her when it matters most.

Barley, a dog, enthusiastically licks the residue from a single-serving cup of yogurt. Barley has many fans who stop by my office to say hello. Some stop by daily, while others are only infrequent visitors who must go well out of their way to see her. Sometimes, she is the beneficiary of their lunch plans, and gets some precious yogurt leftovers. As calorically meager as a nearly empty cup of yogurt might be, Barley’s response to this generosity nevertheless displays all the enthusiasm of one who has received a great boon.

Juniper, a dog, curls up on her big dog bed, but her eyes are wide and aimed upward at a television outside of and above the frame of the photo. I find many things about Juniper’s television watching intriguing. Not only is she quite engaged when she watches screens, she appears to be comfortable doing so from such an oblique angle that the television’s image fidelity is surely impacted. Being a dog with limited color vision, the chromatic effects of viewing a flatscreen at an angle probably don’t bother her to much, but surely she can tell that the contrast is off. Furthermore, how does she square the television image getting narrower? She doesn’t seem to quite understand the 2D nature of screens (she still sometimes investigates behind the laptop screen if someone’s head ducks out of view on a video call), so is she lying on her bed in this photo thinking to herself, “Geez, the Bake-Off contestants sure are tall and narrow today.”

Barley, a dog, sits in the passenger seat of a vehicle, as seen through the window, which also shows reflections from the surrounding parking lot. Barley tolerates waiting in the car well, as she finds the comings and goings of people in parking lots to be quite interesting. Generally, she waits in the back seat, but if the car’s orientation is such that the parking lot is best observed from the front, she somestimes clambers over the mesh barrier and takes up a position in one of the front seats. While these are reasonably comfortable, they don’y offer enough room for her to lie down, so when I find she’s decided to be a front seat dog, it’s invariably in this sitting position.

Barley, a dog, sniffs around at the base of the tiniest dumpster I’ve ever seen. I had hoped having Barley in this photo would help convey a sense of scale, but even here, I don’t think I’m getting across how tiny these dumpsters are. They feel like adorable props for a theme park attraction intended to make little kids feel like they’re adults. There must be some cost advantage to the business renting these (presumably they just don’t generate waste fast enough to need the more typical sizes), but frankly I find these cute enough that there’s some added value right there.

Barley, a dog, investigates the outflow from a gutter that has been equipped with a decorative fish spout. Barley, I understand that you have every reason to be intrigued, but I promise you this: That fish has way worse breath than you do.

Barley, a dog, sleeps on a couch while curled up between two people who are just out of frame. I’ve met my fair share of people who find it “weird” that dogs become relaxed when squeezed. Got a nervous pup? Maybe try a thundershirt that acts a full-body hug that the dog can wear. While Barley has a talent for falling asleep just about anywhere, it’s notable how much she favors sleeping both on top of others, and with others on top of her. This no doubt has evolutionary advantages in terms of heat retention, but I think it’s just as important that the folks around her act as an ongoing affirmation that all’s well and everything’s calm. After all, if one member of a dogpile startles, everyone is going to get jostled. My hypothesis is that thundershirts co-op this effect, simulating (in a way unlikely to ever have emerged in nature) the feeling of being part of a big cuddle puddle while simultaneously free to move about the cabin.

Barley, a dog, chews her way down the length of a fallen branch, stripping away the bark and leaving exposed, slobbery wood behind. Barley decides only very occasionally that a stick is worthy of summary destruction, and on those occasions, she seems most pleased by the feeling of bark coming away from the underlying branch beneath. Once a stick has been thusly stripped, she’ll get on with the business of chewing/snapping it into little chunks, so the bark is not the sole attraction, but it nevertheless holds a particular appeal. This tells us something, perhaps, about what it is that dogs enjoy feeling when they chew recreationally. It seems clear to me that in order for a toy or stick to be worth of her toothsome attention, it must yield, incrementally. If she can’t perceive that she’s making progress, she loses interest pretty fast.

Barley, a dog, lies in a relaxed pose at the stop of a staircase, peering past the photographer to the right. Barley’s life inevitably involves a lot of down time. While she would no doubt love for there to be some sort of activity unfolding for her to participate in at all times, the practical reality is that most of her favored humans have “this many hours spent sitting” sorts of jobs and hobbies, and while we are engaged with them, Barley bides her time as best she can. Often, this consists of snoozing, but when I visit my parents, she is keenly aware of whether they are both at home, and she will preferentially station herself at one of her lookout spots to watch for their return instead of taking a nap. Here, we se her staring intently out a 2nd-story window that overlooks the entrance to the back yard, watching, waiting, believing in her hear that my dad will return from his morning walk any time now.

Juniper, a dog, sits excitedly, ready to spring into pursuit after a ball that is about to be thrown. Juniper’s existence is one of long, slow, watchful days, punctuated by bursts of sudden intensity. Her hips are such that she can’t operate at full steam for too terribly long, but she can nevertheless call upon a sprinter’s spirit when given sufficient motivation. Typically, two scenarios induce a fully activated Juniper. One is Pursuit! Chasing a ball is great, but she’s no less explosive in her pursuit of interloping creatures who have breached the perimeter. The other is Going Home! Juniper remains actively wary of going on walks, but becomes incredibly excited when she realizes that the walk is heading back towards the safety of her home base.

Barley, a dog, pants in the sunlight beside a sign reading, “THANK YOU ESSENTIAL WORKERS” that has stood unmoved in a particular yard for over four years. As we approach the American Time Of Thanking, I find myself reflecting on this sign that I pass from time to time, which has stood since the early months of 2020. On the one hand, obviously we as members of society owe gratitude to those whose work ensures the smooth operations of the systems we depend on to survive and thrive. On the other hand, though, the term never sat well with me, because it is always worth asking: Essential to whom? With the benefit of hindsight, the rhetoric of the pandemic years clearly insisted that many such workers put themselves at risk to keep the nation’s economic engines running. This particular slogan felt, almost immediately, like a way for people who were not putting themselves at risk to feel better about those who were not afforded that opportunity. It doesn’t ring true to me that the supermarket employee driving past this sign on their way to work a then-much-riskier-job for years felt like this was an adequate way to thank them.

Barley, a dog, stands somewhat elevated atop the end of a garden wall, looking at the world beyond as she gives her snoot a big lick. People, as a rule, are nice to dogs and are nice about dogs when speaking to their owners. Barley receives a steady stream of praise over the course of her many human interactions in a given week, and a part of me always reacts to this by thinking, “I bet you say that to/about all the dogs.” Even so, and even given my considerable bias, I can’t help but feel that Barley is an exemplary mutt, canine beyond expectation, a real dog’s dog. In this, I’m exceptionally lucky that, in most of the ways that matter, the exceptions to this characterization are eccentricities that make Barley easier to take to work than most dogs. So, another part of me always thinks, “Yeah! This is a very good dog!”

Barley, a dog, sits at a window wearing her harness and watches someone leaving the house with evident concern. Like most dogs Barley is unnerved by humans performing the Pre-Travel Ritual. Packing up clothes? Putting things in suitcases? This is weird behavior and a deviation from routine. See, me getting my backpack ready to go is an everyday affair, and Barley gets excited because she knows we are going to work together when I do so. Suitcases are different. Even though she comes with my on pretty much every trip I take in which I pack a suitcase, that’s rare, and most dogs don’t like rare events. This usually culminates in a period of active concern while the car is being loaded, since that requires a series of departures and returns that Barley does not get to participate in. We see her here, dressed for the trip, clearly feeling the need to keep a close eye on luggage-packing events as they unfold.

Barley, a dog, lies on her side on the futon, with one paw up toward the camera and a spaced out, sleepy smile on her face. Barley finds plenty of time each day to relax, and in an environment where she feels comfortable, she’ll often do so in a legs-to-the-side, belly-out orientation. Under such conditions, she is always grateful to a human who approaches her calmly and gives her entire undercarriage a gentle massage. This is especially true if she has recently had a bit of a workout, in which case a massage to her abdominals and pectoral muscles is much appreciated.

Barley, a dog, clambers up a steep earthen embankment that is held together by a web of surface ivy so tight that the underlying soil is invisible. In the eyes of frugally-minded property developers, the beauty of surface ivy is two-fold. On the one hand, it requires basically no maintenance beyond a quick pass along its perimeter with an edger from time to time, and on the other hand, its criss-crossing woody mesh beneath the greenery acts as a self-sustaining retaining structure for steep earthen slopes. No need to use an earth mover to level things out, or to build terraced planters. Just let the ivy hold it together and the wall will stay put even in torrential rain. In Barley’s eyes, however, these steep ivy slopes hold a different beauty: A substrate to which her paws and claws are perfectly suited for hopping up to higher altitude and scampering about. There’s no better surface for Barley to have an easy time changing altitude.

Barley, a dog, walks happily along the street on a sunlit day, looking enthusiastically at the camera. During the initial minutes of a walk, Barley shows an intense enthusiasm to get out there and collate some fresh data. It feels like a race, and she doesn’t key into the person walking her very much. Once she’s settled into a good walking pace, especially if it’s a walk that is covering more ground, she becomes a much more interactive presence, keeping an eye on you as much as she is on the surroundings. Once she gets into this mode, she really likes being addressed and praised as she walks, trotting along with a little extra wag in her tail.

Juniper, a dog, rears up on her hind legs to bark at an elevated television that depicts two small children playing with a puppy. Juniper’s quest to banish screen beasts is not limited to the sort of adult animals that might pose a risk to her people. She’ll just as enthusiastically throw down the gauntlet when presented with literal puppies. Be they tiny and bumbling or looming and monstrous, Juniper will always let the house know when a furry interloper has sullied one of her beloved screens.

Barley, a dog, sniffs about in a thicket of bushy plants consisting of at least five distinct species, all so densely interwoven that anything beneath them is wholly concealed. I’m very sensitive about eye stuff. Nothing in a film makes me squirm like someone’s eye getting messed with, and I go to great lengths to keep my own eyes shielded from harm. This makes Barley’s face-first approach the world all the most remarkable to me. It’s clear to me that her eyes are simply made of sterner stuff than mine. Sure, she’s got beefy eyelids to protect herself, and she can always proceed by smell alone if her eyes need to stay closed, but she still brushes the wet surface of her eyeballs against stuff just about every day as she goes about her routine, and never seems even a little bothered by it. Faced with this sort of thick, interlocking foliage, she’ll just put her whole face in and root around in a way I certainly couldn’t get away with unless I used eye protection. It makes me wonder to what extent this is something dogs simply learn to put up with, as well as how much of it is simply that dogs are built different.

Barley, a dog, looks expectantly at a camera positioned above her head. In the left of frame, a bowl of potato chips sits on a tabletop. Barley would clearly like the photographer to share. As I while away the hours getting work done, I’ll often have some sort of snack that I’m chipping away at. I will usually share a tiny bit of whatever I’m eating with Barley, so long as it’s dog-safe; For example, she might get a quarter of a chip once or twice. So once she hears me eating anything, she will post up and begin her vigil. To her credit, she’s generally reasonable in her demands, mostly positioning herself so she’s within my eye line and waiting. At the limit, she might sometimes rest her head on my leg, but she’s never any pushier than that, so I don’t mind indulging her.

Barley, a dog, walks along a very concrete sidewalk, alongside a very concrete garden wall, topped by the posts of a very plastic fence. A handful of plants do their best to retake the landscape, but have a long way to go. Roundabouts Barley’s usual haunts, new residential construction is pretty unusual. Sure, people renovate all the time, but it’s pretty rare for a property to be stripped to zero with a new structure built from the foundation up. Whenever I come across such a brand-new house, what always strikes me is how fake and cheap the results look, not just for the house itself, but also for the yard, which is always populated by meager, undersized plants and unnervingly uniform building materials. Presumably, that’s how all houses start: No one’s going to invest money in “aging” the appearance of their property artificially when a couple of seasons of the weather and the wilds will do that for free. Nevertheless, the effect of that readymade blandness has on me is pretty visceral. I don’t think I would enjoy walking Barley in a suburban housing development.

Barley, a dog, turns to the camera. In the background, a bit out of focus, are a gathering of varied rubber ducks atop a garden wall. It has often been remarked that Barley’s indoor persona is very different from her outdoor persona. Usually, people bring this up to contrast her headstrong, willful behavior when outdoors with her more gentle, snoozy, playful personality when indoors. It recently occurred to me that Barley very rarely plays with outdoor objects in a way that resembles her play with indoor objects. The nearest instance to this that comes to mind is chewing on sticks, but when it comes to objects that resemble her indoors toys (be it plushy or rubbery), she ignores them entirely while out and about. She seemed quite perplexed, for example, when I interrupted our walk to take this picture.

Barley, a dog, looks plaintively at the camera as she lies in front of her battered but enduring seahorse toy, Stella. Barley’s toy Stella (or should I say Stellas, because there are three total in circulation) remains a favorite after quite a few years of heavy use. Sure, excised all of extra bits (fins, ears, etc.) in short order, so she is perhaps a bit less seahorse and a bit more worm, but this suits Barley’s style of play. She is, after all, quite naturally tuggable, with some floppy extremity or another readily available to be grabbed. Happily, this seemed to be a sustainable mode of play, since my main style is to make a half-hearted attempt at grabbing the toy and then almost immediately letting her win, with the occasional interjected “drop it!” to get her to give it up. These seem to be within the fabric’s tolerances.

Barley, a dog, trots through grass that is garnished with a very light sprinkling of very small dead leaves. While there’s no question that the seasons have changed, I’m fortunate that the Rainy Season here is not, in fact, a solid wall of rain. We routinely have days, even weeks, with little to no rain, and rarely do things get so chilly that a longer walk is truly unpleasant. Given Barley’s irrepressible spirit and hunger for adventure, I suspect she would do a lot less well in a climate with a deep, sustained winter that would force her to keep her walks short for months at a time. Then again, maybe she would be a big fan of the Toasty status achieved by donning full doggy winter gear.

Juniper, a dog, stands with two paws on the dock and two paws on dry land in the late afternoon, and watches with dutiful attention as a seagull flies over the water. Juniper happened to be standing near the water, as this bird came over the trees, and she perked right up as it approached. She didn’t bark, or scramble. She tracked it calmly as it came low over the water, and once it had made its water landing, the trotted out to the end of the pier and gazed at it for a while longer before making her way back to land, seemingly contented that she had a handle on the situation.

Barley, a dog, looks expectantly at someone off camera as she lies on the floor. Between her and this unseen person, her blue chewtoy lies. Barley certainly makes a distinction between “guest” and “cohabitant.” She will get very excited whenever anyone comes home, of course, but she’ll run and get a toy to show a guest, whereas her inclination is instead to try to get snuggles and pets from her cohabitants when they return. Things settle down after a while, of course, and Barley will often chew on her toy while guests are around, but eventually she’ll relax enough to snooze. But even then, when the guests stand up and start moving around, Barley re-activates, as if judging whether she needs to grab her toy and resume parading it around. You know, in case someone else goes for it.

Barley, a dog, trots along a dewy verge a bit after sunrise, the sun illuminating the clouds but still leaving the neighborhood in shadow. One of the things I’ll miss for the rest of the rainy season is the damp chill of the morning dew, something that is welcome precisely because it is temporary. Having passed from time to time through part of the country that remain bone-dry for weeks or months at a time, I’ve experienced the patina that comes to coat every outdoor surface over time. Slide your hand along any such surface and it’s like you’ve touched a piece of jeweler’s sandpaper - a slightly, subtle tooth, a resistance, as your skin travels across it. In places with enough temperature swing, and enough humidity, for a morning dew to form and then burn off, this patina never materializes. Of course, it’s not a problem during the rainy season, either, but rain’s a bit overkill when it comes to just keeping the surfaces fresh.

Barley, a dog, investigates a pile of CDs discarded next to the sidewalk. Atop the pile is a CD entitled The Essential Dolly Parton. My walks with Barley take me hither and thither, but the neighborhoods don’t change all that much, or at least, not all that quickly. What does change pretty rapidly is the detritus at street level. I suppose that much closer to Barley’s experience of the neighborhood than mine, since I don’t imagine she’s she’s spending terribly much time taking in the architecture. Even so, as grounded as Barley is, I don’t imagine she has the perspective to recognize America’s favorite book lady as essential, any more than whoever tossed these CDs out of their car window.

Barley, a dog, sploots on a sofa in a living room, once upon a night-time. Her paws rest upon the arm rest, and upon her paws, a blue chew toy. Barley rests her head on her paws, and on the toy, as she closes her eyes to snooze. As much as Barley’s attitude toward her toys is that they are an outlet for a bit of the old grab-and-thrash, she occasionally seems to display a kind of, if not affection, then at least attachment to them. Some of this is, doubtless, a consequence of me reading into things, but given the array of opportunities she has to snooze, she sure does seem to fall asleep on top of her toys pretty often, even if they’re the harder, lumpier ones. My hunch is that she likes to drift off with their smell near her nose, the better to feel that she’s in a safe place.

Barley, a dog, stands on the terrace of a brewery, seeming uncharacteristically tiny amid the stools and standing-height tables. I had the occasion to have lunch with someone I’ve not seen in a while recently, and this was an opportunity for them to get to see Barley as well, so who am I to deny someone that opportunity? That said, I only rarely bring Barley to restaurants, despite there being many dog-friendly options in the area. Since Barley readily befriends all she meets, and does so doubly with people who have food, my only real options are (1) to get a table as far from other people as possible in a restaurant with few patrons, or (2) to keep her on a very, very short leash and eat my meal with one hand. I was able to do the former in this case, so it all worked out. Even so, with the turning of the weather, I think this may be Barley’s last visit to an eatery before Spring.

Barley, a dog, chews a bully stick while facing away from the camera. Her legs are tucked under her body in an even more ridiculous pose than usual. Few gifts get Barley as excited as a bully stick. Normally a very fast eater, this tasty morsel is a meal that puts up a fight, and disappears into a kind of trance of chomping and repositioning it with her paws until every last bit is gone. Since this usually takes takes her a while (this one lasted almost ten minutes!), it stands to reason that she would need to lie down, but it seems in this case that she was in such a hurry to get down to business that she didn’t bother to lie down properly. She just sort of let her knees buckled awkwardly and stayed that way for the duration of the experience.

Juniper, a dog, holds her toy monkey in her mouth and parades it past a large window that has a view of the yard beyond. Juniper’s behavior with her stuffed toys has always come across as much more motivated by companionship and caretaking than Barley’s approach (which has quite a bit more of a RIP AND TEAR enthusiasm). It feels plausible to me that Juniper has projected some parental feelings onto her toys, carrying then by the scruff but otherwise being very gentle and snuggly with them. It amuses me to imagine that she might be bringing her monkey along on one of her window patrols not merely as a comfort object, but in the hopes of mentoring it in the ways of vigilance.

Barley, a dog, is out fo focus in the foreground, drawing attention to a wooden owl in the background who is wearing a felt witch’s hat. I very much appreciate my parents for their commitment to light seasonal theming around their house. It’s always tastefully restrained: A witch’s hat here, a few pastel easter eggs there, a red-and-white Xmas llama tucked into a gap in the bookshelf. Unlike enormous and ostentatious yard displays, these small interior flourishes feel thoughtful, as if the space itself is giving you a knowing wink while saying, “Hey, glad you could be here.”

Barley, a dog, tries to assert dominance by putting her head atop a golden retriever’s neck. The golden retriever responds by craning its neck, getting its head up and over the top of Barley’s head in return. While there’s no doubt that Barley’s the boss when she has playdates with her buddy, he’s not light on provocation. Her efforts to be the taller dog, for example, are consistently frustrated by the reality that he’s got about 25 pounds on her and isn’t shy about throwing that weight around. But, still having echoes of puppy flexibility, he also finds novel, bendy ways to get the upper hand.

Barley, a dog, sits beside a sculpture of white stone, an abstract form that mixes smooth and rough surfaces, mounted to a lenticular base. Artist LeeAnn Perry has described her sculpting process as one in which she studies a piece of stone until she can find a “head” that can act as its focal point, with the resulting planes and curves emerging as a consequence of that choice. In that respect, this work (entitled “Inner Peace”) is a bit like Barley. As much as Barley has many fans and is appreciated by many folks, her personality is very much a natural outgrowth that I have only influenced with a light tough. She, too, is a mix of smoother and rougher bits, a dog I have tried more to know and to embrace than to mold and reshape.

Barley, a dog, sits in a shady spot. Behind her, a couple of weather-worn decorative paper party spheres hang from a tree. Both are in focus thanks to a very obvious split-focus seam, revealing that the photo is a composite of two photos. Yesterday’s post was selected as a prelude to this admittedly dumb experiment. I saw these sad-looking paper party decorations, gradually disintegrating from rainfall, and thought it would be fun to take a photo with them in the background. But of course, with Barley in focus, they were so out of focus that you couldn’t see the deterioration. So I snapped a second pic and thought nothing further of is until I loaded them both and realized how dramatic the difference in focus was. Rather than meticulously manufacture a cinematic split-focus effect, I thought it would be fun to instead make the seam between the two photos very obvious.

Barley, a dog, is photographed up close, such that the lens keeps her face in focus, but her body is slightly out of focus. It’s second nature to me now that the third dimension can be read, at least in closeup shots, by attending to the focus of the photograph. But I have to wonder, is that something I had to learn? Clearly, our own eyes adjust the focal depth all the time, so reading three dimensions into a two dimensional photograph that relies on the same optics isn’t exactly rocket science, but I can’t turn my eye to something in my own visual field and not have the focus automatically adjust. With a photo (or a movie), your eye can linger on things out of focus for as long as you like, providing an experience that is specific to these externalized optical records. At some point, I presume, I must have come to understand this about photos, but it must have been very early in life, perhaps even before my earliest coherent memories.

Juniper, a dog, is curled up on her huge dog bed while wearing a black dog hoodie. Juniper’s rarely anywhere cold enough to need extra insulation, and she’s not nearly as bit a chicken about storms and fireworks as Barley. However, some things definitely still stress her our (like when a plumber needs to come and fix a problem, and is mysteriously bonking around for a couple hours doing so). Rather than wear a thundershirt, she generally just dons one of her sweaters, and this seems to do the trick. In fact, she gets very excited whenever she gets to wear one, for whatever reason, so their benefit may be less of a “let’s squeeze this scared dog until its calm” effect and more of a “I’m so fuckin’ stoked to be cozy!” effect.

Barley, a dog, looks at a driftwood collection that has been painted in several bright pastels, and upon which several plastic eyeballs have been balanced. “I’m telling you, Zeta Epsilon, if we disguise ourselves as yard decorations, we’ll basically be invisible! Humans just don’t look at that sort of thing, it’s like being invisible.” “OK, sure, but I think that dog might be on to us.”

Barley, a dog, relaxes on the futon. She is, in an unusual move, not wearing her collar. I’m used to seeing Juniper without a collar, since collars are only a sometimes-accessory for her, but Barley is almost always wearing a collar, since it only comes off when she gets a bath, and goes back on once her fur is fully dry. As such, seeing her without that signature splash of blue feels transgressive and strange to me. For her part, she doesn’t seem to give it a second thought. If she’s got an itch she needs to scratch, for example, she never goes after her neck. I figure this is because her head’s so blocky that the collar can be a little bit loose without any risk of coming off, which has the added benefit of letting it swivel freely while the leash is clipped to it.

Barley, a dog, trots up to a Halloween display in a yard, undeterred by the tombstones, skeleton motifs, and plastic-fiber cobwebs. I wonder what it would take for Barley to find a ghost to be scary. Appearance alone wouldn’t cut it. I’m fully confident that if she was approached by some impossibly tall ghoul with strangely set eyes and Junji Ito rictus smile, she would happily make its acquaintance. If it moved in an uncanny way, that would probably be enough - I’m willing to bet dogs find the herky-jerk kinematics of undead movement just as unsettling as their human owners. But what if ghosts smelled scary? Surely dogs, being such olfactory creatures, would agree that certain classes of smell are spooky by nature, in a comparable way to human agreement about certain forms of visual stimuli. And if they could talk, what sort of analogy would they need to formulate to explain to us what ghosts smell like?

Barley, a dog, walks bast a fallen tree branch that has a clean cut through it, made recently enough that the exposed wood is still bright and unblemished (to the point of being overexposed). I’ve again had the experience of walking past a branch cut to clear a path (link to 366), only this time the cut can’t be more than a few days old. It’s not until I’m looking more closely at it now that I realize how overexposed the wood is, but you may take my word that this is because it was as fresh a cut as you like, revealing a blank (well, ringed) canvas beneath for nature to begin tinting and staining. Even in context, bare wood that is this pale stands out like a high-vis surveyor’s marker, a distinctly artificial note amid the overture of natural tones.

Barley, a dog, lies on the floor and chomps her new snake toy along the back half of its head. After the initial new toy zoomies have subsided, Barley will settle into taking account of her new toy. She doesn’t do this after playing with familiar toys, so there’s clearly a need to get the measure of this unfamiliar object. Before her lower incisors were removed, this would be the point at which the toy would get eviscerated, but today her probing is a bit more blunt in its approach. She’ll usually start by identifying the squeaker, as we see her doing here. It’s not uncommon for her to disable it entirely during her first play session, if the squeaker’s plastic is soft enough and the fabric of the toy thin enough that her canines can pincer a hole into it. If the toy is stuffed too full, she’ll eventually shift tactics and start worrying at the fabric with her hind teeth. If I see the toy’s been breached, it’s time for it to get taken away and for about two-thirds of the stuffing to be removed, making the fabric much floppier and thus that much harder for her back teeth to scissor. Any disabled squeakers can come out at this stage as well. Stitch the toy up with upholstery thread and it’s likely to last years from that point forward with minimal upkeep.

Barley, a dog, eyes a toy snake. Barley attacks! She and the snake are now merely a blur. I don’t think Barley has terribly much patience for games of keep-away. That said, I’ve not really tested this assumption, as my preferred approach when introducing her to a new toy is to wind her up merely my signaling that it exists, and then offer it just high enough that it takes her a bit of effort to get to. I’m happy to let her get it on the first try, because she very much enjoys scampering around in small circles as I bumble around in her wake, chasing her Yakety-Sax-style. So, this particular episode of hunting the dreaded snek was not a particularly prolonged affair.

Juniper, a dog, stands next to a patio fire pit that is halfway unwrapped. Juniper’s neck of the woods is rapidly approaching Peak Backyard Wood Fire Season: Cool enough after dark that a warm spot to gather around is a pleasant option at a gathering, but not so cold but everyone would rather just stay inside. For her part, though, Juniper is somewhat suspicious of such gatherings. The fire pit itself is worthy of suspicion (which, frankly, is a much more welcome reaction from a dog than excessive curiosity), but more generally, gatherings in the dark seem to heighten Juniper’s need to Protect, lest some heinous creature (such as, gasp!, a possum) tries to crash the party. So rather than withdraw to her chambers to relax, Juniper is given under such conditions to remain a bit high-strung, prowling the perimeter with restless energy.

Barley, a dog, plays with a golden retriever who, despite being on his back, has grabbed a hold of the chest plate of Barley’s harness with his teeth. Now that summer’s over and work obligations have come back with a vengeance, Barley’s had fewer opportunities to go on play dates. Even so, I’ve been very encouraged by her adventures this summer. Between the pandemic and a lack of fenced dog parks in this area, she’s had fewer opportunities to play with other dogs than I would have liked since she came across the country to live here. Playing with her buddy has been good for shaking off the rust and flexing those social muscles anew.

Barley, a dog, lies on a sofa with her paws on the arm rest, and looks past the photographer with an air of weighty consideration. As obvious as it seems to me that Barley experiences an rich inner world, I sometimes wonder just how full or empty her head is at any given moment. My biases are such that I look at this photo and see her grappling as hard as she possibly can to understand a world beyond her ken (and all our kens, frankly). She seems, often, to actively ponder. But it’s also possible that she is a cork bobbing on an ocean of sensation, experiencing the world as it washes over her without that very relatable need to crack its code.

Barley, a dog, is unimpressed by the list of pool rules on a locked gate that, among other things, forbid her entry. I have to admit, it’s quite an innovative strategy to make your pool entirely insect free by simply forbidding entry to all animals, but it seems a shame that in doing so, humans are also forbidden from entering the pool area. I guess this apartment complex caters heavily to plants and fungi.

Barley, a dog, sniffs a large, weathered piece of driftwood that leans against a bike rack, as if it was left there as someone’s vehicle. I haven’t the foggiest idea where this very substantial hunk of wood came from, or why it was left to occupy a slot in this bike rank, but I can’t imagine the real story is as amusing as the prospect that, lacking a particular obscure tome, the Beach Warlock surfed across the sky all the way from the coast atop a raw wood board and was, at Barley as I passed, inside this library combing the stacks for a sufficiently ancient edition.

Barley, a dog, curls up against an egg-shaped cushion with the words “wake me up later” printed on it. While she remains a committed fan of soft surfaces, Barley’s sleep preferences vary with the ambient temperature. Over the summer, she has spent more time retreating to my bedroom to sleep (rather than her crate), and I suspect it’s because she can sprawl a bit more and keep from being overly warm. As winter approaches and my apartment gets that little but more chilly, my bet is that she’s gravitate back toward her crate, which her body warms up pretty quickly once she’s settled in.

Barley, a dog, trots along a forested path alongside a series of large ferns. I’ve had a soft spot for ferns ever since they became tied conceptually to dinosaurs in all manner of illustrations. Famously old, their ancestral roots go back over 400 million years. Since they predate the evolution of flowering plants, and are so strongly tied by scientific illustration to the dinosaur period, ferns have felt “old-fashioned” to me for as long as I can remember. Now, encountering them as I often do with Barley in tow, I have a newfound appreciation for how conveniently they are shaped: Broad enough for Barley to peek under inquisitively, but floppy enough to be easily brushed aside as needed and growing from a rugged central cluster that I don’t need to worry about Barley damaging if she rampages through the underbrush.

Juniper, a dog, is curled up on top of a comforter, her body partly covered by a pillow with a fuzzy pillowcase. Juniper’s general fussiness extends to her sleep preferences. She would like to snuggle up close, until she doesn’t and prefers something soft within earshot of humans, unless she instead wants some full-blown solitude. the precise combination of factors that set her moods is always mysterious, but those moods also rely on the stability of her circumstances. So if (for example) a bit of painting temporarily necessitates sleeping on a futon in the living room, such that her circuit of snooze spots is off limits, she will default to her core preference for uncertain times: Keep it close, and keep it cozy.

Barley, a dog, sprawls on the floor in an office, waiting for some visitor or meeting to add some zest to the work day. In keeping with the theme of waiting raised last week, Barley surely finds much of my in-office work to be quite dull. Her initial reaction to staying in the office was quite ambivalent, I think because she must find it to be almost spookily sterile locale. Now that she’s used to it, of course, she’s much less nervous (and her in-office crate no doubt has a comfortingly familiar ambiance), but there’s very much time that still needs killing. Fortunately, she never needs to wait longer than 20-30 minutes for someone who wants to say hi to pass by my open door, in which case she can trot up to the gate and receive a friendly hello from some fan or other.

Barley, a dog, sleeps deeply, konked entirely out on a sofa with her head nestled into the angle of the arm rest. As we approached the home of my parents on a recent visit, I rolled down the window to give Barley a sniff of the neighborhood air and she became very excited. Even as the car was still in motion, she became awkwardly pacing around in her back-seat hangout zone, and was all jazzed when I parked and let her out. She proceeded to bonk around the first floor for several minutes, only for her bonkers to be further elevated by being fed her dinner. Her arrival was so athletic that, twenty minutes later, as the three of us sat on the couch and chatted, Barley was out like a light on the adjoining love seat, sleeping off her exhausting opening number.

Barley, a dog, lies on her back in the grass, harness on and paws in the air as she wiggles. Motion blur reveals that she is giving an especially strong kick with her left hind foot. We are rapidly approaching the end of wiggle season. To my great relief, Barley isn’t much interested in wiggling in grass that’s wet, especially if the underlying soil is muddy. She craves a dry wiggle that yields satisfying scritches. I find her tendency to swing her hips by making big, alternating kicks to be especially endearing. I wonder if it’s tapping into a similar motor scheme as that which dogs use when doggie paddling through deep water.

Barley, a dog, stands in a college hallway beneath a bulletin board marked with various tags. One reads, “We are situated within the collapse of a civilization and the noise is deafening. Act now and the community will make it through.” Having now had a few days to ponder cohost’s closure as a platform and the not-too-far-future reality of the whole site being deleted, I find myself in a bit of a mood about the theme of community. I don’t intend for this to be a whole thinkpiece about social media platforms - you came here to see photos of my dog - but I nevertheless think there’s an opportunity here to reflect on what community means in a digital space. Some of you found Barley through the tags and have come to know her through my photography and authorial voice, without our ever having interacted directly. Cohost made a lot of those sort-of-one-way observational relationships possible, and I get the impression that some of the distress that people expressed stemmed from feeling that those cozy, safe connections were going away. Well, if you’re reading this, you’re still here, and I’m glad for it. All of us were already somewhere and many of us have planted new flags and tilled new fields. Additionally, I felt compelled to reach out directly to folks in September, and I have very much appreciated the fruits of that contact. With hindsight, I am willing to admit that I squandered many opportunities to be in…

Barley, a dog, viewed in closeup as she lies on a hill of dry summer grass, chomping the heck out of a stick and seeming very satisfied as she does so. Barley gives me the impression that she’s a real creature of the senses. Unlike Juniper, who always seems to be trying to deduce something, Barley is quite content to lose herself in a pleasant experience. With a belly full, a back warmed by the sun, a friend close to hand, and a branch coming apart under the force of her jaws, she has all she needs in the world.

Barley, a dog, encounters a blue Yard Orb. Slight motion blur suggests that she is already moving on to other things as the photo is being taken. I will, at times, try to make photographic fetch happen. While I wouldn’t say I stage photos I take of Barley, I will sometimes inspire her natural curiosity with an encouraging “whazzat?” to get her to investigate something so I can take a picture of her doing so. Turns out, Barley has no time in her schedule for the pondering of orbs. Get outta here, orbs, you don’t even smell interesting! Thus concludes Barley’s brief adventures in orbposting, regular posting resumes tomorrow.

Juniper, a dog, is hidden beneath a futon. Only her hind legs peek out, as viewed from above in this photo. Like so many Internet denizens, Juniper must sometimes take steps to quell the exquisit agonies of Being Seen. Fortunately for us, her limited canine perspective taking is such that she often doesn’t quite achieve full stealth mode. These days, she mostly retreats to her crate, but back in the day she used the cozy stratum beneath the guest room futon as her refuge of choice, and her skooch-to-get-under technique almost always left her toes exposed.

Barley, a dog, sploots in a fenced yard beside and parallel with a golden retriever. Each chews a hunk of wood enthusiastically. Barley was very fortunate to have many playdates over the summer months, and in doing so was able to share in her passion for chewing on crumbly hunks of wood. Her interest in “social chewing” turns out to be quite general, and is practiced in the context of acquaintanceship. She chews while hanging out with guests, whereas when she’s with people in her close ingroup, she’s much more inclined to relax or sleep. So the question is: Does she love to chew socially because it’s an outlet for her excess excitement, or is it a social performance?

Barley, a dog, relaxes in the grass with a pensive look. Not too long ago, I took Barley on a longer-than usual walk on a lovelier-than-usual day. Our route was largely familiar, but one of Barley’s great strengths is that she finds an eternally renewing interest in the world, so she was no less enthusiastic for it. As we made our way back and came within sight of the doorway that would bring us back indoors, her pace slowed, and she resolutely plopped down onto the grass. There she stayed for some minutes, sniffing the light breeze, soaking up one last coatfull of afternoon warmth as I waited, before we returned to the office and the remaining work of the day.

Barley, a dog, glaces up from a nondescript concrete alcove. In the foreground, out of focus, is a secure keypad/callbox, on which is balanced a textbook titled “Introduction to Nuclear Engineering.” There nothing noteworthy about walking past a locked door. Best to assume most doors you walk past are locked, frankly. And should that door have a card-swipe, no big deal, you see that all the time. Now, a door with a card-swipe and a number pad? That’s a little more unusual, how come you need a multi-factor locking mechanism. And if that electronic lock has an armored camera pointed at it? Then maybe, maybe you take notice. What I want to know is, do you finally start asking questions when someone drops off the copy of Introduction to Nuclear Engineering that they borrowed?

Barley, a dog, lies sprawled on her side, her hips on her dog bed, her body relaxed, but her ears flopped into an upward position, and her eyes open. For all my efforts to give Barley a full and interesting life, there is no denying that she spends a great deal of time waiting. She hovers in the early afternoon when she anticipates that she’s due a walk. Her stomach marks the hour for dinner like clockwork, and she’ll gently remind me if it seems I might need reminding. For the most part, however, she appears to simply take for granted that I must be waiting for that same event to occur. Not resentful, not impatient, but vigilant. Something is coming after this, in just a little longer, a little longer…

Barley, a dog, pauses to drink from a broad, shallow stream of water flowing down a sidewalk from a broken sprinkler head at the edge of a patch of grass. I try to avoid letting Barley drink from standing pools of water, mostly out of an abundance of caution. I recognize that, if some fresh rainwater gathers on a shady, sleepy sidewalk, there’s probably not much harm in Barley wetting her whistle, but my prior experiences of living in urban environments makes it hard for me to shake the memory of such pools being rainbow-slick with visible films of motor oil. In this particular instance, the day was hot, a sprinkler head had broken, and water was bubbling forth in real time as if from a natural spring, so I relaxed my ordinary paranoia and let her shed some heat with an infusion of delicious Underwater Cool.

Barley, a dog, watches quizzically from inside a car whose windows are caked in a scattered powdering of tree pollen. The summer months are the only period during the year that Barley really needs a semi-regular bath. While not a stinky dog even on the worst of days, she can develop a little bit of aura after a week of heat-wave weather, a scent that’s just characterful enough that it would be within the bounds of good taste to freshen her up for the benefits of a sensitive guest to my office. So, too, does my car seem most in need of some intervention during these months, in which much of the local flora (particulars the many trees) tries its luck and unloads pollen into the air. For both, the coming of the rains provides a tasteful freshening up at regular enough intervals to keep them pleasing to the senses.

Juniper, a dog, sleeps on her comically large bed in a cable-knit sweater that clings to the contours of her body. As we all prepare to bid cohost a quiet passing into archival memory, we would all do well to keep our respective creatures close, and keep them warm. Theirs is a simple world, as compared with ours and its abstract and convoluted problems, and there is comfort to be had in bringin comfort to theirs. This is Juniper’s 85th post, on cohost’s final Juniper Friday, but an 86th entry will appear soon, as all our adventures will continue in all our widening worlds.

Barley, a dog, is photographed relaxing on the futon. The image quality is weirdly grainy in a way that only the lowest-cost image sensor on the market can provide. There is a slice of time in the photo-record of Barley’s adventures in which the images, while digital, have a kind of grain that feels unnatural in an era of surprisingly powerful phone cameras. Its trademark is an even scattering of dark motes, as if the photo had received a very light dusting of soot from a passing chimneysweep’s broom. During this period of time, my phone of many years had given up the ghost: It was never not hot to the touch, and (despite multiple battery replacements) could no longer hold a charge for more than a couple hours. So, as a stopgap, my phone company provided me what I thought of as the Pity Phone: a burner in all but name, retailing at around $30, whose CPU was so underpowered that it needed to run a comically toybox custom fork of Android. The phone had a camera, as all modern smart phones do. Nevertheless, the combination of the cheapest sensor money can buy and a puny CPU with no spare clock cycles to gussy up a noisy image resulted in photography that was literally the least one could do: Simultaneously blurrier and crunchier than you would want, a look so distinctive it effectively becomes its own data-moshed aesthetic.

Barley, a dog, sleeps deeply on a sofa in a sunbeam. The light scattered off of her orange body tints the fabric of the sofa, creating an impression that she is giving off a golden glow. It’s hard not to play favorites when one has a dog, because it’s very natural to reflect their intense and unconditional affect back at that in whatever form they express it. Even so, I can’t help but notice how often people speak of Barley’s warmth and friendliness, even relative to their own dogs! While she is a bit rambunctious, I don’t think I’m overstepping the bounds of good taste when I say that there seems to be a consensus that Barley has a palpable aura that is a bit special even among members of this very special species.

Barley, a dog, puts her paws up on a retaining wall and locks eyes briefly with a goat who, lying on the ground in the shade, has turned its head to face her. I’ll still stop by the neighborhood goats from time to time, but Barley has expressed such resolute disinterest in them (and they in her) that I was quite surprised by this moment. I assumed I would simply catch Barley on camera walking past, but she hopped up to check, and the goat looked back. And just as I snapped the picture, the moment ended: the goat turned away, and Barley proceeded to sniff a bit at the grass up top before hopping back down to street level. It seems wholly understood by both parties that what the other is up to is none of their concern. But a moment like this tells me they are definitely still aware of one another.

Barley, a dog, looks dashing in her collar and harness, waiting with eager patience for her leash to be attached so that an adventure may begin. Well, gang, we did it. We made it to 500 posts about Barley on this daily blog (in addition to 84 posts about Juniper), which means I can finally deploy The Joke Post Title to mark the occasion. In that time, many of you following her adventures on cohost have said nice things about this dear creature, who would love you immediately if you met her (and already does if you already have). At the time of this posting, a week from today will be the final day that new Barley content appears on cohost. However, it will not be the end of her story! As many of you already know, Barley’s adventures will continue, much as they have until now, on her dedicated Neocities page. To mark the occasion, I have made an 88x31 button that I invite people to use to link to her adventures. Her page also includes an RSS feed, so you can be notified of each post as it arrives. Those of you already reading this post on her new site may not be familiar with RSS. It’s worth looking into! I’m using Feeder at the moment, but there are many other RSS readers out there. As the 2010s model of social media continues to fragment and disintegrate, why not reacquaint yourself with reading blogs? One additional note: I…

Barley, a dog, stands in a sunny park with an expanse of grass behind her. Turning her head slightly away from the sun, she gives her own nose a real big lick. Taking Barley on walks on a bright and windy day is a distinct experience because she spends so much time simply allowing the world to come to her. We’ll be walking, and she’ll stop and face the wind and stand, her ribcage pulsing from the steady stream of little sniffs she makes to read the news. English does not, so far as I’m aware, have an olfactory equivalent of “staring,” so my temptation is to say that she stares into the distance, but I can’t say for certain how much she’s even paying attention to her eyes. For my part, the whole point of the walks, beyond mere exercise, is to get her out and about and stimulated by the world, so I just stop and wait. Eventually, she brings her vigil to a close with a BIG ole lick to the nose to reset the instrument.

Barley, a dog, trots down a forest path amid trees and ferns. A surprising number of dead, orange leaves are scattered about. It was quite odd to take Barley on this forest walk, and at first I couldn’t place what felt wrong. What I eventually realized is that by brain was having trouble reconciling the heat-wave temperatures of late July (when this photo was taken) with seeing so many dead leaves scattered about. I’m guessing this is some accidental byproduct of (a) the comparative dry summer around here and (b) the trail having the protection of just enough of a canopy of branches that much of the direct sunlight is scattered, slowing its ravaging influence.

Juniper, a dog, lies on the floor beside a red sofa and looks at an offscreen television with rapt attention. I absolutely did not appreciate the unusual intensity of Juniper’s relationship with television until after Barley had joined the household. In this ancient photo, we see Juniper at the very boundary of adulthood, still less than a year old, transfixed by the glowing noisebox. She was a bit less anxious, then, and a lot less picky, and would sit and watch just about anything with us, calm and quiet (unless some screenbeast wandered into frame, of course). Today, it’s easier to identify her comfort genres (sitcoms and cooking shows) by how every part of her body relaxes when she watches them, except her eyes, which remain wide.

Barley, a dog, sprawls on a sofa and, her chin on her paws, looks up from the armrest at the camera with a plaintive look. Barley does not, so far as I can tell, experience satiety cues. Even after a full meal, she will remain interested if folks around her are eating food, and will very much give you the eye to see if you might spare a bit for her. I realize that some consider this to be “bad manners” for a dog, but I’m skeptical of efforts to narrowly delimit acceptable dog behavior. As such, I’ll often give Barley a little taste of what I’m having, nothing that would spoil her appetite. In this particular case, Barley was the enthusiastic recipient of a tiny corner of an orange slice moments after this picture was taken.

Barley, a dog, sleeps on her belly with her head turned toward the camera, her snout resting on her paw as if she is striking a demure pose. I often crack wise about the limits of Barley’s stamina, but the truth is that mine isn’t anything to write home about either. As such, while she will sometimes come home from a long walk rather tired, she’s rarely so thoroughly knocked out by a walk that it would be fair to say she’s exhausted. The one terrain for which I hold a clear advantage, however, is hills. She gets tired very easily by steep uphill grades, possibly because they engage some of her secondary muscles differently. In this photograph, we see a Barley freshly home from a summer’s walk up various 15° to 25° grades, so pooped that she flopped onto the bed in a full sploot and could not be bothered to stand up again when sleep came for her.

Barley, a dog, examines a wide 180-degree turn on a downhill slope, such that a driver would round the bend, passing Barley as they do so, and receive their first glimpse of the shoreline at the end of a straightaway. An experience one gets used to living in an area that is at once hilly and woodsy is that a lot of roads need switchbacks to achieve a reasonable grade, but the trees limit your sight lines anywhere but along the road. This can create a feeling of suspenseful disorientation: It can be a bit hard to tell which direction you’re headed (beyond uphill or downhill), and your destination remains out of view, until you make that final turn that brings you, at least, back to the water’s edge. But upon reflection, I realize that Barley has likely never had this experience, because her experience of cars is one in which agency is not merely denied, it’s unimaginable. From her point of view, the boss says “Car Time” and so car time it is, but it’s a pure lottery every time she gets in. Will this drive bring us to the office? Or the grocery store? Or the vet?! No way to know. I imagine she merely experiences it in the moment, and so probably doesn’t have a sense of progress. And you can’t experience the buildup & release of suspense if you don’t have an expectation. Instead, the sea comes as a surprise. “Oh! OK, it’s Sea Time I…

Barley, a dog, sniffs about along the base of a weather-scarred wooden wall, its paint flaking off in large chunks after years of neglect. There’s an aesthetic conceit that is often explored in photography, that humanity’s creations are doomed to wither and decay, allowing nature, indefatigable, to reclaim its rightful place. It’s hard not to dwell on entropy when Barley pauses in front of some shed or garage that’s been deemed a sacrifice by its owner. In this instance, I can surmise that this garage is both too small for modern cars and too difficult to access, making its upkeep pointless. The truth is, of course, that we, and nature, are not special in entropy’s eyes. That which is neglected will decay, and it is only by a laborious uphill battle that anything is maintained. Nature merely seems robust because it is a fully decentralized effort, wherein each individual arc of creation and destruction is subsumed by the roiling wave of all those around it. Humanity’s works feel fragile because their upkeep is someone’s job, and too often, someone else’s job. So keep making. Keep building. Chip in. Bring in a load from the car. Don’t wait for someone else to fix it. You don’t need to give everything you’ve got if we’re all, as a wave, doing what we can.

Barley, a dog, stands in an unreasonably lush expanse of grass that extends to the edge of the frame on all sides. Small white flowers are scattered throughout, helping to give a sense of perspective. As much as suburbanites yearn for the lushest, dankest lawns that year-round sprinklers can buy, I think they’re far from Barley’s ideal. She’s not a fan of having so much mud between her toes that it starts to cake in, and a lawn this moist grows from soil that’s never fully dry. Laws on this scale present a further problem: With no obvious landmarks, she gets a kind of restlessness, sniffing at the ground less and less and favoring instead targets on the far horizon. In her perfect park, she’s never more than 100 feet from a tree, never more than 50 feet from a shrub. Like the cautious sailors before the Age of the Sail, she sticks close to the scented coastline, and hesitates to venture into the open ocean.

Barley, a dog, extends a pay past the edge of a throw pillow as she rests on a sofa, and her toe gently folds the corner of a magazine over on itself. I think Barley is probably a little frustrated by the amount of time I spend in office chairs. Like many dogs, she wants to be close. Not necessarily touching, but near enough that any small movements of your body will register. When I visit my parents, she will capitalize on the popularity of the living room couch as a venue, both for reading the paper and watching the news. Couches can mean snuggles, of course, but Barley’s quite happy simply to be quite near. She may stare at you for long periods of time, but don’t worry. That’s just because she loves you.

Juniper, a dog, nestles into a large throw cushion such that her front and back paws are bundled together on the cushion, while her butt pokes past its edge and rests on the couch directly. Unlike Barley, whose main rest posts are to bend into a face-covering croissant or to flop her body flat and sideways, Juniper prefers an approach that lets her paws touch. She’s he’s snuggling against you, she’s prone to putting multiple paws (sometimes all of her paws) on you to gently monitor your proximity, but on her own, she’ll just touch her own paws together instead. I’m just glad she can tell when she’s near to herself.

Barley, a dog, stands tall trying to see a little bit higher over the top of a wall made of concrete pavers where it joins an embankment built from loose stone. One of Barley’s signature moves is “I don’t understand that countertops exist.” It’s genuinely a blessing: I’ll be cooking up a tasty steak on the stove and she’ll wander into the kitchen in pursuit of that scent and then just look around like it’s a complete mystery where I’ve hidden a whole savory meal. So imagine my surprise when Barley clambered her way up this wall and started actively scanning back and forth (her head is a bit blurry because it was in motion) as if trying to see over this wall. My best guess is that there must have been some powerfully compelling scent, such as that of a cat, that was made very recently at this particular junction, and Barley’s just gotta know which way it went!

Barley, a dog, strikes a moody post as she lies comfortably in the dappled sunlight of a lazy late-summer afternoon. When relaxing with Barley indoors, her instinct is generally not only try to make eye contact, but to maintain it. Her appreciation of scritches is that much more evident when she locks eyes with you. When outdoors, however, her attention is always a bit more scattered. Often, I’ll speak to her while we’re, and as I do so, she’ll glance about, or scan the surroundings. She’s definitely not ignoring me, she’s taking in the info, but her sense of our team activity is a bit different from my sense of our conversation. The wind, I’m sure, carries a steady supply of New Clues compared to the bland steadiness of familiar indoor air, but more than that, I think it’s only on her home turf that Barley really fully relaxes.

Barley, a dog, rests on a sofa with her paws on the armrest, her head up, her ears forward, and her eyes alert. As much as Barley is a dog who lives in the moment, she certainly also lives with palpable concerns about the immediate future. Her concern when people leave is real, she can tell they are leaving, she’s knows what’s likely to happen next. Her hopes are similarly short-lived: A burst of enthusiasm when there’s a clue of looming good news. I don’t think she can project too much further into the future, though. I sometimes wish I could assure her that everything will be OK, that life will find its balance. Instead, I have to trust that she is resilient, that she’s already bounced back from so much, that she will survive.

Barley, a dog, stands calmly on a gravel path. behind her, a dirt path winds up an embankment otherwise full of greenery, and in the distance, the pilings of a tall bridge are visible, adorned with layers of colorful street art. Barley’s not nearly as muscular as she was when she first traveled cross-country, but she’s still plenty fit and plenty strong. Like a lot of distance runners, however, her legs have a bit of a stilt-like quality. The real power comes from muscles further up the leg, and she reflects their power with the cable-like thickness of the tendons in her forelimbs. Since I spend so much time watching her from behind, and up close, I don’t often get the chance to appreciate her standing tall, in profile, as she is here, and as the bridge in the background is also doing.

Barley, a dog, enters the frame from below as she pants happily while on a walk. Behind and above her, a wooded gulch extends into the distance. High above, a bridge allows a road to cross over the gulch entirely, bypassing it entirely. There’s something very appealing to me of a walking trail that passes under a very tall bridge. The sorts of bridges we have ready access to in most cities are, for completely practical reasons, rather grim places unloved by sunlight. There’s little question why such a spot would be a natural habitat for trolls. Here, by contrast, we can appreciate the simple miracles of civil engineering in the open air, in a space at once sunny and green, where the breeze is hardly affected and one can cross the road above with the feeling that it belongs to a wholly different world.

Barley, a dog, peers from a sofa through a window, her face overlaid by the reflections of blue sky and sun-dappled leaves. As disinterested as Barley is in watching yard work from the confines of a deck, she’s more motivated to do so when inside a house. This speaks to her strong sensibility that Inside Time and Outside Time are very different mental landscapes for her. My suspicion is that when she’s outside, and we’re outside, she’s thinking, “OK, we’re doing this, cool cool cool, they’re gonna come get me and we’ll hang,” whereas when we’re outside and she’s inside, her mind goes to a place of, “You’re coming back, right? You’re not going far, right?” She’s not fussy, she’s not trying to get our attention; I think she’s genuinely keeping tabs on us because she wants to know where we’re at. And should we slip out of her visual range, she’ll try to scope us out, and failing that she’ll find a good vantage point to monitor our likely path of return.

Juniper, a dog, lies in the grass on a dry, ‘resting’ lawn with her back to the camera, fussing with some small object (a ball) that is hidden from the camera’s view. Once Juniper has patrolled the perimeter and persuaded herself that all is well on the property, she will often plop herself down in a central location and hang out for a bit. If she has one of her tennis balls with her (as she often does), she may gently fuss with it a bit, although it is wholly unclear what she hopes to accomplish while doing so. As a dog who uses tennis balls as comfort objects, I have to wonder: Is she doting on it? Maybe, just maybe, she gains a sense of calm and relief from the burdens of the world by conveying to this inanimate object, in her own way, that “everything’s going to be fine.”

Barley, a dog, is slightly out of focus in the background. In the foreground, the surface of a picnic table upon which a series of commenters have written, “I like boobs,” “ME TOO,” and “We, too, love boobs.” I heard you thought this needed to be brought to a vote, but take a look: My ‘ayes’ are down here.

Barley, a dog, stands beside a wooden bench, painted green, beside a gravel path that has dense greenery encroaching upon it from all sides. There’s something very funny to me about parks conceived of after the fact, stitched together from land ill-suited for other uses. Such zones can vary a lot, from vast, featureless expanses of grass atop sealed landfills, to narrow, gerrymandered squiggles that trace the length of some natural ravine. This park is the latter sort, and as such has a single, unforking path that runs its length. The point, of course, is to provide a green space for people to enjoy, but there are really only two appropriate activities here: Wait or Proceed. This gives the path a feeling of purpose - someone must have cleared a path through this wilderness for a reason, so surely we must be going somewhere - but there is no destination of note at either end. It’s a paradoxical space, at once liminal and not, in which the only way to fully engage is to do nothing, because to do the only other thing available is to gradually depart, whether by taking the short way out or the long way.

Barley, a dog, lies on a raised deck and rests her head on its railing, giving the impression that she’s behind bars. When I visit my parents, there are inevitably a few bits of yard work that they’ve put off dealing with until someone Young And Strong (for certain values of both words) is available to help. While I’m pitching in, Barley will keep an eye on things from the deck, but it would be a stretch to say that she looks on with interest. Instead, unless some new person walks onto the property, she seems to zone out completely. As much as she enjoys a good sun basking, I suspect she’s otherwise not that big a fan of the deck, and mostly considers her time looking on as a dull interlude during which she has to wait in a corale that is altogether too far away from the rest of us, while we get to do inscrutable things down where all the interesting smells can be found.

Barley, a dog, sniffs with great intensity under a bench cut from a single thick log, in a park-like setting. Next to her is a big red chair. When Barley got her wish and made it to the big wooden bench mentioned yesterday, she certainly didn’t seem disappointed. On the contrary, she started sniffing hither and thither, spending a long time sniffing around under the bench. So far as I can tell, she never found anything, but her enthusiasm was sustained. Eventually, she started sniffing in a somewhat wider radius, and we made our way elsewhere. On the basis of this experience, I suspect (although this is pure speculation) that her initial desire to approach this specific location may have been because she caught the scent of a cat. If a stray cat had previously taken shelter under this bench (say, the night before), perhaps what Barley was so intently snuffling was a lingering feline afterscent.

Barley, a dog, makes her way through a park-like setting, and is particularly keen to approach a big red chair and a bench at the edge of the frame. With sunny summer weather comes the opportunity to take Barley on longer, more meandering walks, and I’ll often simply let Barley decide on our direction of travel for stretches of time (within reason). Given this latitude, she will sometimes pick a heading and pursue it with alarming vigor, as if she’s sighted some distant landmark, only to sort of lose steam after a couple hundred feet. I presume, in those cases, she’s following some scent on the wind that I’ll never know about. On the other hand, in the scenario here depicted, her target was very obviously visual. She really wanted to go check out this bench.

Barley, a dog, is curled up and sleeping on a bedspread of tumultuous blues and whites. This particular bedspread always gives me the impression of a stormy sea, with its Jackson-Pollock-dribbles of white transformed into whitecaps by the lumpy loftiness of the underlying duvet. Barley, curled up and comfy, and having sunk into that softness just a bit, seems all the world like the one steady atoll amid the chaos. Or at least, she does until the dreams come, and with them the sleep woofs and leg wiggles.

Juniper, a dog, lies on the grass with her head and shoulders in the shade of a mesh sun chair. She looks up at the camera, as a tennis ball rests between her elbows. Juniper is not a fan of playing tug. Nevertheless, she has a well-developed sense of “this is mine at the moment,” and is a little fussy about this sense of ownership. If teased with threats to take the object away, she has the opposite of Barley’s response - instead of flaunting the object defiantly, she slinks off with the object to some place she won’t be bothered so much. I suspect this is why so many of her toys make their way into her crate. Best way to keep her treasures safe, after all.

Barley, a dog, slumps her body against the backrest of a couch in order to look out a window, in effect lying down and sitting up at the same time. When someone leaves, Barley likes to keep tabs on their last known vector, as if she knows it’s also their most likely angle of approach. If you leave her in a car, for example, she’ll stay in the backseat if you walk away from the trunk side, but you’ll find her waiting in the front seat if you walk away from the car’s front half. So it is in the home: She notes each departure, and while she’s not glued to the window, she’ll gravitate back to the scene of her last sighting if nothing else is going on. This points to a rare source of inner conflict: She wants to be near where people are, but she also wants to keep an eye for the return of the departed, and she’ll sometimes commit to one location for a while, then meander back to the other. More often, she’ll try to split the difference, posting up in the spot that keeps her at least within earshot of nearby humans but lets her put eyes on returning folks as soon as they arrive.

Barley, a dog, stands in front of a bizarre terraced yard made from concrete and bare earth that extends up and out of frame. This time, there is a handrail. Here we are, over a year later, and I am no closer to understanding the ziggurat yard. The earth along the road and back-filling the tiers are still bare earth, home to only tiny weeds that are still too small to have drawn the ire of whatever dark will has decided that this will be a monument to the inanimate, an edifice of desolate order. However, it now has a handrail. This was not part of the original design, and close examination reveals that it is being held in place by simple concrete screws that were sunk after the fact. To me, this exactly the same flavor of environmental storytelling as a sign in a shop forbidding some weirdly specific behavior: It’s a clue to a story that unfolded in the interim. For her part, Barley could not be less interested in these scaled-up LEGOs. Nothing here piqued her interest as even being worthy of a sniff. I had to cajole her to stay put while I took the photo, because she was eager to move on to (both literally and figuratively) greener pastures.

Barley, a dog, makes her way through an area of brown, desiccated grass, running from one edge of the frame to the other. It took me far longer than I care to admit to understand that dormant grass isn’t “dead” grass that “comes back to life” with the rain. It’s such a striking transformation in color and texture that the temptation to frame the change in terms of life or death comes strong, and in casual conversation it doesn’t feel like a meaningful distinction. As I’ve grown older, I increasingly see the capacity grass has to roll with the seasonal punches as a distinct and remarkable superpower. Imagine finding a long-forgotten, shriveled mummy behind a wall in your house, giving them a couple of gallons of water and some granola bars, and having the person fill back out and wake up as if they’d simply been hibernating.

Barley, a dog, lies contentedly on a sofa, panting in such a way as to give a big smile. There are a bunch of distinctly canine behaviors that Barley doesn’t exhibit very strongly. For example, she doesn’t engage in any herding behaviors. Still, there are little clues that hint at her inner desires. After all, the thing that vexes a lot of dogs with a strong herding instinct is when people disperse - they like for everyone to be hanging out in the same place. Barley never puts up a fuss when people go their separate ways, but it’s clear that people coming together is one of her favorite things. She loves when guests come over, she loves it when folks are in my office for meetings, she loves running up to and joining a group. Here, we see her pleased as punch at the end of a long drive, getting to sit on the sofa with my and my parents while we all catch up.

Barley, a dog, sniffs along the left, grassy edge of a gravel road with lush greenery on either side and leafy branches hanging overhead, casting pleasant, gentle shadows. Quite a few of the neighborhoods near work are crisscrossed by city blocks that remain unpaved. These “Roadway Not Improved” blocks are a remnant of a bygone era in which it was up to property owners to build the roads that would connect their unincorporated parcels to the rest of the roadways. Today, they feel to a townie like myself as though someone forgot to “finish the town.” Giving it a bit more thought, however, I suspect these roads have remained unimproved for decades because of more than just homeowners trying to avoid the considerable extra expense. Provided you’ve got a car that can handle a few potholes, these unpaved side streets are kind of nice. They get a lot less traffic, so they feel pedestrian-friendly (which is good, because they’re also usually too narrow to support sidewalks), and the road’s substrate is such that, if a car does pass through, you can hear them coming. Beyond that, there’s a rustic “less is more” aesthetic that appeals to me about these blocks. Just let stuff grow, growing things are easy on the eye! Replacing this scene with an entirely forgettable asphalt surface would no doubt have some advantages, but I’d consider it a visual downgrade.

Barley, a dog, leaps after a yellow seahorse toy that has been thrown. Both Barley and the toy show signs of motion blur, as well as a more subtle halo of “unenhancement blur.” Picking up on last week’s theme of “photos of my dog that are blurry,” I revisited this older photo recently and noticed something interesting. Barley and her seahorse Stella are blurry - this is unsurprising, since both are in motion. However, look carefully at the areas around them both, in particular the carpet. The ‘radius’ of blurring caused directly by Barley’s motion looks to be within 16 pixels or so, as judged from tracking the blur on her collar. The carpet in the background around Barley, however, is blurry to out to four or five times that distance. Go ahead and zoom in, see if you can spot the weird halo effect in the carpet around Barley. It’s at though parts of the camera had more time to get its act together, but couldn’t quite figure out what it was looking as it got closer to the action. I suspect this is a tell regarding just how much post-processing a camera phone does before presenting you with an image. I bet this camera took a lengthy burst of captures from its CMOS sensor, did an analysis of which regions were sufficiently stable to keep, and stitched this photo together from a mix of high-data/low-speed sampling from the periphery and low-data/high-speed sampling from the objects in motion. That…

Juniper, a dog, hangs out in her crate with her beloved stuffies, watching out the open door from within the shadow cast by a crocheted blanket draped over its top. Juniper will (approximately) play fetch, but when she runs to get one her plush toys, it’s almost always to carry it to safety in her crate. At any given time, most of her toys are in her crate. If she’s going to play with one of her toys outside her crate, it’s usually because she’s already very relaxed. Toys + excitement = the “gotta get them to safety!” game. It’s a game she seems to enjoy; she’s not distressed by her toys being out and about. But she does like to decompress in there when she’s overly activated, so one presumes she’s looking out for their wellbeing.

Barley, a dog, sniffs at the base of a spiky ball of a shrug, about as tall as she is. Since dogs seem to have a collect agreement as to which landmarks are suitably appealing to become places to leave their mark, Barley’s investigations make her seem like some sort of shrub snob. She is not interested in your flowers, get out of here with flowers. Give her them shruuuubs! I feel like I’m watching a kid pick out the lima beans from their plate of mixed canned vegetables. “No to those, but yes to this!”

Barley, a dog, is out of focus in the foreground. Above her is a piece of driftwood, balanced precariously over blue water atop concrete wave breakers. At the tip of that piece of wood sits a tiny, barely discernable bird. Unlike yesterday’s photo, the subject of this photo is in focus: That tiny brown raptor sitting way out on the end of that balanced piece of wood. It remained perfectly still on its strange perch, apart from some small head movements, even after I spent a while waiting to see what it would do. Barley, for her part, never even seemed to notice the bird, being much more preoccupied with smelling and tasting the salt-water air.

Barley, a dog, stands in front of a striking tree. She is both out of focus and blinking at the time of the photo. I’ve certainly taken plenty of bad pictures of Barley that I’ve deleted, but I’m impressed by how perfectly I failed with this one. We have a nice, stable shot of the wrong subject, with Barley just out of focus enough to feel like an interloping defect in her own photo, and I somehow caught her mid-blink! It just goes to show, no matter how much the camera loves its subject, there’s always going to need to be a photographer who isn’t asleep at the wheel to ensure that the resulting photo is any good!

In the left panel, Barley, a dog, sits behind a screen door, her tail wagging fast enough to create motion blur. In the right panel, she looks up excitedly at someone approaching, whose legs are just coming into the frame. Barley handles being left on her own well, inasmuch as she doesn’t whine, doesn’t howl, doesn’t act out or get destructive. There is every indication that she pines silently for the departed for a little while, then goes to sleep. But she never really spends that much time alone - it’s rare for her to be on her own more than two or three hours - and I still wonder whether, in spite of her good behavior, she still experiences sadness when her humans depart. Her enthusiasm whenever anyone familiar arrives, whether they’ve been gone for ten minutes or six months, is always quite pronounced, so because her time alone is actually pretty minimal, I don’t think it’s out of the question that her joy at folks arriving probably adds up to a net positive when balanced against her sadness at folks leaving.

Barley, a dog, walks past a mysterious pile of something that is covered in a heavy green plastic tarp, the entire perimeter of which is weighed down by large, flat stones. Look, I know this is probably some pile of boring raw materials that, for whatever reason, need to avoid getting rained on while some project is in progress, but I for the life of me cannot get the thought out of my head that a shrub got in over its head with some loan sharks and is now getting violently iced by blocking the rays of the life-giving sun. What kind of racket has this yard got going on?!

Barley, a dog, stands on a wooden deck in the late afternoon and faces the sun. Barley closes her eyes and extends her tongue, making a little blep. Barley looks away from the sun and extends her tongue more fully, touching her nose. Barley will quite often, stop and deliver these thousand-yard stares that appear very thoughtful. It’s only by watching her nose and the subtle rhythm of her ribcage to see that she’s probably not looking at all, but is instead smelling. Indeed, she almost always does this facing into the wind, it’s just that the air motion can be so subtle as to hardly register as a breeze if you aren’t paying attention. Having given a sufficient sniff, the tongue must do its thing, and reset her sniffer for maximum acuity.

Juniper, a dog, rests on her giant dog bed with her beloved and immaculate monkey plush. The extent to which Juniper Is Baby, even as she is solidly middle-aged, is something only witnessed by those she has become fully comfortable around. For all her wariness, all her patrolling of the perimeter, all her barking at passing cars, I think the thing Juniper wants most dearly is for things to be safe and chill. Inevitably, some of the unrest in her life comes from within, but I don’t doubt that Juniper hopes that someone could Take Care Of It and let her unwind.

Barley, a dog, stands before a shallow earthen embankment around a shadowed depression in the ground. It is a sunny day. Here’s what the summer’s multiple heat waves have managed to do to the on-again-off-again pond that offered brief refuge to those ducks I posted about a bit ago. Well, nothing here for a duck right now. This will serve merely as a potential duck getaway for now, until the seasons bring back the rains and pairs of ducks who need some alone time.

Barley, a dog, stands on a sidewalk that extends straight ahead to a vanishing point. Because the surrounding yards are lush in their floral appointments and fencing, this vanishing point is the only one available within the frame. I’m a big fan of “just walking around a bunch,” but the professional grind of adult life has been such that, until I became a dog owner, there wasn’t usually time to do so. My favorite experience of walking around is getting a feel for a neighborhood. Even neighborhoods that feel bad or dull are interesting for their ability to evoke such feelings. I recognize, though, that my ability to turn my experience of a neighborhood into an overall conceptual object I can ponder after the fact, requires a big-picture perspective on the world that Barley probably isn’t bringing to the table. I imagine her worldview is far more fragmentary and disconnected. “Oh hey, I can smell the ocean today, cool (End of thought).” My impression is that she has a pretty poor navigational sense for any space larger than a small house, so it may well be that the idea of “a neighborhood” is already too large for her mental buffer.

Barley, a dog, relaxes on her fluffy new dog bed, her limbs sinking deep into the fluffy piling of the plush texture. For the first week or so, Barley gave the new dog bed a wider berth than I would have expected, and I was beginning to worry that she didn’t much like it, but I think she just needed to get used to it. It’s a little too slidey for her taste, I think, and I might put some of that adhesive webbing for carpets on the bottom to make it a little more stable, but I may not need to, as she’s getting the hang of how much support it provides when she flops down onto it.

Barley, a dog, lifts her paw as she is about to step down from the curb and into the street, because further passage is blocked by a flowering bush. One of the thousand little things I enjoy watching Barley do is evaluate how to navigate changes in elevation. Often, these moments of assessment are fleeting, but they’re not instantaneous. Even stepping down from this curb, a smaller altitude change than a typical staircase step, warrants a momentary focusing of her attention, which I can see from where I’m standing by watching her ears pivot forward to better take in any sounds on her current heading.

Barley, a dog, tugs at once end of a thoroughly chewed stick while her buddy, a golden retriever, tugs at the other. It’s been a good summer for doggy playdates, and Barley has had a number of highly stimulating hangouts with bigger, younger dogs who are happy to test the limits of her modest endurance. What’s been especially nice is that once there’s an element of routine to it all, there’s very little need for the two to re-determine their relative dominance roles. They can instead settle right into important matters, like whose stick this is.

Barley, a dog, curls up under a bench seat and peers outward vigilantly. I’ve written in the past about Barley’s fearful aversion to big badda booms, and I thought for sure that the month of July was going to be a breeze when she handled the fireworks on the 4th just fine (admittedly, it was an uncharacteristically quiet Fireworks Day in my neighborhood this year). So I was caught off guard by her reaction when, a couple weeks later, a major thunderstorm rolled through without much warning. Big, window-rattling thunder sent Barley in search of shelter, and I discovered her trying out hiding spots she’s never tried before! Among others, she curled up in an unlit bathroom and wouldn’t come when called, which led to me wandering the apartment for several minutes trying to find her. Thankfully, the storm was as fast-moving as it was violent, and within 20 minutes the weather was back to normal, but Barley stayed spooky for hours, only really returning to her normal self after she had some dinner. (Full disclosure: This is not a photo from that particular storm, but rather a different ‘take shelter’ incident some years earlier. In her most recent panic, she insisted on staying in very dark rooms, and I figured in that context that it would be a bad time to use my flash.)

Juniper, a dog, gingerly eats a sampling of mixed cooked vegetables from an artichoke-themed bowl. In contrast to Barley (who will eat almost anything), Juniper is a notoriously picky eater. Partly, this is a matter of anxiety: She usually only eats when she feels safe, and as such (a) won’t eat just anywhere (having her back to an open room is not the ambiance she’s looking for) and (b) will hold off eating for an alarmingly long time if things haven’t “settled” (e.g., if there are houseguests). But beyond that, she is also discerning. She loves cheese, but if you hide a pill she needs to eat in some cheese, you need to watch her carefully to make sure she doesn’t eat around the pill and discard it. So it’s quite interesting that she is as interested as she is in the food the humans are eating. There is a social dynamic that she clearly buys into, because if there’s a big dinner with a lot of prep and she’s given just a little bit of the food to sample, she seems to set her standards aside, eats whatever she is given enthusiastically, and then trots off with what seems for all the world like a sense of accomplishment.

Barley, a dog, trots along the earthen ground beside a fence made of spaced horizontal boards. I’m sometimes given to wonder: What’s the best type of fence for dogs? I don’t mean what type of fence is best for dog owners. I mean, if we accept as a given that a barrier must be erected that a dog cannot cross, what properties should that barrier have that best serve the short- and long-term interests of that dog? I think spaced boards, almost certainly, right? If I were a dog, I’d want to see what’s on the other side of the fence, and a nice spacing lets scents come through. Probably, a horizontal spacing would also be preferred, since there’s bound to be a gap that’s pretty comfortably eye-level. So maybe this is the perfect fence?! Much to consider.

Barley, a dog, snoozes atop a bedspread, seeming especially flat today. As a one-time Florida Dog, Barley doesn’t shy away from heat, and even managed tolerate it better than some of her floofier dog buddies. Given some of the heat waves we’ve experienced in recent weeks, a pretty common reaction to getting home from a walk of even moderate length has been to rehydrate and then pass entirely out, sleeping way more deeply than she normally does at midday.

Barley, a dog, walks through a world that, to the naked eye, seems almost suspiciously uniform in its textures. Since my walking-the-dog photos are often very spontaneous, I don’t recall having more than a fleeting notion, “hey, nice yard coming up,” as I fished my phone out of my pocket with my free hand. Looking at the photo now, it’s honestly almost too perfect. What neat and tidy mulch, so uniform in its height and miraculously kept off the sidewalk. What healthy, vibrant plants! Even the sidewalk has a “high-res public domain texture pack” energy to it. What if this is all a simulation, including me?! What if I’m a piece of software written for Barley’s benefit?! (Obviously, there’s no question that Barley is a genuine guest of the virtual space, because all agree that she’s a Real One.)

Barley, a dog, walks past a set of stepping stones framed by bleached white gravel, with rich, dark garden soil freshly laid to either side. I’m one of those people who finds oil painting in progress to be very confusing, because I only have the faintest notion of what it would mean to paint the dark colors first and then layer the lighter colors atop them. I’m sure there are similar plans for this yard - the visible tag on a freshly planted shrub suggests that I’ve caught this yard in pre-production, with further shrubs to come that will in time grow to fill the space. Even so, the stark contrast of this footpath struck me so mightily that I had my phone out a half a block in advance of reaching it.

Barley, a dog, proffers up her toy donkey in the hopes of play time. Playtime is not coming fast enough! Barley’s head and tail are in motion to try to make tug (or, failing that, fetch) happen! Barley is generally pretty good at letting me know when she’s got energy that she needs to burn off through play. She’ll present me with a toy and will either play tug/keepaway with it, or (and only if I tell her to ‘drop it’) she’ll get ready to chase the toy down when I throw it before parading around with it, thrashing as she goes. She’ll just as suddenly signal when she’s done messing about, which doesn’t take long at all, so I can almost always make the time indulge her when she asks.

Barley, a dog, cuts her trek perpendicular with respect to the stepping stones that clearly indicate the path preferred by the landscaper, and she does so with a flourish of the tongue. Barley is not immune to level design. She can often intuit more or less what path I intend to take while we’re out on a walk, and steers toward those practical avenues, but once she gets a whiff of something interesting, it’s a whole other story. If she doesn’t stop dead in her tracks, she might drag me right into some shrubbery! As such, I usually keep a pretty close eye on Barley for the whole duration of a walk, because I often only have split-second of warning before she goes off-road.

Juniper, a dog, sits excitedly on a lawn chair with her ears up and her mouth open, visibly jazzed that her ball is about to be thrown. As so many dogs with working breeds in her lineage, Juniper often bring a certain “let me at ‘em!” energy to her play. She is very keen to chase when commanded, so throwing a ball is going to be a big hit, but once she’s in motion, she doesn’t always being the ball right back. Getting up to full speed overcomes a lot of her “I need to be a good girl” inhibitions and she sometimes just runs. When the spirit moves her, she may snatch up the ball and keep going, making several laps around the yard until she finally flops onto her belly and drops the ball to more effectively pant. It’s probably for the best that she’s never really had the luxury of long straightaways, because she’s already real fast, and if she were any faster it would probably only run the risk of getting her into trouble some day.

Barley, a dog, sniffs about among the grasses at the base of a telephone pole, unaware of the stereotypes she is reinforcing. It’s clear that Barley recognizes when she is in unfamiliar territory, because she sniffs longer and with greater intensity at all the signature canine landmarks. He check-ins with favored spots are a bit more perfunctory when it’s a spot she walk past almost every day. What’s unclear is how she feels about all this new information she’s presumably taking in. She’s activated, sure, but is she happy? Nervous? Are the edges of her vision darkening at the scent of some local cat who she imagines she might run down? Beyond knowing that she’s excited to go on walks and very engaged during them, so much of her private musings will forever remain mysterious. I don’t think I’d dwell on this so much if it weren’t for Barley’s limited theory of mind, because she clearly assumes I’m thinking what she’s thinking!

Barley, a dog, scans a lush fringe between the sidewalk and a fence while moving forward at a brisk pace. Barley’s a photogenic dog, which is lucky for me because she also doesn’t know that cameras exist, and as such is conceptually unable to mug for them. As such, I often end up photographing her “on the hoof.” I’m quite grateful that the modern digital cameras have such impressive (figurative) shutter speed, because between her walking speed and my efforts to try to keep the phone steady, I feel like these photos ought by rights to be much blurrier than they generally turn out.

Barley, a dog, curls up with a frilly pillow while snoozing on a bedspread. Barley’s not the loudest snorer, but she’s definitely a snorer. The emergence of her rhythmic little honks generally marks the moment she’s well and truly asleep, as opposed to merely dozing. Since they’re pretty soft and rhythmic, they’re not something that get in the way of my falling asleep each night. On occasions when I’m having trouble getting to sleep, what can sometimes get me in trouble is Barley dreaming, which generally sets in 15-20 minutes after the snoring starts. So it behooves me to tuck in when I feel good and ready to sleep, and not before, since I’ve got about a 15 minute window to lose consciousness before the soothing rhythm of Barley’s snores give way to sleep wiggles and dream woofs.

Barley, a dog, stands at the back of a small chapel. The view down the aisle reveals a raised stage and a pair of modest pipe organs. There’s something very curious to me about rooms and buildings that retain their form purely out of momentum and nostalgia. This chapel, for example, is located within an institution that has operated in an entirely secular way for nearly 100 years. Despite having lost its function, the chamber’s form and furniture remain trapped in amber. Since the space nevertheless gets used (mostly for administrative meetings and the occasional spoken word performance), the echoes of sermons long past were far less compelling than the smell of what I must assume are a bunch of unfamiliar folk, because boy howdy was she excited to sniff up and down the length of the pews.

Barley, a dog, walks along a footpath through lush greenery. The sun shines brightly through the leaves above, turning the earth of the path into a vivid cowprint pattern. In my youth, I knew a older professor whose every move was wracked by visible discomfort. I would eventually come to learn that she had been beset by an aggressive form of arthritis in her 20s, and had spent most of her adult life managing inflammation. She had spent a big chunk of her earlier life in Colorado, and I once asked her if she was considering moving back there when she retired. After all, that seemed like a climate that would make her arthritis more tolerable. She casually shook her head and said she intended to stay in the Pacific Northwest. She recounted the first impression the region when she came to visit campus to interview for the job she would eventually get. The first night of her stay, she called her husband from the hotel, and without so much as a salutation, she began the conversation in an almost frenzied tone: “It’s so fucking green!“

Barley, a dog, is curled up on a fluffy, well-stuffed new dog bed. She is glancing at the camera to see what all the fuss is about. Barley is now the proud steward of a new dog bed. The old bed, which was beginning to look a little threadbare, will go to my parents, where it will remain as an accessory for Barley’s future visits. Given the goofy levels of fluff in this new bed, I can’t help but ponder the ways in which this sort of dog bed is not meaningfully different than a plush toy. Despite this, and despite having many such toys, Barley at no point looked at this bed and saw a beast she could thrash. She understood immediately that this is softness on which to loaf. How does she make that distinction? Don’t get me wrong, I’m also very grateful that she doesn’t see throw pillows as toys, either, but she’s carving the objects of the world into practical categories really effectively, so naturally I’m curious what she’s relying on to do so.

Juniper, a dog, sits atop a flurry white floor mat in what appears to be a bathroom. As much as she feels a strong bond to her people, Juniper also has her own routine and habits. At times, she craves a solitary nap in a cozy nook; at others, she wishes to monitor the property and patrol its perimeter. But at other times, she goes full velcro dog and will insist, as politely as she can, on accompanying you into the bathroom.

Barley, a dog, stands atop a partially submerged stretch of black plastic sheeting that was no doubt at one time buried in order to prevent weeds from growing in a yard. Of the various tools used to sculpt a yard into a particular image, few are as radical as the roll of plastic sheeting. From the point of view of any germinating seeds that are unfortunate enough to find themselves beneath it, its denial of sun or moisture has an almost Eternal-Cylinder-esque kind of brutality, a wholly unnatural thing carving a boundary through an otherwise typical ecosystem. A major weak spot for such sheeting, however, is that is flat curvature is never a precise match to a yard’s topography, and the folding and wrinkling needed to shape it to the terrain’s contours are the cracks in the fortress through which the natural world can fight back. Given a sustained floral seige, and without steady reinforcement, the fate of any such boundary is to gradually be surfaced by erosion and undone by each days thousand little disruptions. In this respect, Barley pawing at this weird noisy boundary is just her doing her part to help.

Barley, a dog, runs down a grassy hill that is speckled with tiny wildflowers on a sunny summer day, with a brick building just visible at the edge of the frame. 🎼And if I only could 🐶I’d make a deal with dog 🎵And I’d put her through her paces 🎤Be runnin’ down that road 🎶Be runnin’ down that hill 🕺Be runnin’ to that buildin’

Barley, a dog, snoozes in her crate next to a star-shaped toy that sports a torn-off arm and a googly-eyed look of astonishment. Barley, a dog, lying beside her mended toy, which looks no less surprised. If a toy isn’t going to stand up to Barley’s attention, it’s usually evident within minutes. Despite being billed as a “tough” toy for “heavy chewers,” this star(fish?) didn’t stand a chance. After giving it a thrashing, Barley began grinding her way through one its arms with her hind teeth, a relentless scissoring effect that I’ve yet to see fail. Less than ten minutes after making its introduction, the toy had to be taken from her, so sorry was its state. However, After taking out a lot of stuffing and sewing up the hole, it has survived subsequently without incident. A good thing too, because this was a gift from one of her fans! So I’d feel terrible if I had to trash it the very day she received it. There’s something about the toy being stuffed tight that makes it much more enticing to chew. Maybe it has good mouthfeeth, or maybe some instinct kicks in that “this one’s got a thick hide, gotta get through it!” Either way Barley has almost never been destructive once a toy is floppy enough to bend under its own weight.

Barley, a dog, lies on a futon. She rests her head against a green plush dragon with a tartan-coded belly, and dreams. The tag that came with this laughably inexpensive plushie for dogs told me its name was “Dream.” Everything about this line of toys, of which I’ve now seen at least a dozen different models, reads “tax incentive,” from the gossamer-thin materials, to a list price so low that they were likely being sold at a loss, to a promise that “one dollar would go to charity” for every toy purchased. The dragon’s tartan-coded underbelly was especially flimsy, and Barley managed to breach the fabric during her very first tussle with the beast. And yet, now stitched back up with upholstery thread and lighter by a leg, a snout, and about half of its stuffing, the dragon has now reached equilibrium and is one of Barley’s favorites, alongside other crappy toys from the same product line. They become her pillows as often as not, making it all the easier to go to sleep the moment she has decided she’s done playing. It’s impossible to say what sort of bond she might feel with the dragon, but it’s charming to me how much she favors it.

Barley, a dog, trots along contentedly in some moist grass, and does not appear to have noticed a pair of ducks (one male, one female) sitting in the grass on the opposite side of the path. There’s a ring of earth near my office that, whenever we get heavy rain for a couple days in a row, gradually fills to become a small, brackish pool about the size of a picnic blanket. A couple times a year, for the last three or four years, a pair of mallards will show up and hang out by the pool until it dries out. I have no idea if it’s the same ducks every year, perhaps stopping through as part of a migratory journey, but this pond fills in quite irregularly, so it seems like it would be a fantastic coincidence for them to always pass through at just the right time. Mallards also don’t generally form pair bonds that are stable over multiple breeding seasons, so it’s very possible that it’s been a different pair of ducks every time, and that this is simply a “nice spot for at most two ducks.” In any case, I try to steer Barley well clear of these visitors (photo ops notwithstanding) so she doesn’t scare them off. Fortunately, she’s not especially excited by birds, so even if she notices them at a distance, she’s pretty indifferent to their presence.

Barley, a dog, sniffs at the ground as she walks past a rose bush. She does not show any sign of stopping. The warm temperatures recently have had a range of effects on local yards, and those who have been putting in the work to keep their plants from wilting have been able to bank on tropical levels of growth. As usual, however, Barley’s appreciation for the floral arts remains minimal.

Juniper, a dog, stands in a fence yard, her body clearly visible in profile. A slight zigzag is visible in her tail. A detail of Juniper’s tail that photos don’t quite do justice is that it has two permanent “kinks” that give it a characteristic zigzag. She was born in a shelter with these, and they don’t give her any trouble at all. According to the shelter operators, this is fairly common in large litters (Juniper was the born the smallest of eleven puppy siblings), because when the womb gets very crowded, a few tail vertebrae can become fused at slightly arbitrary angles. When we met Juniper’s sister Kona by happenstance, we learned that Kona’s tail is fused in three places, at angles that give her a permanent corkscrew tail. They say that from crooked timber, no straight thing is ever made, but zigzag or no, Juniper’s as straight-shooting a dog as they come.

Barley, a dog, stands at the base of a telephone poll where neighbors have put up a handmade sign of a weary sloth hanging from a yellow “Slow Down” diamond. I’m a bit disturbed at the thought of what sort of motorist Barley would be. I don’t think a car would be enough for her. When her batteries are fully charge, she’s ready to go fast! She’d probably get the cheapest, gnarliest sportsbike she could and then sink three times its value into illegal mods before careening around the back streets at 150 miles per hour. Fortunately for me, Barley is not a streetracing delinquent, but is, in fact, a dog who knows nothing of horsepower.

Barley, a dog, lies like a lump on a throw cushion. It’s clear from the paw she has propped up that her nails have recently been trimmed. In French, one idiom for a hangover is “la gueule de bois” (literally, “wooden mouth”). Unrelatedly, “elle aboie” means “she barks.” So you see, I’ve devised an amusing (if somewhat ungrammatical) little pun to mark this photo of Barley’s deflated mood in the afternoon after getting her teeth cleaned and nails trimmed at the vet. Worry not: By the time night fell, she was mostly back to her old self, and the next day you couldn’t even tell she’d been out of sorts.

Barley, a dog, is out of focus in the foreground, with the waiting room of a veterinary office in the background. Barley recently went in for her regular check-up and teeth-cleaning, and these days she’s always alert and nervous when we arrive. In a way, she’s a victim of her own good health: At just about every check-up in recent memory she has maintained a spotless record, and there have been no emergencies. That means, if she’s going in, it’s pretty much always going to coincide with her teeth being cleaned, which means general anesthesia, which in turns means she both shows up hungry and gets no treats while she’s there! Add on top of that the impression she gives of really disliking the post-procedure hangover. If I brought her in more often, she’d probably get a lot more treats and leave with a lot less of a wooly brain. So it’s not hard to see why she’d be nervous in the waiting room!

Barley, a dog, trots past some tall trees in a pleasantly park-like environment. When Barley lived in Florida, there were the thickets of swamp shrubbery that, thanks to the climate, had a great deal more jungle caché than the more coniferous flora in her current home. Within days of first discovering them, she had worked out which parts of the wall of leaves would offer no resistance, and had mapped out for herself a handful of shortcuts through that underbrush. When she got zoomies and would tear around the yard, she’d charge headlong into the thicket at a handful of spots and emerge on the other side a second later having lost none of her momentum. These paths were too low and too narrow for even a child to crawl through comfortably, so I had no chance of being able to accompany her on one of those tunnel runs. I say all this because it occurs to me that this sort of slightly woodsy park is probably the closest she and I will ever get to sharing a trot off the path and through the underbrush. Given that I can’t really trust her off leash, especially if she’s happy to go where I can’t follow, I’m left to wonder about the evergreen speederbike chases she might get up to if I wasn’t there to keep her out of trouble.

Barley, a dog, trots along the base of a brand-new fence, whose overlapping boards have the yellow gleam of wood that has not yet spent much time in the sun. There’s something exciting about most “new” thing. Being in a brand new car, even a relatively modest one, feels like stepping into the hyperreality of film. A new phone or new computer has a crisp cleanness that feels full of potential. Even new furniture is a big exciting. But I’ve never felt that way about outdoor structures made of unfinished wood. This fence doesn’t so much look new to me as it looks raw. My mind slightly recoils with the precise distaste I feel for those semi-raw “bake them the rest of the way at home” loaves of bread some supermarkets will sell you. The fence is still underbaked, but not for long, if this summer sun has anything to say about it.

Barley, a dog, look plaintively through a living room window at the photographer, her paws daintily positioned on the back the sofa she is half-standing, half-sitting on. When visiting my parents, there’s routinely a to-do list of yard work they ask me to assist with, mostly involving cutting back the very highest branches of various trees using a comically long pole pruner. If there’s no one left in the house when I go outside without her, Barley often keeps anxious tabs on my movements, her paws resting on the back of the sofa as you see them here.

Juniper, a dog, happily (if sleepily) chills atop the sofa by the window, as is her want, at the edge of a wide show portraying her living room. After a hard day’s work protecting and patrolling the homestead, Juniper loves nothing more than to be with her people as they watch some light television. She is, however, only sometimes a snugglebug. Just as often, she keeps her distance and chills somewhere elevated that she can lie down and keep an eye on everyone. Be a shame to lose that high-ground advantage, after all.

Barley, a dog, trots happily alongside the curb of a street with green gardens but no sidewalks. The presence or absence of sidewalks feels very arbitrary among the streets where Barley often walks. Frome one block to the next, they end just as abruptly as they begin, sometimes only lasting a fraction of a block. Of course, traffic is very light anyway, so this doesn’t pose a particular hazard to dog walkers like myself, so long as I remain vigilant. Perhaps the reason for this inconsistency is one of the mysteries bestowed upon a person when they become a homeowner.

Barley, a dog, sniffs among some greenery. Above her someone has suspended a stormtrooper helmet from Star Wars on a branch. Word is, deer have been encroaching further and further into the surrounding neighborhoods as developers figure out ways to turn the steepest, most uneven plots of land in the area into additional homes. I presume this cinematic icon was put in the yard in the hopes of giving them pause. Much as it startled me the first time I turned the corner and saw it, it doesn’t seem to have alarmed Barley one bit. I doubt she even recognizes it as face- or head-like.

Barley, a dog, lies in the sun on a love seat, atop an incongruously vivid fleece throw depicting brightly colored lizards. Barley’s a very light shedder, and my parents don’t go too far out of their way put protections in place, but one step they always take is to tuck in a throw blanket on the sofa and loveseat, because the seat cushions aren’t well suited to getting laundered. This has revealed a pretty dramatic array of fleeces that I had never realized they owned, presumably purchased at clearance prices during some sale or another over the years.

Barley, a dog, tromps her way through a row of small white flowers in someone’s yard. As I’ve documented before, Barley is disinterested in flowers to a comical degree. They are, by far, the yard plants she finds least compelling. Ironically, this means I need to pay more attention when she’s near them, because humans do care quite a bit for the flowers in their yard, and she could do quite a bit of damage if she were given free reign to stampede through them to get at the more interesting woody shrubs that provide their backdrop.

Barley, a dog, awakens briefly from a snooze on the futon, opening an eye but otherwise remaining as she is. Her paw is propped up on a throw pillow in a way that strikes the photographer as a tad uncomfortable. In addition to setting herself down wherever when she decides it’s nap time, Barley will sometimes exhibit a slightly liquid tendency to slide down the sides of whatever she is resting on. In this instance, she started out lying atop the pillow, and only later turned her shoulder a bit to wedge her face between the pillows. Her paw merely stayed behind when she did so.

Barley, a dog, trots along an unpaved path beside of fringe of wet leaf litter. Through the sparse foliage, the reflective surface of a slow-moving river is just barely visible. Barley can swim, but is not what I would describe as a confident swimmer. She’ll happily splash around in ankle deep water on a hot day, but if compelled to swim out into open water (say, in pursuit of a thrown ball), her eyes go real wide the moment she starts dog-paddling and stay that way until she can feel the bottom again. Mind you, she’ll still swim out to where the ball is, get it, and come right back, but that overtone of panic is hard to ignore. As such, I’ve not gone out of my way to give her chances to frolic in the water. She seems much more in her element on dry land.

Juniper, a dog, sniffs curiously beneath the countertop of a kitchen where there is both a big pot of soup cooking on the stove and an Instant Pot simmering on the counter. Whereas Barley is good in the kitchen mostly because she has close to no concept that surfaces above her eyeline can harbor unseen objects, Juniper is good in the kitchen because she wants very badly to be a good girl and hasn’t been given permission to investigate. You can tell the difference because Juniper’s sniffy investigations are much more directed: She knows something is going on in the kitchen, and she has a pretty good idea where.

Barley, a dog, sleeps with her face smashed into a folded throw blanket, such that it has ended up wrapped around her face like a soft taco. I had that post from a couple days ago in mind when I happened upon this photo from a few years ago. Just in case you were harboring any suspicions that Barley was actually some sort of comfort genius, her strategy really has always been “just put me anywhere, I’ll figure something out.”

Barley, a dog, puts her face way into a stand-alone shrub, giving the impression that she has a giant green sea urchin for a head. Barley of course needs to sniff just about every free-standing landmark that’s at dog’s-eye level, since those are very likely places for interesting smells left by other dogs. Occasionally, though, she puts her head way into a shrub and leaves it there for quite a while. This invariably makes me nervous, despite it never having resulted in a bad outcome that I can recall.

Barley, a dog, sleeps with her body below the shoulder on her dog bed, her head resting on a stuffed toy, and her wrist supported by a different stuffed toy, resulting in a coincidentally perfect ergonomic arrangement. Barley is, strictly, not a tool user. There are objects that she’ll do things to, but she won’t ever use one object on another object. This extends to maintaining her comfort: She has a very hard-wired “dig and twirl” routine that she uses to soften up a surface if it’s not soft enough or too lumpy, but she has never arranged herself a comfortable nest in any more purposeful fashion. Sometimes, however, she lucks into lying down in such a way that the objects already present enhance her comfort. The level of ergonomic support she is receiving in this photo is a rare thing as it is, and is only made possible by how many of her toys I leave lying around at all times.

Barley, a dog, lies on some patchy grass with a stick, with another dog nearby. Both dogs are looking expectantly toward the left side of the frame. My favorite period during one of Barley’s play dates is the point where both pups are pretty pooped and agree to take a breather. These moments of calm are generally short-lived - we see the dogs perking up at the sound of someone approach the gate ino the yard - but they’re a welcome indication that both dogs feel comfortable hanging out with one another. It’s just nice to know Barley has friends.

Barley, a dog, reclined blissfully on her belly, revealing the pink skin of her belly and a handful of age spots. As Barley has gotten older, she’s begun to show some scattered age spots on the skin of her belly, where her fur is no more than a veil of downy wisps. The vet assures me that these are perfectly normal and no cause for concern, but they nevertheless serve as a reminder that the tanning Barley shows on her belly every summer is in response to cellular damage. Fortunately, because her belly is so visible, and because she’s so keen on having people rub it, there are lots of opportunities to inspect her skin and catch anything worrying as early as possible.

Barley, a dog, stands on a concrete bench and faces toward the right side of the frame, as if noticing something from her elevated vantage point. Barley isn’t usually one to jump onto benches, but if the bench is sufficiently wide and flat, she’ll sometimes pop up on top of it to sniff at some alluring smell she can’t quite reach from the ground. This usually results in her taking a pause and scanning her surroundings. I get the impression that it would never occur to her to seek the higher ground in order to see further, and that the perspective gained from being up high comes as a little bit of a surprise.

Juniper, a dog, lies on her side on an overstuffed sofa beneath windows whose light is softened by sheer white curtains. As much as I love to see Barley sleeping on her side with her belly exposed, I love to see Juniper do it more. She’s such a nervous and vigilant dog, and I gain great peace of mind from knowing that even she can find herself those all-important moments of serene, restorative sleep.

Barley, a dog, walks along a sidewalk, past a sign pole. The edge of the sidewalk, the orientation of the sign pole, and the angle of the siding on the building in the background, are all out of alignment with one another. Speaking of wanting to correct photo orientation, I was totally flummoxed by this seemingly innocuous photo of Barley. It’s a cute dog trottin’ along on a sunny day! What’s not to like? Well, try and find a right angle anywhere in the frame. The siding on the building’s going one way, the sidewalk’s going the other, and neither agrees with the sign pole! I think what’s happening is that the building’s siding is crooked and the sidewalk is actually angled away from the wall slightly, which is harder to see because of the ivy. In the end, I figured the pole was my best bet for judging which way is down. Just goes to show that an innocent photo snapped without a second thought can become a real mystery during post-processing.

Barley, a dog, is lying on her back on the futon, gently smiling at the camera. The photo is rotated 90 degrees from real, and Barley’s pose bears a striking resemblance to a young woman doing a flirtatious hair flip. I’m normally a stickler for keeping photos oriented with respect to True Down, but my camera got confused when I took this photo and didn’t rotate the frame. I’m so pleased with how this photo looks in portrait mode that I’ve chosen not to correct it. I’m not sure what the ad agency she’s working for is trying to get me to buy, but it’s working!

Barley, a dog, glances up while on a walk, and the low angle of the setting sun casts a shadow long enough that it extends longer than Barley’s body length, and out of the shot’s frame. Barley’s main walks of the day ordinarily take place in the morning and early afternoon, but these summer months have a way of leaving my circadian rhythm a little disoriented. As such, I’ve been taking Barley on more evening walks than usual, and I’m not used to these long shadows being associated with such warm weather. In the context of my routine, long shadows are a winter phenomenon, and I found myself wondering, “Why don’t I feel more cold?” until I finally figured it out.

Barley, a dog, is wiggling on the futon! She wiggles to the left! Barley wiggles to the right! Barley wiggles all around! Barley pauses on her back to look at the photographer, as if to say, “Wait, were you watching all that?” With summer comes the peak of Barley’s need to wiggle. On the one hand, the sun’s rays can leave her noodle feeling a bit cooked, and a thorough wiggle in a shady patch of lush grass seems to help cool her down. On the other hand, with much less rain than she experiences during the rest of the year, I get the impression that her skins gets a tiny bit more itchy, in which case a drier patch of grass, or indeed the futon itself, can provide a bit of relief. The wiggles themselves seem to come upon her like a fugue state, and she comes out of a wiggle with a weird eye-contact-making intensity, as if she’s trying to see if she missed anything while she was out.

Barley, a dog, scrabbles up a big pile of mulch, sniffing with eager interest. Barley’s a big fan of mulch (as are we all). For starters, she’s not wild about getting her feet wet, and even during the rainy season, mulch is at once absorbant and relatively non-compressible, leaving her feet drier in the rain than when walking on grass or pavement. It also seems to be consistently interesting to sniff, perhaps because its absorbency helps keep recent scents aromatic for longer. I’d wager it’s a close second to decorative ivy for “ground covering Barley is most likely to venture out onto if given the chance.”

Barley, a dog, sticks her tongue in the mouth of an alligator-shaped rubber chew toy that has enzymatic dog toothpaste spread among its teeth. Barley doesn’t abide having her teeth brushed particularly well. She doesn’t get nasty about it, but she will keep her mouth closed and her jaw clenched in a way that makes getting at the inner surfaces feel pretty precarious. As such, part of her dental hygiene routine is to be given semi-regular time with toys that are designed to have toothpaste for dogs put inside them, to be accessed by a lot of chewing and licking. I’m very tickled by my most recent of these toys, which is both gator-shaped and gator-colored, because Barley was at one time a University of Florida dog.

Juniper, a dog, lies on her back on her huge dog bed, itself on a big queen-sized mattress in a guest bedroom. It’s possible that part of Juniper’s moodiness owes to her having some mild joint issues. They’re typical for her breed, and she doesn’t appear to be in active discomfort most of the time, but she’s a real sucker for warmth and softness in a way that makes me think she would love the chance to float weightlessly from time to time, freed if only for a moment from the inevitability of Earth.

Barley, a dog, drinks from the same water dish as her golden retriever buddy. Barley, a dog, chews on one end of a very long fallen branch while her golden retriever buddy nibbles at a middle part of the branch. As best I can tell, Barley does not have a truly individualized sense of self. She is always, unavoidably, a member of the present group, and evaluates what she is doing in those terms. Her inner world does not appear to break along the lines of “What do I want?” but rather “What do we want?” A consequence of this is that most of her favorite verbs (such as “eat” and “play”) are very communal. If another dog has a toy, she is very interested in getting that toy, but more fundamentally needs a toy so she can do what the other dog is doing. As a corollary, her interest in playing with toys is largely driven by her impression that the toy is desirable to others. So far as I can tell, she does not play with toys at all when by herself, and plays with them much more excitedly when more people are around, as if to show off that she is playing. This led to some fun call-and-response with her golden retriever buddy, who is much more in his own head and doing what he wants to do. “Oh, you’re drinking water?” Barley seemed to think. “I’ll have you know that I’m the boss, so if anyone’s…

Barley, a dog, presses her collarbone down in the top of a much larger golden retriever’s head in a playful but assertive show of dominance as he lies on the ground. Barley, a dog, stands assertive over the golden retriever as he cranes his neck up to sniff at her ear. Barley had another playdate with her much younger, much larger golden retriever buddy, and I’m happy to report that the yard was much less muddy this time. No baths were strictly necessary, despite quite a bit of roughhousing. Barley is still very much asserting herself as The Boss, and while her buddy’s not strictly submissive in the general sense, they seem to have established a general understanding that Barley is, if not wiser, then definitely the older dog whose bossiness should be given due weight. They both came away from a couple of hours of very active play tired and cheerful.

Barley, a dog, gives an enthusiastic chomp to a purple llama toy. Truly one of the great paradoxes of Barley’s capacity for destroying toys is that some of her toys that have lasted the longest are really very cheap and fragile, and have survived by being both very squishy and very floppy. It’s hard to get a cheaper toy for its size than Legend The Llama, especially since I got it on sale for even cheaper than its list price! And yet it precisely because its material is so yielding and elastic that Barley doesn’t bother trying to really grind away at it with her powerful back-tooth technique. It must feel so wispy and insubstantial that she might as well be biting down on a cloud. (Also come on, PetSmart, “Llegend The Llama” was right there! Real missed naming opportunity.)

Barley, a dog, walks past a big ole’ rock just sitting on someone’s otherwise unkempt lawn. There’s something I really enjoy about a property with a naturalistic, unlandscaped look that just has a big rock sitting atop the ground somewhere. It’s very important that the rock not be submerged. If a big rock’s parly underground, it looks completely normal and natural. For a big honkin’ rock like this to be on the ground and not in it, one assumes that it was dug up from the earth at some point. Perhaps this rock was extracted when the foundation for a building on the property was being laid, for example. I’m really tickled by a “yeah, just put that anywhere” attitude applied to an object that weighs hundreds of pounds. Barley is a fan as well, but probably only in the sense that any ground level landmark is worth investigating for potential scent news.

Barley, a dog, sleeps peacefully on a futon. Her feet will wiggle gently from time to time as she dreams. I always enjoy when Barley falls asleep in this particular position relative to me, for two reasons. First, I know that if she has fallen asleep with her belly exposed, then she feels both warm and safe. Second, and more importantly, her hip and shoulder sink into the soft substrate of the futon, suspending a couple of her paws in the air. When she inevitably starts to dream, her wrists hang very loose, and the fleeting muscle contractions as she runs in her sleep get magnified into toe wiggles that are visible from across the room.

Barley, a dog, trots along an unpaved path, the ground cover consisting of dry earth, dead leaves, and ivy. When I’m given occasion to consider them, I’d say that Barley’s feet are pretty small in the grand scheme of things. Between that and her short coat, I’ve been very impressed with how rarely she seems to end up with muddy paws. To be sure, other factors contribute as well. I don’t trust her off leash, for example, so she’s not allowed to run roughshod over very muddy terrain (because I wouldn’t be willing to walk there myself). Even when conditions are wet and rainy, however, her feet just can’t sponge up much mud at all. Even if she steps in some fresh, soupy mud on a walk, the resulting paw prints only last another five or six steps before fading into obscurity. This is quite a contrast to dogs I’ve known earlier in life (who tended to have thicker/curlier coats). So Barley won’t be winning any finger/paw-painting contests, which I can’t say I’m unhappy about.

Juniper, a dog, still in her puppy era, puts a paw to her face in a manner that seems like she is feigning shock. Revisiting Juniper’s puppy photos is always slightly disconcerting. For some reason, my brain doesn’t register that puppies are young dogs in the way that I intuitively understand that children are young humans. Puppy Juniper both is and is not the moody beast I know today. She both is and is not the goofy weirdo I knew then. I recognize her, but it’s still shocking how much of a metamorphosis takes place during maturation. It shouldn’t be shocking, it’s the most natural thing in the world, but the storytelling part of my brain is so much more comfortable with pets being static and unchanging over time than it is with having known Juniper when she was this tiny. This sense of chronological uncanniness isn’t helped by our having rescued Barley just as she was finishing adolescence, meaning that she has always been within a few pounds of her current weight, making her much more plausible in my mind as an eternal, unchanging being.

Barley, a dog, sleeps peacefully on her hotel bed with her cowprint throw blanket. After an uneventful weekend in the strange world of the airport periphery, Barley and I were able to go home to an apartment in need of only mild cleaning given the heavy-duty work that had happened in our absence. She was calm and relaxed in the room, and inquisitive in the “come but don’t stay” surroundings where we took our walks. No worrying signs of stress at all. Long-time fans of Barley will remember why I was as nervous about Barley being displaced. Years ago, a flooding issue in my apartment (almost certainly related in some way to the most recent work) resulted in a living arrangement Barley found so stressful that it almost killed her. The mystery remains as to why Barley is so unhappy in some temporary spaces and is completely relaxed in others. Differences in the smells left by cleaning products? Sounds outside my human hearing range? Who can say? What’s important is that she made it through this most recent episode without further incident, and is now happily back home.

Barley, a dog, walks along the perimeter of a marking lot in a space that doesn’t seem natural, but is also devoid of signs of habitation. Every international airport has a halo of weirdly depopulated spaces. This is for many reasons. Planes require a ton of space to store and maintain. Shipping hubs require huge sorting and warehousing facilities. And most of all, housing developers aren’t going to screw their own potential property values by building within earshot of planes landing and taking off at all hours. Where there are people at all, they’re usually limited to the hotel chains and outlet malls. There are no neighborhoods in these places, no neighbors. There are few sidewalks - why would anyone be on foot in a place like this, when every hotel has a shuttle service? One of the consequences of this weird mix of heavily developed and practically unlivable is that there is so little human detritus. Walk in any normal neighborhood, even a nice one, and you’ll see some signs of humans passing through. A bit of litter, perhaps, or a flyer that came loose from someone’s front door and now wanders free with the wind. Some signs of yard work or a cheeky sign. Not in the Airport Hinterlands. I’ve never felt further from civilization while standing on concrete amid well-kept landscaping.

Barley, a dog, sniffs along a fringe of lawn next to some unnervingly bright, unnervingly bland plants in what feels like a pre-fab environment. The landscaping choices around a budget hotel near the airport always feel like they’ve been optimized to look as good as they can from about 100 years away, balanced against being able to thrive entirely under the care of an automated sprinkler system. Up close, it feels like you’re too close to the movie set and can see the artificiality of the matte painting. While the plants are alive, they have this unnerving blandness that feels slightly hostile. “No one lives here, please move along.” It’s not precisely that these landscaping choices feel liminal; their limited palette of bright colors feel aposematic. Danger: Poison, don’t bite.

Barley, a dog, has a queen-sized bed all to herself in a three-star hotel room. On my third night in the terrible motel room, I was awoken around 2am by a shouting match taking place about 40 feet from my hotel room door. The particular of the argument were not well-defined, beyond some mismatch between the amount of money Person A had offered and the number of pills Person B was willing to give them, because both parties had pre-existing beef and figured they could add more items to the agenda as they went. Needless to say, I checked out of the motel on what was to have been my final night with no intention of returning. I called to inform apartment management that I had done so (because, after all, I had been promised they I could return that day by End Of Business), and they apologized and explained that I was actually going to need to say at the motel for three additional nights because the contractors had neglected to explain that the concrete poured to fill the hole in the foundation needed to cure so the laminate flooring didn’t trap all the moisture. I stood my ground: I was not going back to the motel, and insisted that I would be making my own arrangements instead and that I expected management to compensate me at least for the amount they had been paying for the awful motel. Working this up the chain had an unexpected side effect:…

Barley, a dog, is slightly more relaxed in her awful motel room thanks to a very cheap blanket with a silly cowprint pattern. After Barley’s awful first night in the motel, I made sure she got a lot of attention and exercise the next day. On the way home from work, I also stopped by Target and bought the cheapest throw blanket I could find in the clearance section. At $25, this fetching number is very warm thanks to being made of 100% non-breathable materials, but is nevertheless somewhat breathable because of its perilously loose weave. It’s soft as the dickens, and will probably begin to disintegrate within six months. However, as nervous as Barley was to return to the Bad Room, she seemed much calmer after I swaddled her in cowprint. She was able to fall asleep while I was working, and seemed to have a much more restful night. I, by contrast, could only feel my mood darkening. I was informed that evening that the contractors were extending the work by another day, meaning a third night rolling the dice that I wouldn’t get a window smashed in.

Barley, a dog, lies nervous and vigilant on a pair of dog beds placed atop a no-frills motel bed. I recently had a decidedly unpleasant experience. After complaining about slow drains, apartment management informed me that my drain line had been broken by roots, and the only way to fix it was going to be to jackhammer a hole in the foundation under my bathroom. This meant I needed to vacate my apartment, taking refuge in a motel booked by the management team. I was initially promised that I could return to my apartment after two nights. I’m no stranger to budget accommodation, but the motel they put me up at is probably the diciest establishment I’ve stayed in overnight as an adult. It’s hardly encouraging when over 50% of the cars parked in the parking lot after dark have at least one broken window. Barley hated the room. The floor was unnervingly sticky, and Barley refused to walk around on it more than necessary. Once standing on the bed, she wouldn’t lie down until I put her dog beds atop the sheets. Even then, instead of curling up to snooze while I answered emails like she normally does, she positioned herself as you see here, ears up and eyes open wide, for several hours until I went to sleep. It didn’t help that the room was also quite cold, as the heating element in the climate control didn’t seem to function. Around 3am, I awoke to realize that Barley…

Juniper, a dog, sleeps on a person’s bed, snuggled up to a rumpled heap of throw blanket. Even now as she enters middle age, Juniper is still so baby to me, much more so than Barley. I think it’s largely to do with how dainty and sensitive she is, but she’s also very attached. She knows where home is, and who home is, and seems to draw much comfort from the intersection of the two.

Barley, a dog, walks past some red and yellow tulips, surrounded by ornamental lavender, paying none of it any mind whatsoever. A fun thing about evolution is that it’s always everything at once. Flowers, for example, need to be as visible as possible for the animals that they rely on to get pollinated, but also need to be as camouflaged as possible with respect to other animals that might do them harm in some way. I pondered this dynamic as I reflected on how nondescript a red tulip must look to Barley, just a darker blob amid the gray of the leaves. “Nothing to see here,” the flowers seem to say. “Should you need to do some recreational digging, please consider other patches in the neighborhood than this one.” (Not that this applies to the yellow tulips, which should be quite visible to her, or to any of the floral smells, which Barley is experiencing with an intensity I will never understand.)

Barley, a dog, sniffs intently along a margin of dead leaves between some grass and some shrubbery. Given the amount of rain we get through the winter months, I remain sort of fascinated by the durability of leaf litter. I don’t doubt that all sorts of good decomp is happening to the benefit of flora and fauna alike, there’s still a lot of leaves that seem not to have changed all that month. Is it more that there’s a crisped outer layer, a bit like a crème brûlée, where leaves at the top get dried out by the sun while the moisture remains in the dark layers beneath? Does this stratification hold up in the face of a season’s worth of wind gusts? I guess what I’m asking is, just how worried should I be that Barley’s going to find something truly dicey under all those leaves? 😅

Barley, a dog, writhes enthusiastically on her back on a mossy lawn amid scattered sticks and leaves. It’s still technically Spring, but we’re definitely getting our share of Summer days, and Barley is taking a lot more opportunities to give her belly its requisite dose of Vitamin D. It also helps that the grass is now much more frequently the right kind of dry to be a cool, soothing bristle brush on her back. If it’s a sunny day and there’s plenty of grass around, I can generally count on one solid wiggle per proper walk.

Barley, a dog, faces left and looks up at something out of frame. This highlights her very fetching profile. People say all kinds of things when they say hi to Barley on the street, but one of the clearest generation gaps I’ve noticed is that dog enthusiasts who are under thirty are fairly likely to praise she shape of her head. “I love your dog’s big head!” a teenager recently declared from a distance as I walked past their house. Meanwhile, dog enthusiasts over the age of thirty almost never do so. My hunch is that this reflects a stark contrast in which age cohort has a stronger prejudice against pit bulls. The kids are alright, it seems: They’ve largely seen past the dog-whistle politics that labels pitties and mutts as “dangerous” compared to expensive purebreeds. They don’t think Barley is a lovely dog in spite of looking rather pitty, but because of it. If social media has done any good thing in the last 20 years, it might have been showing a generation how sweet and goofy pitbulls are across countless photos and videos.

Barley, a dog, inspects a dummy owl that won’t be scaring away too many prey animals now that it has fallen face-down in the grass. Far from their reputation as purveyors of sagely wisdom, owls are really more like feathered guided missiles to the various animals they prey upon, so it makes sense that a dummy owl would be an effective scarecrow to its prey. I like to imagine other ‘scarecrow animals’ that one could mount in one’s yard. Perhaps one might hang a life-sized fiberglass shark from one’s balcony to chase off those pesky harbor seals. Or rig up one of those car dealershop inflatable tube guys to look like a mongoose and scare of snakes. Or maybe, maybe, get perfect replica goat to stare down your lawn so it doesn’t get any ideas.

Barley, a dog, pops her head up from lazing on the futon because the viewer is looking at her, triggering a staring contest motivated by the hope that something is about to happen. Barley very much lives among the humans in her surroundings, party to their activities. She’s not really able to “entertain herself” beyond slipping into the land of dreams. If she’s bored, she seeks you out. If you’re doing anything, she needs to keep an eye on what it is. As such, whenever it strikes me to turn and face her, she becomes quite interested. “Is something happening?” I suspect she is thinking. She would absolutely be down for something happening, pretty much all the time.

Juniper, a dog, holds her beloved squirrel toy in her mouth as she eyes the camera with considerable intensity. With all this talk of Juniper’s tiny chipmunks, which I mistook for squirrels, I felt the need to remind everyone that Juniper also has a squirrel. It is much beloved, an object that she insists on protecting. Sometimes, she will see the squirrel out for comfort, but usually, someone else retrieves the squirrel, and it then becomes Juniper’s mission to bring it to a place of safety and security (usually, her crate). She does not bring the squirrel outside. Only world-hardened mad lads like her monkey get to accompany her on her patrols of her territory.

Barley, a dog, stands amid a sea of vividly green grass, extending past the edge of the frame on all sides. Photographing Barley while walking her means most shots are aimed downward, and this reflects my experience as her dog-walker. Just as her world is narrowed to a radius of compelling smells, I too find that the wider world slips from my attention, so keenly must my focus remain on spotting things she shouldn’t be allowed to investigate. It’s a bit like having one’s attention pass through a fish-eye lens, making the grasses and shrubs and tree trunks of Barley’s world balloon out around us, while the branches, clouds, and sky above recede into one’s blind spot.

Barley, a dog, investigates the leaf litter on a sunny day. Above her, a paper charm hangs from a tree. It reads, in a hand-written script, “I’m glad that you paused here, this was made for you.” This is the 400th Barley post on this account (not counting the 67 Juniper Friday posts to date), and this seems like as good a time as any to say thank you. As much as these posts offer the opportunity for a kind of journaling, my main aim is to share this creature with any and all who would delight in her sincere goofiness. It’s a way to put some uncomplicated good into a world that feels overrun with ulterior motives. So if you’ve chanced upon a Barley Post in the past and paused for a moment, thank you. This was made for you.

Barley, a dog, examines a sidewalk chalk drawing of cartoon dog Bluey, from the show of the same name. By all accounts, Bluey is a triumph of children’s television, a work of considerable quality that embodies values and thoughtfulness in a way that even television for adults often doesn’t bother including among its aspirations. But seeing this photo, my main thought is: Isn’t kinda weird how Bluey is pretty much a photo negative of Barley? Try it for yourself, invert the colors on this photo, and see just who becomes blue!

Barley, a dog, snuffles at the edge of the goat enclosure. A goat, for once, seems interested! The goats generally have zero interest in Barley on way or another. I think the recognize that dogs are creature that will never, ever feed them a snack through the fence. So imagine my surprise when Barley approached, and this goat approached with clear intent! It didn’t take long to realize why: A previous passer-by had given the goats some popcorn, and a few remaining pieces lay on our side of the fence. Barley managed to snag a few, but I was hardly going to leave the goat hanging, so I managed to snag a couple additional pieces before Barley got to them and passed them through the fence.

Barley, a dog, steps between two posts marking a properly line, stepping on grass that’s just a little bit more lush and unkempt than the yard she is leaving. I feel like so many of these posts are opportunities to reflect on things I understand that Barley does not, but I promise that I, at least, find that I do not tire of this disconnect! Boundaries are, generally, a major area of disagreement. In so many ways, we segment space and establish magic circles, and Barley is fully immune to these human games. In this respect, she’s also not nearly as canine as she might otherwise be: Barley doesn’t seem to have any durable notion of “territory” that might belong to her or to others. She goes where she pleases, and the only reason why she would never call for an end to borders is because she can’t even conceive of their existence in the first place.

Barley, a dog, sniffs intently at a crude facsimile of a cat made from wire, googly eyes, and thick black pipe cleaners. I can generally see things coming before Barley does, partly because I have a height advantage and partly because vision isn’t where Barley directs her attention a lot of the time. So I saw this very unconvincing cat from quite a ways off and thought to myself, “OK, this ought to be good, let’s see how this plays out.” And sure enough a few seconds later, Barley saw the “cat” as well, and got very excited. With all the enthusiasm of a kid running to the dessert section of the buffet, she bee-lined toward her prey, only to become befuddled once she got within a couple feet. She sidled back and forth, trying to examine this object, and eventually gave up and walked away with an audible “huff.”

Juniper, a dog, sprawls awkwardly against Barley, another dog, as the two ride in the back seat of a car. It’s been nearly five years since Barley and Juniper have cohabitated, but the memories of their silly times together remain strong. Ultimately, I think each is very happy and settled in their respective lives, as I’m not persuaded that they really “miss” each other in the sense two humans would. Each lives mainly in the moment, after all. And yet, I feel somehow responsible for the emotions they cannot feel, that I somehow have an obligation to miss the “them” of their being a duo on their behalf. Quite literally, they don’t know what they’re missing. But I do.

Barley, a dog, stands near some flowering cherry blossoms. They hold no particular appeal to her. As the saying goes, “dumplings > flowers,” and boy does Barley embody that aphorism. Hard to believe that it’s been over year since a post last marked the cherry blossoms (the photo was admittedly taken a little while ago), but Barley remains resolutely herself, and is unlikely to stop for the flowers unless they’re made of fondant.

Barley, a dog, photographed up close while lying on her side on a futon. There’s something very silly about a dog’s ability to lie on their side with their legs straight, especially when a cushion provides just enough neck support that they simply look like someone rotated them 90 degrees. Because this keeps their belly exposed, this is generally the sign of a dog who feels both comfortable and warm, so it’s more of a cozytime vibe. Keep this in mind the next time you open Blender and reach to yank on one of those Rotate Manipulators. As yourself, “Is this object at ease? Does it feel safe?”

Barley, a dog, sniffs at a heap of yard clippings lying in the gutter, among which are visible wild dandelions. Heaps of yard waste tend to draw Barley’s immediate interest, and I suspect that this is because they tend to be fresh. As a rule, if someone is organized enough to not only do yardwork but also to gather the resulting detritus into a heap, they’re generally also organized enough to fill up one of the dedicated yard waste bins provided by the city. By the same token, these heaps tend to be fleeting. Walking past this spot the following day, the heap had already disappeared.

Barley, a dog, gently roasts on a sunny porch, her slightly tanned belly visible. Now that we’re finally getting at least some direct sunlight free of cloud cover every day, Barley is doing more to take advantage of its warming rays. She’s doing quite a bit more wiggling in the cool grass, as well as flopping contentedly on warm wood. Either way you slice it, it’s fun to go forth on each walking knowing there’s only a low chance of rainfall (literally) dampening her spirits.

Barley, a dog, sits in the driver’s seat, as seen through the windshield! She can drive! (She can’t drive. Can you even imagine? I’d leave her in the car as I went into the store and she would then drive the car through the front door to try to be reunited with me.)

Barley, a dog, wades through a sea of green ivy alongside a street. Decorative ground ivy is perhaps Barley’s ideal ground cover. It’s soft (unlikely to contain any pokey or sticky bits), and its low density provides ample cover to conceal goodies, but it also doesn’t generally grow deep enough to impede Barley’s movement. As such, if we walk past some ivy, you can bet Barley’s going to want to check it out (which I’ll allow, under close scrutiny). It is also, to my occasional chagrin, a popular zone for bathroom breaks, which can leave me really having to do some spelunking if I’m to live up to my neighborly responsibilities and pick up after my dog.

Juniper, a dog, lies contentedly in a yard of patchy grass with a tennis ball between her front paws. As a dog with a well-defined turf and a duty to protect the homestead, Juniper shows a clear preference in how she relaxes in the yard. She keeps the house to her back, such that she can glance back only if needed. This lets her scan the yard to her left and her right, while keeping her front view faces towards a potential Wally encounter.

Barley, a dog, view up close in profile, with a mossy tree as a backdrop. Even during a week in which my workload keeps Barley’s walks short, she inevitably meets at least a few new people. The overriding theme of these encounters is (a) how sweet she is, and (b) what a good looking dog she is. It feels very silly to “be proud” of her winning good looks (truly something I had nothing to do with), but when some rando standing on a balcony shouts, “Hey, that’s a nice lookin’ dog!” from 100 feet away, I can’t help but feel my heart swell as if I somehow deserve a share of the credit.

Barley, a dog, sniffs at a bulky, chainsaw-hacked tree stump. If one looks closely, one can see that Barley is sniffing a concrete birdbath nestled amid the stump’s lumpy form, mostly occluded from the camera’s view. I was quite struck by this “statement stump,” which I presume was once a noble tree that fell sick and died (the newly-planted sapling beside it is no doubt a long-term investment), and Barley seemed quite taken with it as well. It was only after having taken the picture and advancing another few degrees around the stump that I saw a birdbath filled with very stagnant water, at which point I was much more discouraging of Barley’s curiosity.

Barley, a dog, rests on the futon, with her head beside her blue monkey toy atop a throw pillow. I’ve mentioned before how Barley has brief, intense “play” periods in which she thrashes the ever-loving dickens out of some soft toy, which end as abruptly as they begin in a big flop onto the futon. Here, we see Barley in the immediate aftermath of play, her heart still racing. What she seems to really love is me getting real close to her and the toy and just sort of hanging out for a bit. I suspect this is tapping into some primal instinct she has to “share the kill” following a successful hunt, which here presents as a sort of sit-down post-play debrief.

Barley, a dog, sniffs along the fringe of a concrete footpath. Just past her in frame, beside the path, is a body of standing water. On balance, smellier is better, particularly measured as the plurality of smells. Sure, there are specific strong smells that Barley isn’t wild about, but even “bad” smells warrant some level of investigation. All of this to say: Barley is absolutely down to investigate a murky pond. With floating greenery, ooh baby, even better. This requires some vigilance on my part, as she will get herself elbow-deep in some very viscous mud chasing down an olfactory lead if I let her.

Barley, a dog, speeds past a bench without giving it a second glance. This is a pretty bad picture, but know, dear reader, that it captures the chaotic energy of Barley setting off on a walk. She would certainly sprint through the halls like a lunatic if allowed to, so great are her dreams of the possibilities of the Outer Place.

Barley, a dog, stands amid a mostly empty expanse of gravel small rocks, and very short greenery, only to be dwarfed by a decorative pot large enough that she could curl up inside it. It’s perfectly reasonable that this yard seek out some planters, as the soil is very rocky and quite poor (probably because the surrounding terrain is very hilly), and I think this is quite a fetching object! I especially enjoy how it makes Barley look like she’s been hit with a shrink ray, or perhaps that she stumbled into a tavern for giants on Shots Night. Just so long as they spring for another couple planters when they’re able.

Juniper, a dog, holds one of her tiny toy chipmunks in her mouth. Two others lie beside her, as does the “hollow log” that the ‘munks can be stuffed into. Juniper remains a big fan of her trio of chipmunks. She has now learned how to play “rescue” with the hollow log that te chipmunks came with. She will watch intently as the chipmunks are stuffed into the log and, upon being given the green light, she then enthusiastically paws and snuffles about to extract each of the chipmunks in turn from inside the log. I presume this satisfies some deep, inscrutable hunting dog urge to pursue prey that have gone to ground, but she remains adorably gentle with her ‘munks otherwise.

Barley, a dog, stands on a staircase beneath a sunny window. A series of bottles and glasses, all made from different colors of glass, line the windowsill and capture the light. It’s very funny to me how most dog toys use bright, vibrant colors, given that dogs have very limited sensitivity to chroma along a blue-to-yellow spectrum but are otherwise colorblind. I know Barley has basically zero interest in or conception of human aesthetics (I feel quite confident that she’s never had a thought analogous to, “Hey, that looks pretty!”), but it tickles me that the appeal of this array of brightly colored glass is probably doubly inscrutable to her.

Barley, a dog, stands beside an enormous (and somewhat lumpy) heart sculpture on wheels in someone’s yard. I know I occasionally complain about the yard choices that people make, but I unironically love discovering a yard in which someone not only has art on display, but clearly made that art themselves. One of the reasons that the very idea of an HOA makes my blood boil is because I would be entirely down for everyone making their yard as powerful an expression of their creative vision as possible. Truly, I’m fine with however folks want to customize their patch. If you’re fortunate enough to have a yard, show us what you got!

Barley, a dog, cuts a striking pose as she stands on a shallow uphill slope beside some mossy stairs. I really don’t get a lot of opportunities to appreciate Barley in profile. She’s usually either facing toward me or walking directly away as I hold the leash. Here, we have a rare photo taken by me while someone else is holding the leash, and I gotta say, she’s one good-lookin’ dog. What a statuesque pose, delightful, 10/10.

Barley, a dog, really needs to smell this shrub in particular. In order to replenish my supply of Barley photos, I’ll often just have my phone at the ready, waiting for something to happen. It’s pretty much the only way to capture candid moments, because Barley’s certainly not going to hesitate for my benefit. In this case, I was planning on snapping a pic as she was trotting along, only for her to suddenly become very intense and nearly dislocate my shoulder in order to smell this shrub. After a solid 30 seconds of sniffing, she continued on about her day, albeit still pretty wound up. Moments like these remind me that she’s routinely having big feelings and (one presumes) making major discoveries, about which I will never have even the first clue.

Barley, a dog, sleeps on a futon with her head wedged entirely under a throw pillow. All told, Barley doesn’t have that many sleep poses. She generally falls along a continuum from “belly-out sprawl” to “fully-curled loaf.” Despite this, she manages to get herself into pretty silly positions because when she decides it’s nap time, she’ll make it work wherever she has landed. So I’m aways tickled when I look over my shoulder and see that while I wasn’t looking, she decided that becoming an Object Head was fine, actually.

Barley, a dog, stands on a metal utility hatch, no doubt unaware that some secret lies beneath. I don’t think twice about this style of corrugated steel hatch when I see one along the side of a building, but they’re more mysterious when there isn’t a building near, and even more so at what seems to be an unremarkable intersection. Now, sure, you’ll tell me that there’s probably some piece of municipal infrastructure beneath, like a gas main or an underground transformer, but I’ve seen my share of action hero secret identity media, so I’m still waiting for one of these to open up one day as I’m walking past and reveal some superhero’s VTOL vehicle making its triumphant appearance. Since this hatch is only just about Barley sized, I’d wager that the launch mechanism for Thunderbird 1 should just about fit here.

Juniper, a dog, yawns, inadvertently revealing her mouth full of sharp teeth. I love a good picture of a dog caught mid-yawn, because on the one hand, it’s a completely benign behavior by a sleepy creature who feels safe, and on the other, it’s a reminder of the formidable Natural Attacks that dogs possess. The depicted yawn is a particular favorite, because this squinty, effortful yawn has the look of the full-throated scream of a rock vocalist belting out the chorus, while also being situated in the context of surroundings that are only soft and comfy.

Barley, a dog, is mid-stride as she glances at a staircase, as if considering whether to ascend. Barley has no strong opinion one way or the other about stairs (the ascends and descends with similar ease and enthusiasm), but if she gets within about one body length of a staircase, one of her two “stair protocols” is liable to kick in. This has become automatic enough that I have to be careful when walking her past a staircase I have no intention of climbing, because if she decides to go for it while I’m not paying attention, I need to be light on my feet to avoid accidentally giving her a more-perilous-than-usual yank of the leash.

Barley, a dog, lounges on the futon, with paws tucked under her chin. The camera is close enough to her nose that it creates a fish-eye-lens effect, making her block-head seem even bigger than usual. It’s now a fairly settled scientific matter that domesticated dogs are big fans of eye contact (which, interestingly, is less true for wolves). This certainly seems to be true for Barley, who often gazes deeply in the eyes of her human interlocutors as they praise her sweet demeanor. What I find quite interesting is that, given the choice, Barley is usually more interested in bodily contact than she is in eye contact. If someone sits down on the futon, she turns her face away from them in order to flop her whole flank against their body in a big sprawling lean. I think eye contact is just one of several means to a more global end: immediate and continuous sensory information that she and another are currently Hanging Out.

Barley, a dog, tromps through a park toward a picnic table that is conspicuously positioned in the deep shape of several close, tall trees. I most frequently play host to out-of-town guests during the summer, when the Pacific Northwest’s gray drizzle gives way to a (mostly) really lovely stretch of summer. On more than one occasion, such guests have wondered aloud why the parks near my home all seem to have their picnic areas well out of the sunlight, often in shade that feels oppressively dark, even at midday. Residents of sunnier states are surprised to learn how willing the locals around these parts are to go to the park amid scattered showers. That said, there are limits, and if a table isn’t bolted down, there’s a good chance someone has needed to drag the table under a tree’s canopy to at least keep the food dry.

Barley, a dog, sits on a futon, her fur still visibly damp, with a white towel draped over her shoulders. And just like that, Barley’s clean once more! The big payoff of a Barleybath is a really unreasonable level of softness that lasts 4-5 days. Don’t get me wrong, her fur is always very pleasant to pet. It’s just that most of the time, it has a certain grain to it, and petting against that grain is really more of a “giving scritches” experience (which, of course, she is also very into). In this post-bath window, however, Barley is at her most velvety, and she’s as soft as a toy, every which way you pet her.

Barley, a dog, stands reluctantly in a bathtub, her fur and harness visibly darkened by splotches of mud. As short as Barley’s fur is, she can never get too muddy, but a playdate like the one in yesterday’s post demands an immediate response. As soon as we left, she was whisked home and rushed directly into the bathtub before her leash & harness had even come off. After all, they were as dirty as she was! Fortunately, Barley has become quite tolerant of bathtime. She seems to understand that compliant behavior (a) hastens the whole process and (b) yields 4-5 treats over the course of the experience! And with such short fur, it’s a really speedy process. By contrast, her golden retriever buddy ended up requiring about an hour’s worth of washing and drying before he could be allowed back onto any of the furniture.

Barley, a dog, stands alert in a yard whose grass has been reduced to a mud pit by rain and dog frolicking. At her feet lies a golden retriever, looking up playfully and ready to spring back into action. By a curious coincidence, both of the dogs with whom Barley hangs out from time to time are golden retrievers. Unlike her work buddy, however, this young fellow is still full of puppy energy, being only a year old. Heavy rains the night before this playdate guaranteed that these pups were going to tear the place up, and after an hour of enthusiastic rough-housing, it felt like Barley left wearing a not-insubstantial proportion of the yard. Needless to say, her playmate’s longer fur absorbed even more of the terrain.

Juniper, a dog, reacts to a scene in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) in which the title character’s dog (not pictured) has just been kicked off a bridge. Juniper does not seem to have understood the events in the scene, displaying enthusiasm for whatever is going on. Broadly speaking, Juniper’s preferred genres are sitcoms and baking shows. She likes shows that are bright, with expressive actors who have upbeat energy. Sitcoms in particular have the advantage that while the characters are over the top, the budget usually limits things to relatively simple camera moves and relatively few special effects. Also, the most intense negative emotions (blind rage, intense pain, extreme fear) are all generally off the table. Action movies, by contrast, are too high-energy, dramas are fine but a little boring, and horror movies stress her out vicariously because she keys into how stressed out the audience gets. Even so, it’s pretty clear that as much as she loves television, she’s not following the action the way we are. These photos were captured because the people watching the film knew this scene was coming and wanted to see how she would react, and the entire room had to pause the film to laugh it off because her reaction was one of unqualified and clearly non-comprehending enthusiasm.

Barley, a dog, closely inspects the plastic head of a Spider-Man action figure, lying by itself on some grass with no body in sight. One of the curious features of Spider-Man as a creative property is that it has long practiced a form of “facial erasure” that, to varying degrees, denies the geometry of the human head. The degree of indulgence varies from artist to artist; nearly all deny the existence of the nose to a degree that makes anime seem anatomical by comparison, but skim through panels rendered for the comic and you’ll often spy depictions that gloss over the ears and chin as well. From this cutting of corners, one can only conclude that the logical conclusion of the Spider-Man brand is a sort of Spider-Egg, with the entire franchise following a slow Benjamin Button arc of the character gradually morphing to his pre-hatched state.

Barley, a dog, stands beside an austere black metal fence, beyond which is a laws whose color and uniformity both seem completely unnatural. I generally try not to put a person’s home on blast in these commentaries, but sometimes a come across a yard whose aesthetic seems to alien to my own sensibilities, and so effortful to maintain, that it leaves my mind a little boggled. I’m pretty sure this yard has living grass, but I haven’t reached through the fence to feel around and find out. Every other aspect of this yard is maintained within such intense tolerances that I feel checking if the lawn is astroturf would be seen as an invasion of the perimeter by the homeowner. It’s possible I’ve been fooled and the grass is really high quality astroturf, but given that the homeowner clearly removes any leaves or debris larger than my thumb on a daily basis, I would not put it past them to tend to this patch with the attention of a PGA-rated golf course botanist.

Barley, a dog, walks in the grass along the base of a white stucco wall. As someone in just the right age bracket to have been charmed by Banksy’s rise to fame early enough to retain a sense of nostalgia for that era of street art, I can’t help but see the potential in a blank patch of wall. In this case, however, Barley is already such a work of art that I think this photo lends itself more to another gag popular in the oughts: chroma key compositing. So if anyone wants to pull the bright whites out of this to give Barley a different mural as a backdrop, feel free to do so.

Barley, a dog, stands in the lower center frame, with an incense cedar and a giant sequoia reaching their painterly trunks into the sky behind her. There are some very lovely trees where I work. The nearer of the two in this photo is (I believe) an incense cedar, while the more distance is an ornamental giant sequoia. The two in juxtaposition regularly give me art history vibes, as their coloration and the shape of their crowns strike me as altogether too impressionistic. Seeing them gives me the same sort of, “Oh, you!” amusement as a surprising outfit worn by a flamboyant coworker.

Barley, a dog, enthusiastically asserts dominance over a golden retriever, who submits with equal enthusiasm. Barley’s encounters with her once-in-a-while work buddy are very fun to watch, because their personalities are complementary opposites. Barley is quite bossy with other dogs - she wants to play, but very much as a top dog who is issuing An Edict Promoting Play at all times. Her pal, on the other hand, is one of the most submissive dogs I’ve ever met, and she immediately shows Barley her belly as soon as Barley gives even a hint of throwing her weight around. So a typical greeting between the two is Barley pinning her pal to the floor, making a chin-on-head stack, as both wag their tails excitedly.

Barley, a dog, walks past a fallen tree those upper branches have been sectioned off to clear the path, revealing the tree rings beneath. It’s funny how quickly the brain falls back into essentialist thinking. If I see a mossy log, my first instinct is to think of it as a feature of the environment, almost like a piece of furniture, and not as the horizontal afterlife of a once-living tree. Awareness that the features of the natural world all had to have somehow gotten to where they are, and that their position and character is transient on the scale of years or decades, is slippery, especially for someone as indoorsy as myself. I all-too-easily take today’s thin slice in time and extrapolate, assuming something superficial extends durably into the past and future. All of which is my long-winded way of trying to justify the dumb thought I had when I took this picture: “Huh! How weird that this log has rings!”

Juniper, a dog, rests her head on a very firm and lofty pillow while relaxing on the guest bed. In contrast to Barley’s “I’ll just plop down right here and then figure out what I’m doing later” approach to soft surfaces, Juniper’s meticulous and calculating approach to everything shows through in the ways she seem to “use” the features of those surfaces. She’s picky about getting things ‘just so,’ pawing and fussing if they’re not in a good configuration and finally settling into what seems like very deliberate poses.

Barley, a dog, peers out across a grassy field, lined in the distance by buildings and tall trees. This photo is now just a bit out of date, reflecting the final days of wintry weather back in mid-March. We may consider this as a marker in time before three major changes. First, the deciduous trees have finally begun to provide some greenery to compete with the conifers. Second, the grass has begun to grow more rapidly, and the passing of the lawn mowers have done away with the lingering leaf litter visible in this photo. Third, the most significant development from Barley’s perspective, has been the return of the Canadian geese that by the hundreds claim this lawn as their turf for six-to-eight months every year. With their arrival, the lawn is effectively closed to Barley, not because she poses any meaningful risk to the geese themselves, but because she simply will not stop trying to eat goose poop.

Barley, a dog, sploot-stands while enthusiastically holding a toy donkey, either about to stand or about to lie down. A lot of Barley’s play behavior involves an intuitive sort of call-and-response. A person crouching down might be settling down to roll around on the floor, or might be making a bow before springing into motion. Fortunately, she does not mind a playmate who hasn’t quite made of their mind. Just pick a direction and Barley will follow your lead; wait too long, and she’ll just take the lead herself.

Barley, a dog, trots along a concrete path that shines with a thin layer of fresh rainwater. In contrast with the drab patches mentioned in yesterday’s post, other parts of our walks feel enlivened with the coming of spring. Even the rain feels more lively. In the place of winter drizzle, it’s now quite common for the clouds to break after a rainfall and for the pavement to reflect light back up at us as we walk toward the sun.

Barley, a dog, sniffs about among the dead leaves and branches beside a foot path. Even as spring is making itself undeniably felt with the warming weather and blooming flowers, I can’t help but feel as though some patches of land have yet to slip free of winter’s grasp. Through some mix of tough soil and limited exposure, I swear there are bits I walk Barley past that have had the same layer of leaf litter, hardly changed for the last six months.

Barley, a dog, makes herself as small as she can as she crouches behind a piece of furniture, nervous on account of distant thunder. As I’ve mentioned in the past, Barley experiences a lot of anxiety relating to stormy weather, and a pretty broad class of “sky rumbles” will inspire her to seek cover and make herself small. Note here how her legs are tucked under her body and her chin is lowered to the floor. This is not a dog who is curling up for a nap. She is also very insistent that her hiding spot have a solid-seeming roof. Her crate, for example, does not pass muster, and when as storm rolls through, it’s very common for her to spring out of her crate and get under a neighboring table instead. This tells me she has some intuition that distinguishes “soft cover” from “hard cover,” but I haven’t quite deciphered her rule of thumb for making that distinction.

Barley, a dog, is captured on camera pulling hard on her leash to try to get closer to a wary cat visible at the top of the frame. One of Barley’s many fans recently quipped that Barley is “only one or two steps from being perfect.” One such step would be her unsavory interest in cats. While Barley will show a lot of enthusiasm in her approach toward other dogs, and will show fleeting and casual interest in other furry animals (such as squirrels), she becomes laster-focused if she ever sees a cat. This tunnel vision does not seem pro-social. I wouldn’t try to stage such an encounter (by, say, approaching a cat on purpose), because there are too many ways doing so could go sideways. However, it so happened that I was getting my phone out to take an unrelated picture of Barley when she spotted the cat pictured above and started to scrabble forward along the pavement. I managed to snap this picture as I was steering her away from the encounter, and figured the image came out clearly enough that it would be worth documenting this facet of her personality.

Juniper, a dog, lies atop, and sinks into, the very lofty comforter atop a queen-size bed in an AirBnB bedroom. During a trip taken earlier this year, Juniper stayed in a dog-friendly AirBnB. I’m told that, upon arriving in the unfamiliar space, she no sooner had her harness removed before tearing off to explore the house and disappearing from view. Minutes later, she was found as you see her here, apparently committing early to which bedroom she wanted to claim for herself.

Barley, a dog seen from up close, sprawls luxuriously on a big cushion, paws forward, and gazes with rapt attention into the camera. Like many dogs, Barley spends a lot of the day sleeping. She’s a light sleeper, though, floating along just beneath the threshold of consciousness during daylight hours so as not to miss excitement that might arise. What’s a little disconcerting is that Barley also spends a lot of her day supervising whomever she’s around. I think she just often concludes that the people around her are the most interesting things going on, even moreso than, say, any wildlife that might be scampering about outside a nearby window.

Barley, a dog, gives her ear a scratch with her hind leg, which is a blur of motion as she squints and grins in satisfaction. For the most part, Barley doesn’t seem to be a particularly itchy dog. Every once in a while she’ll feel an itch at her ear or collar that warrants a scratch, but these are rare enough that I have few opportunities to capture them on camera. Much more common are her full-body back-wiggles, as previously documented, but even these have never been common enough to suggest anything concerning. It surely helps that she gets to say hello to her friends every day, who give her plenty of affectionate scritches.

Barley, a dog, stands beside an accumulation of branches and other woodsy detritus. Grounds crews have finally begin to gather and mulch the accumulating casualties of various wind storms since the New Year. I’ve been confused as to why this has been such a long time coming, and I’m beginning to think that this only becomes a priority when regular lawn care begins to loom on the horizon. Or, perhaps, wood that’s been allowed to weather for months is easier to mulch. Whatever the reason, piles have begun to spring up all over on Barley’s walks, turning to piles of mulch soon after.

Barley, a dog, looms large over the camera, kaiju-enormous, too immense to fit into the frame. As far as Barley is concerned, a human who has joined her on the floor is ready for shenanigans. Sofas and futons are for snuggles, but the floor is for wrasslin’. It’s a little mysterious when she deems a person as joined her for a tussle. Kneeling isn’t usually enough, but sitting on the floor often crosses the threshold. Lying down? Well, then it’s time to party.

Barley, a dog, trots through leaf litter that has been soaked in rain. The coming of spring has definitely been a mixed bag, weather-wise. The daily high has been swinging by as much as twenty degrees day to day, and while it’s never quite cold enough to fall back on my winter coat, it’s often wet enough for me to regret having made my transition to spring attire. For Barley’s part, there’s not been a downpour heavy enough to justify wearing her orange rain jacket, but she’s certainly been getting her share of foot and leg wipe-downs to keep mud from getting tracked in after her walks.

Juniper, a dog, rests her head on a sofa cushion and her blankie, and sleeps soundly. One of the curious consequences of Juniper being an anxious dog in general is that it’s very easy to tell when she feels safe and able to relax. Her most blissful quietude is achieved when she’s lying beside her Person, with some gently non-confronting television playing in the background, and she can slip into the deep sleep of a dog who is letting someone else keep watch.

Barley, a dog, glances back over her shoulder as she sprawls long. Above her, atop the futon, Jacobhorse Drawfee also stretches with an unnatural length that can only have arisen from dark sorcery. As a long-time fan of Drawfee, I was pleased that they made a Jacobhorse available for sale, but I was not satisfied with its dimensions. So I did what any self-respecting scientist would do, and modified it myself. The result is a creature most unnatural, an eight-legged sleipnir-taur of a thing, but it is long enough. So long, in fact, that Barley has never once confused it for a toy. I’m pretty sure she think’s it’s just a cushion.

Barley, a dog, stands in front of an enormous tree. You can tell the tree is enormous because a Barley is provided for scale. When I was growing up, my grandparents lived in a condo with an adjoining shared park area. One tree in particular was clearly the oldest, a bulbous mass gone wide and knotty under gravity’s relentless pull. The story I was told (although I did not then and do not now have any way of verifying it) was that it has been planted during the reign of Napoleon. Of the trees I now have daily access to, this is the only one what gives even a fraction of the “I’m too old for this shit” energy that the ancient giant I would visit in my childhood conveyed when I would stand at its base.

Barley, a dog, sprawls lazily on her side, snoozing, awaiting the next visitor to the office. Of all the folks working hard, there is exactly one person in the building at the time of this photo who would be excited if they were to attend a meeting. It’s Barley. She would love very much for someone to come and meet with me (and thus with her!) in my office. She would be an active participant in the meeting! She would contribute what she is able! Her contributions would not be on topic, but you can count on them to be very enthusiastic! Reject emails, she would say if she could. This could have been a meeting.

Barley, a dog, sniffs at the base of a brick archway. She has been here before. Since the walks I take Barley on while at work are often relatively short and thus within a given radius of the office, there are certain spots that Barley is very, very likely to visit multiple times a week. By now, she has certainly sniffed at this exact spot over a hundred times, and is making steady progress toward having sniffed at it over a thousand times. Her level of focused interest remains undiminished. She’s gotta check the news!

Barley, a dog, strolls past a huge compact emergency generator, oblivious to the ominous noises it is capable of making should the situation require it. One of the curiosities of owning an adventuresome dog is that things that seem on paper like they would get boring somehow simply don’t. In this case, I am amusing myself by Barley’s failure to recognize that this cuboid contraption is a generator. This shouldn’t amuse me as much as it does: She fails to recognize the function of almost every complex machine she encounters. And yet my mind’s eye never fails to do some nonsense like recreate the party wallflower meme, except the room has only Barley in the center and a generator in the corner wearing a party hat and thinking to itself, “She doesn’t know I’m a generator.”

Barley, a dog, stands alert in a grassy expanse, ears forward and looking with playful intent toward something out of frame, as a stick rests at her feet. I owe a considerable debt to Barley’s fans, who have been instrumental in providing her the level of adventure that she deserves on a daily basis when I am too busy at work to take her for a walk myself. This photo was taken not by me, but by a Barley Megafan who knows how to show her a good time.

Juniper, a dog, sits by the window and looks at the camera with one of her tiny chipmunk toys between her front paws. Juniper gives the chipmunk a little affectionate sniff/nuzzle with her snoot. Since posting about them a couple months ago, I have since been informed that Juniper’s tiny toy friends are in fact chipmunks, not squirrels. Regardless, she remains a big fan of them, carrying them gently by the scruff from place to place and keeping them near as she keeps watch out the window, or watches television, or naps. She is gentle with them even relative to her other stuffed toys (all of which are handled far more delicately than Barley ever would). So, I am convinced that in her fundamentally doggy way, she perceived the chipmunks as Baby.

Barley, a dog, snoozes on the futon, lying on her side with her legs out and her head way back, as if she was making the sideways-dog version of a snow angel. Barley enjoys sprawling out like this most after a long and/or vigorous walk. When she’s given those legs a workout, you need only rest a hand on her shoulder or her hip, and compare the temperature to that of her ribs, to get a sense of how much excess heat she generates with all that exercise.

Barley, a dog, trudges along through a cluster of vines above a red concrete curb, along a slope that is at least a 60 degree angle from the ground. This photo really doesn’t do justice to how steep this incline is. I assume the landscapers cultivated ivy here in the hopes that the roots would hold the slope together and keep it from sliding into the street below every time there was heavy rain. Whatever the case, Barley is happy to pick her way along despite having legs that are far too equal in length for such terrain.

Barley, a dog, looks up from a comforter that she has heaped and wound into a soft little nest atop the bedspread. A lazy Barley has a cozy mode and a sprawl mode. Beds are wonderful surfaces, but they’re sometimes surfaces, ideal for when Barley feels the need to really take up space. It’s a dramatic contrast to the Barley who winds herself into a little loaf by tucking every bit she can and becomes a canine lozenge.

Barley, a dog, pauses while trekking down a woodsy path and glances up at the photographer, as if to check in. Barley really can’t be trusted off leash when outdoors. She’ll pick a target on the horizon and make for it. However, as enthusiastic as she is to plow forward, she’s aware of her companions, and will occasionally check in on them. She’s not the sort of runner who is looking to run in order to get chased, at least not usually. She’s the sort of runner who assumes that her pack wants to go the same place she does, and charges ahead fully expecting the rest of the team to feel the same.

Barley, a dog, pushes herself up from a sploot with her front paws, but remains at the midway point, with her feet still sticking out behind her. If Barley it tired and rises from a sploot, she sometimes gets about halfway and just rests in this position for a bit while she waits to see what happens. Is there a reason to become more wakeful? Or perhaps an opportunity has arisen to snuggle up with someone before going back to sleep? This is the posture of a dog who is present and attentive, but could fall asleep again in less than 30 seconds if she needed to.

Barley, a dog, sniffs with great enthusiasm at a shrug. In the foreground, out of focus, a scrap of brown paper hangs from a tree that reads, “this is the murmur of yearning” in black calligraphy. "This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of hair, This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning, This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face, This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again." -Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself," 1892 version.

Juniper, a dog, is lying on the bed and, let’s be honest, scowling at the camera. She seems very cross, despite having her squirrel and her shark as company. A long-time fan of this page asked me the other day, “Is Juniper… depressed?” While I don’t think that’s the case, she is certainly a dogs with big moods that she wears on her sleeve. When she’s had enough of something (whatever it might be), she quietly exits and recharges her batteries somewhere more peaceful. When she’s tired but also feels the need to remain vigilant, she takes on a long-suffering expression that we have referred to for years as “boo boo face.” Here, we one such instance. Look at her, being a huge boo boo. Not pictured is the party currently unfolding elsewhere in the house that is too noisy and boisterous for Juniper’s liking, so much so that she can’t really get much respite from it even by retreating to the guest room.

Barley, a dog, glances back at the photographer as she stands on a shiny smooth floor before huge floor-to-ceiling windows that look out on woodsy terrain that comes right up to the building’s edge. I’m all for architecture that brings in a lot of natural light, but I sometimes feel as though architects haven’t fully thought through how doing so will impact the resulting space. The notion was, no doubt, to give those passing through these halls a dramatic view of the woods beyond, but those woods are so close to the building that the glass feels much more like a wall than it does a window. Add in the total lack of consideration for how the space might be used (a bench along that stretch might have been nice, for example), and it makes me feel more than anything like this window turns the building into a zoo for the benefit of the wildlife, who would like to observe humans and their pets going about their lives while in captivity.

Barley, a dog, stares up mournfully from an expectant sit. At the edge of the frame, we see the nearly-empty bowl of popcorn from which she would dearly like a sample. It’s hard to say which foods are Barley’s favorites, since she finds just about any food to be stop-the-presses levels of interesting, but popcorn seems to hold a fascination even beyond her normal enthusiasm. Obviously, the saltiness is a big factor, but I bet the textures is also important. Not necessarily the texture in her mouth, mind. I think it’s how loudly it crunches in the mouths of others that sends her a big signal that, “Someone’s chowing down on something special, I better get in on that action!”

Barley, a dog, treads through grass. Close examination reveals that each blade of grass is coated in a thin layer of frost. One of my clearest visual signals that I’m far from home in a different part of the world is that the plants are the wrong color. There’s greenery of some kind most everywhere, but between regional variations in local species and horticultural practice, the particular shade of green can vary quite dramatically. Occasionally, my own neighborhood will play this trick on me. Leaving for work early one unseasonably cold morning and finding that a chilling fog has dusted every place with a patina of frost had me feeling like I’d woken up in a different state, or maybe even inside a black-and-white photograph hand-colored in pale, penciled hues.

Barley, a dog, sploots on a carpet with only her hindquarters in the frame of this animated GIF. After a pause, her tail begins wagging enthusiastically. Barley is very tuned into how much attention is being paid to her, and she’ll display some provisional excitement if she’s given an encouraging (but not definitive) clue that fun times are ahead. Certain words mean it’s time to hit the gas (“walk”,”eat”, and “snack” are all turbo boosters), but if she hears her name, it’s probably a pretty good sign and she’ll get the engine turning over in case there’s more good news.

Barley, a dog, advances down a college hallway lit mostly by sunlight, without any evident signs of human activity. As a medium so frequently geared toward the visual, the Internet has made much of liminality as a photographic aesthetic, particularly as it applies to places. We might say that a curiously nondescript hallway feels “uncanny” when photographed. I think this is owed in part to the fixedness of photographs: They situate the viewer in a spot and force them to remain there. In a liminal space, one we are meant to pass through, our in life has trained us to get a move on. Show me a long, empty subway tunnel and I’m going to feel the prospect of missing my connecting train in my bones. I gotta go fast, and a photograph refuses to let me do so. I think this emphasis on place is limiting. This photograph doesn’t capture the feeling of what it depicts: A college campus at the absolute nadir of its activity, deep into a Spring Break that both students and faculty are taking full advantage of. The campus doesn’t feel vacated, it feels interrupted. The potential energy of a term about to be resumed hangs over the quietude of the offices and classrooms. Even Barley can feel it, in her way, displaying the kind of restlessness that comes of having been cut off cold turkey from her steady stream of guests and visitors giving her attention. Something’s about to happen. A liminal time is…

Barley, a dog, wiggles furiously in the confines of her own home. Her feet blur with the vigor of her thrashing. YOU CAN’T STOP THE WIGGLES! WE’RE GONNA WIGGLE WHEN WE SAY IT’S WIGGLE TIME! KICK THE SKY! KICK! KICK!

Juniper, a dog, stands on a carpet and calmly examines the photographer. If you spend any time at all around Juniper, you will notice right away that she is observing. All the time. She might be watching out the window, or watching television, but if you’re a guest, she’s probably going to be observing you. Her capacity for scrutiny is bottomless, and she gives the impression she’s always cogitating hard about whatever she’s observing. Importantly, her default position toward guests isn’t territorial or grumpy, strictly. It’s just watchful, and patient.

Barley, a dog, scopes out a carefully tended flowerbed. I’ve mentioned before that Barley usually doesn’t care for flowers one way or the other, so it was weird that she took an interest in these. I suspect the flowers had nothing to do with it, however. If my hunch is correct, a cat had passed recently and Barley was keen on following its scent.

Barley, a dog, rests on the futon wearing her neon-yellow sweater. Her left leg is already free of the sweater, which remains draped over her shoulder. When it’s very cold out and Barley wears her sweater, she’s excited to come home but isn’t necessarily in a hurry to shed her garment. Often, she flops down somewhere and I gently prise one leg free of its confines. She can then hang out in it as long as she wants. When she stands up to do something else, the other loop slides off her other leg on its own and the sweater remains behind.

Barley, a dog, is very unsure of her footing on a sidewalk topped by a sheet of ice. This is a photo from a while ago, but I can’t resist sharing it before too much more time has passed. When things iced over here, Barley was not having it. Scrabbling hither and thither, she kept trying to find a surface where she had traction, only to discover that every surface was just as icy as every other. As scrabbly as she was, she still had better traction than me, and in her urgency, she basically pulled me along as I slid flat-footed along behind her. She found this terrain so unpleasant to walk on that she refused to go to the bathroom when we first went out, trying instead to drag me back home!

Barley, a dog, goes in for the strike! Barley, a dog, chomps down on her target, a plush toy in the shape of a piece of nigiri, with a smiling face on its side. Barley recently came into the possession of this very cute toy (purchased at a deep discount!) and seems very taken by it. On the one hand, I’m sure she would love some sushi. On the other hand, I’m finding that whether a toy holds her interest is very hard to predict. At one time I thought she liked toys that were more prey-like; and another, I thought she liked toys with floppy limbs. As time passes, I’m beginning to think that there may not be an organizing principle. She may simply be a dog whose taste in plushy toys comes and goes like a series of fads.

Barley, a dog, sniffs about near a tree trunk, where a wide assortment of branches have clustered. Between high winds and the occasional ice events, this winter has been pretty hard on the branches of the local trees. Perhaps this normal seasonal thinning, but I don’t recall seeing such heavy buildup of fallen branches from trees all over town in years past. Barley is only occasionally in the mood to select a branch to brandish as an outdoor prize, but these last couple months, there has almost always been a branch to hand when the mood has struck.

Barley, a dog, takes a break from scrutinizing the squirrels gathered on just the other side of the curtains and glances back at the camera. The bird feeder I have hanging above my patio recently saw a big uptick in use, perhaps because more birds using it means more birds seeing that more birds are using it, and so forth. Being picky eaters, the birds in question (sparrows, I think) have been rummaging around and knocking their less-preferred seeds to the ground, which has in turn attracted more squirrels. Barley finds these visitors mildly interesting, watching them silently from the floor or the futon. For their part, the squirrels don’t seem to notice her supervision.

Juniper, a dog, sits before a fence with a tennis ball at her feet, and looks back over her shoulder at the camera. Every once in a while, Juniper will get a chance to growl and bark at Wally, the doofy golden retriever next door, as the two run back and forth along the fence at one another until one or both dogs are called back inside. But those encounters are sporadic, and days or weeks might pass without them happening to not be in their respective yards at the same time. Sometimes, Juniper can be found, sitting and watching the fence, perhaps with a ball, or perhaps with her monkey, seeming to wait and see if Wally will appear.

Barley, a dog, is on her back, wigglin’ up a storm in the grass in a sunny day. As cold and wet and muddy as the winter has been to date, Barley has clear recognized that it wouldn’t be worth it to flip and wiggle. But the day was sunny, and the grass was dry, and the spirit moved her! I promptly capture this moment, the first lawn wiggles of 2024, and then knelt down to give her belly a rub as she lay placidly in the sunlight, paws up.

Barley, a dog, battles valiantly with a giant octopus as it emerges from beneath the frame! “We rolled pell-mell into the midst of this nest of serpents, that wriggled on the platform in the waves of blood and ink. It seemed as though these slimy tentacles sprang up like the hydra’s heads. Ned Land’s harpoon, at each stroke, was plunged into the staring eyes of the cuttle fish. But my bold companion was suddenly overturned by the tentacles of a monster he had not been able to avoid.”- Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1872 English edition)

Barley, a dog, sniffs a fire hydrant, obviously pandering to the most reductive stereotypes. There’s something charming about how sincerely many dogs fulfill our most stereotyped expectations of them. This is not to say dogs have no identities of their own, of course. Ask any dog owner and they’ll list five ways in which their dog is weird. But rare is the dog whose every facet is uncanine, and unlike most of the animals we learn about as schoolchildren, dogs are very thoroughly in our lives in a way that would dispel any urban legends about their behavior. Of course most Americans believe baseless things about elephants and sharks and lions: How many Americans have lived with any of those species for any length of time? So it is that our pop-cultural understanding of Dog is fairly predictive! As expected, Barley finds fire hydrants very compelling.

Barley, a dog, lies on the ground, seeming forlorn, beside her dog bed in a heap. Barley seems to enjoy trips well enough, and she loves walks, but she always seems despondent while I am packing for a trip. It’s not clear to me why this should be: She almost always comes with me on these trips, and she’s excited again once we’re out the door. Even when I’m just packing up my normal day-to-day gear to go to work, she’s excited. But any more elaborate preparations involving suitcases and peripherals and her tub of dog accessories somehow disrupts her “home space” in a way that leaves her shadowing my every move with gloomy alarm.

Barley, a dog, peers from the hallway into an unlit classroom. The adage that you can ‘never go home again’ is oft-repeated, and I think it’s worth reflecting on. When we leave the nest to live a new life in a new place, doing so changes us, and the places we grew up change in our absence. As Tim Rogers puts it, “Places do not remember us.” But what’s even more dramatically true is that you can never go back to school again. One’s childhood, at least, has some sprawl to it, stretching over years. We rarely spend more than a handful of years in a given educational context, and education (if it’s doing anything right at all) transforms the person receiving it. So I will never again sit in a classroom as a student, not as I was. Those classrooms remain, but those classes are gone, as is the person I was and the era within which I was embedded. And something I’ve learned in that time, and continue to learn: How narrow and fleeting this sliver that is “today.”

Barley, a dog, rests her head expectantly on the arm of a sofa, with her hind legs curled up. Barley seems to be gazing intently off camera because, around the corner, there is a kitchen, and from that kitchen come a rhythmic series of sounds. Chop. Chop. Chop. The sounds of the Night Apples being prepared.

Juniper, a dog, snoozes on a nondescript sofa, her head resting on a dark gray pillow. Juniper doesn’t travel super often, but overall, she’s a pretty easy travel companion. While in the car, her main concern is being close to her humans, which the close quarters of car travel provide automatically. Walks and accommodations are a little more involved: While her desire to be good generally keeps her on the straight and narrow, it’s clear that being in unfamiliar spaces and landscapes stresses her out, especially if she needs to be left on her own for short stretches. The net result is that by day’s end, she’s usually plum tuckered out, as seen here.

Barley, a dog, stands next to a traditional residential letter box. On its unpainted metal exterior, one can clearly read the words U.S. MAIL APPROVED BY THE POSTMASTER GENERAL. One of the things I find myself reflecting on while walking Barley is that everything we encounter that humans have made, especially those objects that we encounter frequently, had to be designed. So it was that it occurred to me that I’ve been seeing these mailboxes my whole life and had never before given a moment’s thought to the phrase “approved by the Postmaster General.” I have since learned that this is the Jorolemon mailbox, a quiet triumph of design that has been in heavy use since its first manufacture in 1915. In an even more remarkably twist, Roy J. Joroleman, a postal employee himself, chose not to patent the design, instead releasing the design into the public domain. So next time you see one of these mailboxes, give a thought for some of the small heroes who made modern life a little better without trying to extract value in the process.

Barley, a dog, stands in a snowy landscape in front of a swimming pool, empty of water but half-full of snow. A sign indicates that the pool is closed. If an empty swimming pool fills with snow, is the swimming pool once again full of water?

Barley, a dog, stands below a sign saying BEWARE OF DOG. I’m sorry, what was that? You’d like me to be aware of dog? I think we can manage that.

Barley, a dog, fills the frame with her paw, revealing her pads, the fur between her toes, and nails in need of a trim. Because Barley spends so much time either outdoors or on carpeted surfaces, it’s easy to lose track of how fast her nails grow. When I saw her lying in a majestic side pose with one foot held aloft by an intervening pillow, I saw an opportunity to snap this pic. Having done so, I was confronted with the truth of the matter: I was going to need to set aside a block of time to get those nails done.

Barley, a dog, trots a fast clip, causing her ears to flap and giving the impression of having tiny wings extended from her head. Barley’s ears are delightfully soft and floppy, but my eyes don’t process movement fast enough to fully appreciate what they get up to when Barley goes hard. It is only though the magic of modern photography that I can pause and ponder this vision of Barley with wings extended, ready for takeoff.

Barley, a dog, wears a visibility sweater in snowy terrain, pulling the leash hard to advance. Barley, a dog, pulls the photographer forward. Barley, a dog, will continue to pull until temperatures improve. With unpleasantly cold temperatures last week, I figured it might warm my soul to ponder an even colder time from about a month ago. Here, we see Barley in full sled dog mode. When it’s wintry-cold out, her progress in any given direction is headstrong, as if working harder than usual just to keep her muscles warm.

Juniper, a dog, sits expectantly with her monkey in front of a television on which a documentary is playing. Juniper loves watching television, but it often gets her wound up. I’ve documented her various attempts to scare away Screen Beasts, but often it’s just a matter of things on screen being too high energy and her needing to burn that off somehow. Here, some manner of “crowd goes wild” mirth got her all wound up, so she decided to frolic a bit with her monkey (to the audible delight of those present). After a bit of hoppy, chompy nonsense, she settled back into watching the show again.

Barley, a dog, is a dark silhouette in the golden glow of a living room window. Having given it some thought, I don’t think Barley has a concept of “a house” as a discrete object. Her sense of objects appears to be limited to the practical scale of daily life: doors, sofas, windows, treats. I bring this up because this picture inspired me to ask myself the question, “Which side of this house would Barley consider the front?” And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s probably a malformed question - her understanding of it wouldn’t make it past “this house.” What she certainly knows, as her enthusiastic vigilance is here revealing, is which direction to expect us from on our return.

Barley, a dog, glances up a hill through fairly thick fog on an otherwise deserted street. I really enjoy the visual aesthetic of walking through fog, but only when dressed accordingly. At the time of this photo, pretty early one morning, I was not dressed warmly enough and undertook the walk with what I can only describe as bone-chilled urgency. This gave what I would normally find to be a hazy, dreamy atmosphere a distinctly Silent Hill vibe. The mere fact that I was hurrying to my destination made it a lot easier to imagine escaping from some ambiguous pursuer, distant but not distant enough for comfort.

Barley, a dog, sleeps and dreams on a faux-marble bedspread, her head resting on a pillow wishing her a good night. I’ve made much in the past of how quiet Barley is, almost never barking except in the depths of her dreams. I’ve also made much of what a light sleeper she is. Despite many attempts over several years, I’ve never been able to digitally capture Barley’s sleep woofs… until now! The recording below took place at the precise time this photo was taken. I credit having been able to capture this rare footage to the loud air purifier that was running at the time, which no doubt masked the gentle rustling of my clothes as I turned to face her. This, unfortunately, provides the backing track to Barley’s announcements. Worry not: Once I’d captured the moment, I gently woke her. As cute as her sleep woofs are, the manner in which she vocalizes when she’s awake suggests that any dream worthy of growling and woofing was probably not a pleasant dream.

Barley, a dog, tromps across light snow in a vast, empty parking lot toward the wheel tracks of someone having pulled a u-turn in the snow. I spend so little time dealing with snow that when I spotted these circular tracks, my mind immediately conjured an image of Troubled Youth cruising around the snowscape and recklessly doing donuts in empty parking lots. I only realized later how absurdly I had misread what was probably instead a tired and cautious commuter pulling into a parking lot and turning around to avoid a mild hill that might be a little icy. Barley, by contrast, wasn’t fooled for a second - I’m 100% sure she would have stopped to sniff burned rubber reside, and these modest tire tracks didn’t warrant even a passing whiff.

Barley, a dog, turns her head and looks in the same direction as a fairly abstracted sculpture of a bear(?) made from segments of bark-bearing wood. The demands placed on yard art often push it to have very unusual combinations of attributes. It must be expressive, of course, but can’t be beloved or else it would probably stay indoors. It also needs to emphasize long-term durability over the immediate experience of viewing the work. Stop to consider how deeply weird most yard art would look in a person’s home, just as many forms of indoor art would look weird in a yard. I don’t know of any formal theory discussing these qualities, but I feel very confident that when this homeowner bought this bear(?), their first thought was not, “This looks great!” but, “This would look great in my yard!”

Barley, a dog, stands beneath a property-for-sale sign that says, “I’M GORGEOUS INSIDE!” Barley really has a wonderful personality. Even when her behavior is a little unruly (e.g. when she would like to clamber up and stand tall with her front paws on someone’s lap in order to kiss their face), she radiates an innocent enthusiasm. Even when spooked by something as alarming as a floating orb, her instinct is to seek comfort and shelter. She’s looking to have a good time and, with her blessedly limited of theory of mind, is bringing us all along on that quest.

Juniper, a dog, watches television with her new friend, a comically tiny squirrel toy. Because Juniper is so meticulous and dainty with her toys, with no apparent interest in treating them like prey, she can be trusted with toys that would normally be a bit on the small side for a dog of her size. Recently, she was gifted a hollow cloth log and three tiny squirrels that can be stuffed into the log to subsequently be extracted. She apparently loves these tiny new friends. While they haven’t dethroned Husky as Juniper’s most devoted companion, she seems to like having one of her squirrels around when watching TV for some reason.

Barley, a dog, lies on a sofa with her head wedge between two throw cushions, as if her face is the contents of a cushion sandwich. Are you losing sleep because you can’t sleep unless both sides of your face resting on a pillow, and no matter how you toss and turn, there’s no way to get both sides of your face facing down? Try Barley’s patent-pending sandwich technique today, and discover a new universe of comfort!

Barley, a dog, stared at (or through?) a white fence with in a stance radiating its potential energy. Moments before this photo was taken, Barley spotted a cat who crossed her path and then immediately hid in a bush. Unfortunately, the ferocity of Barley’s prey drive took her right past the bush where I could see the cat was hiding, and down the full length of this fence. What you see here is her turning the corner, where she no doubt believed she was going to get the drop of the cat, only to discover more fence! I’m confident she would have had me circumnavigate this entire house if given the chance.

Barley, a dog, sniffs the nether regions of a golden retriever who is lying happily on her back. Barley has a workplace buddy with whom she very occasionally gets to hang out, and whenever they do, their dynamic is very funny. Barley is generally pretty bossy with other dogs. She wants them to know she’s the boss, and is excited to convey that repeatedly in the form of rough-housing play. Her buddy, by contrast, may be the most submissive dog I’ve ever met, and submits to Barley’s authority with just as much enthusiasm.

Barley, a dog, sees a hole that was meant for her. I’ll never know why, exactly, this hole is so compelling, but it doesn’t matter whether months have passed or whether Barley got a chance to check it out earlier in the same day. When we pass this hole, she will stand and sniff for as long as she can until I finally coax her away.

Barley, a dog, pulls excitedly on her leash in the hopes of approach postal truck down the road. Growing up, I was always a little puzzled by cartoon trope of dogs chasing mail carriers. The idea made sense, of course, but for various reasons it was never a behavior I witnessed in person. It was one of those “facts” that kids learn primarily from pop culture instead of lived experience; you know, the type that often turn out to have no basis in reality? Well. Ever since the mail carriers in my neighborhood started consistently (a) carrying treats on their person and (b) offering them to Barley, she’s become a big fan of mail vans. I have to try to temper her enthusiasm because she gets excited enough to be a little bonkers about it.

Barley, a dog, sniffy about beside an ostentatious garden wall that’s just a little too tidy to be fieldstone. Barley’s not a huge dog bit she’s big enough to let her presence be known. A lot of it comes down to her exuberant personality. I’m so used to her at her current size that when we encounters something that goes a bit over the top, my instinct isn’t to feel like it makes her look small, but rather to feel like she makes those thinks look even bigger. While I can easily see over this wall, seeing Barley right next to it bring to mind a vision of Barley as a Forgotten Beast, stalking the perimeter of a stony fortress.

Juniper, a dog, lies in her crate, over which a knitted blanker is draped. She watches from the darkness intently. When Juniper is deep in her feelings, she likes to have little timeouts in her crate. Since there’s never occasion to close the door, and because of the blanket draped over it, it’s a dark, comfy zone she can count on. She’s begun to take breaks in there more often since it was repositioned in such a way that, from where she is lying in the photo, she has an unobstructed view of the television.

Barley, a dog, stands by a lamp post beneath a sign reading, “SLOW DOWN, OBSERVE & ENJOY”. Thanks, sign! We will! Advice to live by, honestly. I’ve already such such a great role model in Barley.

Barley, a dog, spots a shiny blue marble tucked among some stones. Walking Barley forces me to pay much more attention to my immediate surroundings than I would if I was walking alone. While you might think that could get a little tiresome (and I’ll admit that walking Barley isn’t precisely a relaxing exercise), I actually find that there’s something compelling about this state of extended vigilance. I notice a lot more of the tiny details that give the world texture this way, and find myself wondering what curious chain of events might have led to the world being arrayed just so. Even after what is now certainly thousands of hours of walking this dog, I’m still not bored, which I take to be a good sign.

Barley, a dog, sniffs about in a patch of barren soil, ringed with a concrete parking bumper. There’s something tragic about a barren rectangle of dirt in a parking lot. I figure the story is some version of “Something was here when the property was developed, it grew big enough for its roots to be a problem, so we dug it out and decided we’d rather do nothing with the spot that devote any landscaping effort to it whatsoever.” Perhaps Barley feels otherwise, seeing them instead as a collaborative canvas to which anyone can contribute!

Barley, a dog, sniffs along a verge from which bamboo is growing. Barley, a dog, continues walking past the camera. wind blows through bambooit whispers news to her nose that we cannot hear

Barley, a dog, ponders a sonic sculpture consisting of sheet metal but into bulbous shapes that hang within a red framework. I’m a big fan of this sculpture. As it was explained to me, the harmonic profile of a traditional, 3-dimensional tubular bell can be closely approximated by an appropriately-shaped flat sheet of metal. And sure enough, if you strike any one of these bits of sheet metal, it rings with a pleasantly sonorous note on a 12-tone scale (with the 13th note providing the octave). I always make sure to do so when I walk by, although Barley gives the impression of not being as big a fan of its musical potential as I am.

Barley, a dog, glances over her shoulder. Behind her, a bright green lawn extends that, upon closer inspection, consists mostly of moss. ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ ඞ…

Juniper, a dog, gazes contentedly up from her giant bed, in the company of her squirrel and her husky. We will never fully understand the intricate nuances of Juniper’s relationships with her beloved toys. Given her disposition, I’m inclined to interpret her approach less as hosting a tea party for her stuffies, and more as plotting courtly intrigues with them. It’s less a guest/host dynamic and more of a family affair.

Barley, a dog, sits contentedly surrounded by an array of toys lying in disarray, as though she stands along on a battlefield littered with her fallen foes. Barley has just about reached toy saturation at this point, such that my living room is a kind of chaotic plushie abattoir. Turns out, my having mastered various tricks for extended their useful lifetime has been enough to make the rate at which she received gifts from family a net growth model. Going forward, I may need to encourage folks to get her nice consumables a little more often, see if I can get us back to parity.

Barley, a dog, stands attentively, tail in motion, surveying the process of the dishes being prepared for the dishwasher. Once dinner with my parents has concluded, Barley has clear expectations about what will transpire next. Dishes will get done, and maybe, maybe, some additional morsels will fall within reach. And after that, well, after that come the Night Apples.

Barley, a dog, supermans on a futon, clearly zonked out. A plush sloth is draped over her back, giving off a similar vibe. Not only is Barley a champion of the Solo Nap, she is also adept at a more challenging event: the Synchronized Nap.

Barley, a dog, looks up at the camera. Behind her, a sign indulges in some questionable logo design. “My plumbing was a mess, things were real unreliable downstairs, but that all changed when I called SHARTS.”

Barley, a dog, stands and licks clean a large tub of Nancy’s yogurt. My parents have a yogurt chaser after dinner just about every night, and in so doing they go through their fair share of yogurt containers. Whenever I visit, I can count on them having one or two nearly-empty containers from the preceding week to give Barley so she can “feel included” during family dinner.

Barley, a dog, sniffs along the perimeter of a substantial treetop, now fallen to the snowy earth after bitter cold and strong winds. Invariably, trees in the area take some hits when the city gets walloped by some heavy-duty winter. Fortunately, where I live and work both seem to have adopted a “once bitten, twice shy” approach after getting hit hard in the last few years, and had arborists coming out and doing some preventative trimming before the New Year. This tree, unfortunately, was further afield and did not receive such attention.

Juniper, a dog, has a single paw before her as she gazes piercingly into the camera. When we first met Juniper and decided to rescue her, the thing that set her apart from the other young puppies in her litter was her intense, focused eye contact. Even at 14 weeks old, she was not locking eyes with her siblings, or with the other dogs from the shelter. She was interested in humans, she needed to know more about humans. To this day, she understands that the eyes are the most important part of a person to scrutinize, and if you meet her gaze you can almost feel her gears turning as she evaluates whatever it is that you’re up to.

Barley, a dog, snoozes on a futon with her face stuffed fully into a dark nook arising from two cushions and a salmon-colored plush toy. While Barley can sleep anywhere, she prefers somewhere dark when she wants to properly sleep and not merely doze. Sometimes, a blessed alignment occurs, and a place she happens to already be snoozing reveals itself to be a tiny island of dark in an otherwise lit room.

Barley, a dog, is depicted from the elbow down, standing on cracking, compacted snow. Her claws are splayed out a little. Once the powder has set and the cold fuses the top layer of snow into a crust, Barley’s locomotive style changes pretty dramatically. Rather than a stately high-steppin’ trot (of the sort she’d use amid autumn leaves), she favors a shoulders-low gremlin scrabbling (of the sort she’d use on loose gravel). This might just be more obvious than usual because the snow provides an unusual stark contrast to her dark nails, but I don’t recall an instance in which I was able to see clearly how much she was splaying her toes and really digging each of her nails into the ground for traction.

Barley, a dog, investigates a string of Xmas lights mostly just draped over some big rocks at the corner of a property. I’ll never not be amused by the combination of someone who feels sufficiently festive to decorate for some holiday or another and yet does so with the absolute minimum effort possible. Maybe make it a family affair, really divide the workload. Come on kids, lets decorate the Xmas rocks together! As a family! Remember, it’s not littering if you plug them in when you’re done!

Barley, a dog, sits amid an expanse of white powdery snow, lightly peppered with pine cones and tree needles. Traffic is hardly much of a concern during a snow storm, as the city, ever-ill-prepared, grinds to a halt for several days while what seems like a single plow makes its circuit around the major streets. Even so, walk Barley in the snow is a little nerve wracking when you lose any sign of where the curb lies. By this point, Barley understands intuitively (at least when I’m with her) that sidewalks are for walking and streets are to be crossed quickly, without lingering. My protective instincts are heightened when neither she nor I can tel where the street begins.

Barley, a dog, looks up from under a card table on which an abstract 70s-coded puzzle is in the process of being assembled. It’s probably safe to say that Barley would not have enjoyed this puzzle, had she any concept of its existence, given her limited ability to discriminate between hues. However, setting that hypothetical aside, I can report that she definitely did not appreciate it in practice either, because my parents and I would sit and stand around it, nearly still and mostly silent, in a manner that got her a little impatient. “Hey,” she would seem to be trying to say after a little while, “There are some perfectly good couches over there we could sit on together instead.”

Barley, a dog, is quite literally foreshadowed by winter’s noonday sun, far less overhead than it is behind her. It’s wild to me how low the arc of the sun gets during winter. As is implied by the title, this photo was taken within a week of the solstice, and despite having taken it right around noon, it’s still low enough to project Barley’s body as a stretched, hunched parody of itself, the sort of caricature you might expect from a kid playing with a flashlight in a darkened room.

Juniper, a dog, is glimpsed through a window lying on a deck and surveying her domain. She has brought one her toys with her to do so. Several people have independently described Juniper as “cat-like” in various respects, and an important aspect of this is her level of solitary independence. Yes, she has her moments of wanting to be close and snuggly, but she also has her own agenda and her own priorities. Who can say what inspires her to take up a shift of watching the back yard? What inspires her to rise, satisfied by a job well done, and return inside with her toy? I’ll tell you this much: She had no idea she was being observed when this photo was taken!

Barley, a dog, stands warily at the top of a staircase, peering down at the camera. Barley does not like the basement in my parents’ house, and is not wild about our being down there either. My mom tells me that when Barley first came to the house, it was not fully dogproofed and she freaked out a little when Barley went into the basement, so she attributes Barley’s hesitation to having been told she’s not allowed. That’s no doubt part of it, but even when coaxed down the stairs, she doesn’t sniff around and doesn’t relax. Instead, she retreats back up the stairs the moment you take your eyes off her. Luckily for her, she doesn’t need to sleep in the basement’s guest bedroom.

Barley, a dog, sits on the futon and watches a snowy patio through foggy glass as small birds capitalize on a pile of birdseed. Once Barley was back home from her wintry excursion (her excitement was clear when she recognized where we were), I refilled my birdfeeder and threw some extra birdseed on the ground for good measure. Over the passing hours, Barley lazily watched a whole gang of birds eagerly refuel. Even with the curtains drawn, the glass on patio door remained foggy all day (something that only ever happens when it’s way below freezing outside), and when I closed the blinds that night, I discovered that the condensation had begun to freeze to the glass along the base of the frame.

Barley, a dog, sits in an empty parking space and looks intently at an adjoining apartment building. I did not take Barley for a long walk on her record-setting day, but even so she was giving some evidence of not being thrilled. Often, I post photos of Barley sitting, and if it’s an outdoor picture, it’s almost always guaranteed that she did so because I asked her to. Barley almost never sits outdoors: She’s either running around or flopped onto the ground. This photo is a rare unprompted sit. I think she recognized that the entryway to the building we were passing would provide shelter from the wind, and was trying to signal to me that she’s really rather not continue.

Barley, a dog, trots gingerly up a hill dusted with snow and littered with fallen twigs. Full-force winter doesn’t hit Barley’s neck of the woods very often, but when it does, it always seems to do so in pretty dramatic fashion. This year, Barley got to set a new personal record. You might think, “gee, this photo doesn’t look like much of storm to me,” and I get where you’re coming from, but what the photo is failing to capture is that we’re walking in 12°F (-11°C) with gusty 30 mph (48 kph) winds. I’m quite confident it’s the coldest weather Barley’s ever encountered in her lifetime.

Barley, a dog, snoozes comfortably atop a messy, unmade bed, the evident beneficiary of its heaped comforter and scattered pillows. I don’t believe Barley understands the concept of a “made bed.” If anything, her preference is for beds to remain unmade as a matter of policy, as this gives her a more varied comfort topography into which to nestle her weary bones for a restorative nap. I wonder if, when she sees me making a bed, some part of her thinks, “…dang it.”

Barley, a dog, sniffs along the bade of a retaining wall made of rough, uneven stones. One needs to set aside appropriate time when taking Barley for a walk in an entirely new neighborhood. Any surface that (to our eye) looks like it probably would smell interesting evidently does, and as Barley’s chaperone I find my pace slowed to something a little more akin to that shuffling through a museum, observing each piece in turn.

Juniper, a dog, fully arrays herself across the pillows of a guest bed and bleps with visible exhaustion. The holidays are a stressful time! A sensitive soul like Juniper, in particular, needs to take her share of breaks during such a time. Thankfully, she’s a master of self-regulation, and when she’s had her fill of the frolicking, she makes a quiet exit and zonks out in an empty corner of the house for a bit to recharge her batteries.

Barley, a dog, is seemingly being scrutinized by a sculpture backlit by sunlight. It consists of stained glass inlaid into a piece of driftwood that give the impression of a glowing red orb floating above an abstracted tropical fish. Recently purchased from a street art fair, this sculpture of my mother’s certainly captures one’s attention. Even if the lights are on in the house, the slightest bit of sunlight will catch in that red orb and draws the eye with all the force of loan shark grabbing a businessman’s tie to get his attention.

Barley, a dog, follows a trail of moss down an inclined sidewalk. Another quality fostered by hills are very specific moss formations. Note how a channel seems to be cut right along the edge of the concrete, beyond which moss suddenly flourishes and then peters out. I speculate that this pattern is the specific result of rain runoff. The runoff is frequently enough that it prevents the moss from encroaching any further to the left, but the runoff itself has been enriched by the yards from which it has overflowed, so it also encourages moss growth. This results in a sharp boundary, whose sharpness narrows and channels the runoff. To the left, currents too strong for outgrowths to get purchase; to the right, a ridge that draws from the current as Egypt did from the flooding of the Nile.

Barley, a dog, picks her way through a hillside of large, loose rocks, peppered with dead leaves. With so many hills around where my parents live, we see an equilibrium that I simply don’t see when at home. On the one hand, there is much less reason to use leaf blowers, so there’s leaf litter around. On the other hand, when on an incline, leaves simply can’t pile up very deep, as they are easily coaxed downhill by even a light wind. This results in a lot of areas that never manage to accumulate more than a moderate dusting of leaves.

Barley, a dog, peeks over the top of a sofa to peer at the camera through a window. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase looms in the background. Barley has spent enough time scoping out my parents as they garden that she isn’t willing to assume that someone merely being in the yard should be treated as sufficient reason to think they’re about to come back in the house. Here, we see a wary hopefulness: She’d like for us to come back into the house, but her excitement doesn’t kick in until we’re in the right part of the yard.

Barley, a dog, climbs up a shallow set of concrete stairs that follow a gentle curve. An environment with a lot of hills presents some clear complications to those fixin’ to stroll. The essence of a comfortable stroll, I think, is to be able to lose track of what your feet are doing, and this is precisely what you do not want to do while descending a staircase. I figure these steps are just about as long as they can safely get: Any shallower a grade, and the steps would be longer than a comfortable stride length, with the eventual risk of a rounding error and a lip misjudged. Barley, being as close as she is to the action, of course has this fully under control.

Barley, a dog, rests on a sofa with her Christmas mouse and black rubber toy. The sofa is protected by a holiday-themed throw, tucked into the cushions. I am given to believe that my parents use their sofas without covers most of the time, but it’s getting genuinely hard to imagine the living room without a rotating array of throws and blankets tucked into the cushions to protect them from Barley’s paws. For her part, Barley partakes of the furniture enthusiastically, the better to hang out with us up close and in contact.

Juniper, a dog, is curled up against her husky toy, forming a smaller dog orb resting upon a larger dog bed orb. Juniper is no stranger to doing a big lean against someone and getting a big hug, but she’s plenty crafty enough to make use of her surroundings to be gently snugged from all sides. I think, if she could manage it, she would welcome the opportunity to float weightless in snugspace, hugged by the universe.

Barley, a dog, stands next to a hedge shaped into a t-shaped tetramino consisting of roughly one-meter cubes. I’ve mentioned before getting a kick out of people giving their yards a very Minecraft feel by shaping some bit of shrubbery into a cube. This, however, is on a whole new level. I suspect it will be a little less cube-ish when all it regrows all its leaves, but seeing stuff like this in the wild makes me want to check whether I’ve got any hedge in my inventory to fill in the gaps.

Barley, a dog, lies on a bed next to a squishy Christmas mouse toy. Barley stomps the Christmas mouse right on its face while vigorously worrying at one of its ears. Despite making out like a bandit in this year’s gift exchange, Barley’s favorite new toy is also one of the cheapest, a deeply discounted Squishmallow knockoff, an elastic egg of a thing. It’s just big enough that it’s a real mouthful to try to chomp, and it’s so squishy that it seems as though Barley can’t get good purchase on anything other than its few minor extremities. So, it’s holding up pretty well so far!

Barley, a dog, stands beside a row of oversized Xmas bulbs arrayed like flowers emerging from a flower bed. No doubt this is to do a bit with my own frame of mind, but my impression while walking Barley during the last month or so is that Xmas decorations went up pretty late, only really seeming to materialize in full force about a week before the federal holiday itself. As a matter of pure speculation, I wonder if this is partly to do with how historically warm and wet the winter has been so far. More than just not being the most pleasant weather to be out in, I feel at some level like December snuck up on people a lot more easily this year than is had done historically. As such, I feel confident that people are going to leave their decorations up until pretty late into January to compensate.

Barley, a dog, is nervously parked under a desk on a hastily improvised dog bed made from a towel. Barley’s become slightly less nervous about certain kinds of Sky Noise (upstairs footfalls are very run-of-the-mill these days), but thunder and fireworks both remain sources of vexation. The trouble is that they’re both quite infrequent, so Barley has no real hope of habituating to them. Unfortunately, this made for a predictably fraught New Year’s Countdown. We made her as comfortable as we could, since she could hardly be coaxed out from under this table.

Barley, a dog, pins down a dragon toy with the year “2023” written on its foot as she chomps on its floppy horns. As much as I’m grateful for my good fortune this year, it’s hard to ignore how awful this year has been for so many people. While my sober assessment is that the turning of the calendar page will result in more of the same overall, it is my pledge to you all that Barley will continue to radiate a blissful, blameless innocence for all to enjoy. Best wishes and warmth for the coming year.

Barley, a dog, is photographed in extreme close-up as she lies on her side. Her eyes have gone wide a moment before the photo is taken. I’ve made much of how tricky it is to capture Barley’s most relaxed states photographically because, like the electron, she is very sensitive to being observed. I think her eyes have gone comically wide here because she needs to open her eyes wide for her left eye to see me clearly over the ridge of her snoot.

Juniper, a dog, is bundled up warm in a white-and-baby-blue snowflake-themed blankie. As much as Juniper likes to maintain her vigil atop the sofa, watching out the window, even proper double-paned glass can only do so much to keep out the cold. When it’s chilly outside, she quite likes being pampered with something snuggly.

Barley, a dog, peeks her head under an overhanging hedge, thanks to a low wall that elevates it above the sidewalk. As much of her time as Barley spends surveying edges of hedges, she still gets relatively few chances to do on on hedges that are above her eye line. She certainly made up for those missed opportunities here: She was so interested in checking out the full run of this hedge that I was worried she was about to get bopped on the nose by some concealed creature whose scent she was tracking.

Barley, a dog, lies on her side and looks at the camera expectantly as she raises one paw up a bit. Barley is, of course, a fan of belly rubs, but she’s especially a fan of having her pectoral muscles rubbed, from her clavicle down to the base of her sternum. She will invite such rubs explicitly when approached by a trusted human, as seen here. While developed, these muscles aren’t hypertrophic by any stretch, and she is fully relaxed on her side like this, you can feel that they are slack beneath the skin. After a particularly vigorous walk on a cold winter’s day, you can feel them radiating warmth, even as her belly below the ribs is cooler to the touch.

Barley, a dog, seems wary standing beside a tile mosaic of a particularly rotund serpent. SHE BACHI ON MY HEBI TIL I YOKAI

Barley, a dog, grips a soft toy tightly in her paws and squints. Not visible in the photo is the toy’s ear that she is earnestly chewing on with her molars. While Barley is not conventionally destructive with her toys, she does seem to find small unstuffed fabric “ears” and “fins” to be offensive to her sensibilities, or perhaps irresistible in their mouthfeel. As such, she will often isolate these on new toys and try to chew them off. Since her front lower incisors were removed, her best scissor-like option is her fourth upper premolar, right where her cheek ends. For whatever reason, she treats using this to worry her way through fabric like the most intense activity she could possible be doing: She lies perfectly still, her eyes squinted shut, making each little chomp very deliberately and forcefully, as if the fabric will escape is she lets it slip even a little.

Barley, a dog, sleeps on a blue-green plaid bedspread, marked out with white gridlines. The wall behind her is pink. If you’re going to practice tech, it’s important to do so in the training stage in order to get a precise understanding of movement and spacing. Here, we see Barley practicing Rest, a move that consistently blows folks away.

Barley, a dog, sits at the edge of a grassy precipice and looks out over a heap of broken concrete slabs and across a salt-water sound. As much as Barley seems to orient toward the smell of the sea when it drifts inland, she pays surprisingly little attention to it when at the water’s edge. Presumably, walking along the shore, she feels immersed in that salt-water smell. The water itself, its stretching out to the horizon, holds no great interest. She is much more drawn to the specific splashes of specific waves than she is to the rippling surface beyond. I wonder if she looks out at that vast expanse and sees it as featureless, a kind of blue void lacking any of the interesting motions that would signal a nearby object of interest.

Juniper, a dog, smiles while at the vet. It’s a nervous smile. Juniper has always been very well-behaved at the vet, but she does not enjoy it. She is docile, compliant, and (as a rule) shaking like a leaf the whole time. And, given how much less food motivated she is than Barley, she can’t even be bribed with treats into having a good time! Fortunately, as COVID restrictions have lifted, she no longer needs to be dropped off and left behind with strangers. Going through it with a familiar human in the room helps her a lot.

Barley, a dog, lies on the floor surrounded by soft dog accessories. Her face is slightly in shadow from a table overhead. Barley’s pretty good at going to sleep anywhere, but when she’s properly tired at the end of the day, she tends to favor positions that shield her eyes from direct light sources. In this case, she managed to position herself just so under the corner of a table in such a way that just her head has an obstructed line of sight to each of the lamps in the room.

Barley, a dog, stares at a black cat with an arched back through a mesh-covered fence. The cat stares back. I mean, you do what you do, I do what I gotta do. And now that we’ve been face to face, if I’m there and I gotta put you away, I won’t like it. But I’ll tell you, if it’s between you and some poor bastard whose wife you’re gonna turn into a widow… Brother, you are going down.

Barley, a dog, wiggles vigorously on the futon in a close-up shot, resulting in a mixture of motion blur and low-light digital grain. The camera on my phone doesn’t do justice to the full glory of Barley’s most vigorous motions, and this effect is compounded in low light. Mostly, this means that I end up tossing some photos as too much of a mess to be worth keeping, but occasionally the result instead has an aesthetic all its own. In particular, I’m getting “fan photo of a 70s performance of I Wanna Be Your Dog” energy from this one.

Barley, a dog, looks right past a novelty skeleton jokingly buried in a yard, long after Halloween has come and gone. I definitely dig that some people leave Halloween decorations well into December (I consider it something of a holiday counteroffensive), but the funniest to me are decorations that, for one reason or another, have clearly been forgotten. The house overlooking this skeleton already has Christmas lights and a tree visible in the window, but the skeleton isn’t visible from the house. It’s only barely visible from the sidewalk, and is not on the same side of the house as the driveway. I genuinely think this poor fellow’s mori is no longer mementoed.

Barley, a dog, lies regally with her prey before her, a salmon-pink elephant with light blue lining its ears. On a recent trip to PetSmart to resupply Barley’s dry dogfood of choice, I happened upon these shockingly inexpensive dog toys, selling for $5 apiece, with the promise that for each purchase, PetSmart would donate $1 to its charity offshoot. I’ve not done the research on how responsible PetSmart’s non-profit activities are, but I know a bargain when I see one, and at $5, it’s certainly worth seeing if it’s a toy that can last longer than 5 minutes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Barley was able to breach the shockingly thin material by breaking the pathetically weak stitching within a couple minutes. However! I then removed over half the stuffing and stitched the hole shut with upholstery thread (the scariest of all threads), and the toy has now stood up to Barley’s thrashing for months! Sure, it occasionally forms a new breach that I need to close with a bit more thread, but this toy represents the best value-for-money of any toy I’ve ever bought her!

Barley, a dog, walks alongside a fence, under the partial shade of light leaf cover on a sunny day. Certainly, I would never malign Barley’s lovely orange coat. But what if was more varied? Behold! Through the power of thinking back to a time when the sun didn’t set until after leaving the office, we can give Barley some big splotchy spots. Sort of an incidental calico. Truly one for the low-cost cosplay record books.

Barley, a dog, walks alongside a fence, under the partial shade of light leaf cover on a sunny day. Certainly, I would never malign Barley’s lovely orange coat. But what if was more varied? Behold! Through the power of thinking back to a time when the sun didn’t set until after leaving the office, we can give Barley some big splotchy spots. Sort of an incidental calico. Truly one for the low-cost cosplay record books.

LEFT: Barley, a dog, poses with clay likenesses of herself and Juniper. RIGHT: Juniper, a dog, poses with clay likenesses of herself and Barley. Closeup of Barley and Juniper’s claysonas, with Barley peering from the background. Closeup of Juniper and Barley’s claysonas, with Juniper frolicking in the background. I am happy to report that the absolutely adorable likenesses that were commissioned from Wolf & Ghostling have safely arrived at their respective destinations, and now safely reside with the pups they depict. I remain entirely pleased with the whole experience, and encourage everyone to marvel at their prior photoshoots. Separated as they are by thousands of miles, who can say when these puppers will next see one another in person? But at least they are together in spirit, and in clay.

Barley, a dog, is photographed curled up into a bean. Due to excessive digital zoom, the image looks somewhat smoothed and processed compared to a crisp photograph. I’ve never quite been able to persuade my brain that a low-resolution image has within it as little information as it actually does. Whenever I see something with a low pixel count, an irrational part of my brain insists that the image is somehow just fine, and that all I need to do is remove this mask that’s getting in the way. It’s like my brain thinks the world is trying to trick it with a translucent checkerboard shower curtain. Seeing what happens when machines try to “upscale” noisy images to smooth them out is a useful (if temporary) remedy to this digital delusion. There really is less information there to begin with.

Barley, a dog, does a little steppy as she scopes out a very crowded, lovingly gardened yard. Sometimes, you scope out a yard, and your first reaction is, “Damn, that’s a garden!“ I don’t mean some clinical, immaculate dollhouse of a yard, something that looks like its owners don’t dare set foot in it for fear of leave a blade of grass out of place. I mean a yard in which someone spends as much time gardening as the weather will permit, a space filled with a deep and patient fascination for things that grow. To me, the apex of a garden is not a topiary theme park, it’s not a golf course, it’s a collection. That’s the sign, to me, of someone who loves what they’re doing in that space.

Barley, a dog, presents a rubber chew toy. She does not want you to have it, but she’s excited for you to try to take it away from her. Because she’s missing her lower incisors, Barley is not the most adept tug-of-war athlete. She really relies on pincering the item in question between her canines and hoping that’s enough to hold it. Even so, she really enjoys winning the tug, so you’d be doing her a favor if you pantomimed giving it a solid effort, even though you plan to let her win in the end.

Barley, a dog, hurries past a big lavender bush. I’ve made much of how uninteresting Barley finds flowers in general, but I’ve recently begun to suspect she somewhat dislikes lavender. That might be the wrong word, but her disinterest in it seems more active than it would normally be for shrubbery. If I had to guess, I would speculate that its smell somewhat masks other interesting smells in the area, so she may have erroneously learned that it’s not even worth slowing down as we pass it.

Barley, a dog, stands in a narrow concrete staircase and glances warily at the ocean waves splashing up against the steps a few feet ahead of her. I’m sorry Barley, there was to be no walk on the beach this day. Furthermore, you do not want to be anywhere close that water. It’s pretty doggone cold this time of year. (There was no risk of her getting any closer. She was very wary of how hard the water was hitting those bottom steps, and of the loudness of the splashing thanks to the surrounding concrete walls.)

Barley, a dog, lies in a curved sploot, with her legs projecting back from her hips at a ninety degree angle from the orientation of her head. I continue to be amazed at how flexible Barley’s back is. It’s easy to miss just how far her hips swing during one of her silly upside down wiggles, but when she fully relaxes in a shape worthy of a candy cane, one has the time to really ask, “Wait, how she do that tho?”

Juniper, a dog, looks excitedly at a television showing an Animal Crossing character catching a whale shark. Juniper’s a big fan of television, but she’s gradually become more comfortable watching video games. So long as the visuals aren’t too frenetic or the action too loud, she’ll keep an eye on things. In keeping with her long-standing suspicion about fish-like screen beasts, however, she definitely needed to protect the homestead against this whale shark. After all, if they can leave the ocean, none of us are safe!

Barley, a dog, can’t read a sign explaining that having bowel movements is disrespectful. Even if they could, what would they think this sign means? I choose to read this sign as saying, “It would be disrespectful for your dog to sit on my Staples Easy Button, because I can’t afford to buy another ink cartridge refill right now.”

Barley, a dog, lays on her side on a futon, her body as relaxed as it is extended. I always love to see a dog blissfully asleep, laying on their side. I see such a dog, belly out and paws crossed, and I know that this is a dog who feels safe. And that’s huge. More than merely protecting Barley from life’s genuine hazards, I strive to give her an experience that is free from needless dread or thoughtless uncertainty. My success in doing so to date is a point of pride.

Barley, a dog, pokes around a stonescaped yard with an awful lot of faintly red, pink, and purple stones. Walking around residential neighborhoods, one comes to expect certain colors in certain parts of the visual field. If there’s a lot of blue, you expect it in the sky. If there’s a lot of green, you expect it a bit below the horizon line, at lawn level. One does not realize the strength of these assumptions until one encounters its exception. This yard, for example, is almost entirely stonescaped, with just a few bits of plant life in the mix, and even though its colors are quite subtle, it radiates an aura of PINK that hits you like a ton of bricks as you come around the corner.

Barley, a dog, sniffs at a stone pig. Its secret is that it’s not actually a pig.

Barley, a dog, stands amid some small tree and, viewed in profile, stares off to the left. Something I enjoy about going through old pictures of Barley is trying to remember what she is looking at. It’s almost never the camera - to the extent that I’ve posted pictures in which she is looking into the lens, it’s because I’ve positioned my face behind it to draw her gaze. More often, her attention is elsewhere during photos. So, ask yourself: What might Barley be looking at so intently in this picture? What has captivated her. Vote on your phones now.

Barley, a dog, stands on a patch of mossy grass that is encrusted with patchy frost. Barley’s not exactly well-insulated (having, in effect, only the wispy memory of an undercoat), but she handles cold surprisingly well. So long as a walk doesn’t take us too far from home base, she doesn’t even need a sweater until things are solidly in snow territory. However, her coping mechanisms for morning frostiness is a heightened athleticism. She’s no less excited to go on walks when it’s cold out (in contrast to her visible reluctance when it’s wet out), but she’s gonna go on that walk. If she had her druthers and if I was able to keep up, it would be a run from start to finish.

Juniper, a dog, sits on an expanse of grass and glances back at the camera over her left shoulder. My experience of keep up with Juniper’s life is very singular, because she warms up to people slowly and is wary of strangers. I have this guarantee that I will always be one of Her People, and so I can easily imagine being the viewer to whom she confides by breaking the fourth wall. This photo feels like a shared confidence. Knowing her as I do, however, I can guarantee that she would never address an approaching stranger in such a familiar way. To an outsider, I might imagine her voiceover instead asking, “…And you are?”

Barley, a dog, poses in front of some very sun-bleached tiles depicting ocean life native to the region. Gold Dirona.Gold Dirona. Alabaster Nudibranch. Red Tube Worm. Moon Snail.

Barley, a dog, gazes upward in a closeup that reveals small scratches to her snout. Well, it was bound to happen again eventually. A well-concealed cat, things happening fast, and Barley got what was coming to her. The cat, of course, is fine: They were separated immediately after the blow was struck. Safe to say, however, that no lesson was learned on this day, as Barley appeared entirely unfazed by the experience.

Barley, a dog, sits on a hill with enormous conifers behind her, stretching into the overcast sky. Granted, living somewhere famous for its rain isn’t for everyone, but I think there’s a great deal to be said for how green this makes everything. This is tree-growin’ country, and I’m grateful to the many parks that put really impressive trees (of a sort that wouldn’t be allowed around houses out of a concern they might one day collapse) within walking distance.

Barley, a dog, sits expectantly as the claw of her lobster toy looms in the foreground. On the one hand, the name is apt because the lobster’s face does not appear on screen. On the other hand, Barley chewed off the lobster’s face years ago, so it’s not as though it would appear if the camera panned left.

Barley, a dog, tromps enthusiastically through dry leaves on grass. Would that I could fully revel, as a pure acoustic experience, in the sound of Barley and I moving at full trot across a field of dry leaves. Alas, my eyes must remain open and vigilant, to keep this eager creature from eating anything she shouldn’t.

Barley, a dog, clambers atop a sofa in order to gaze excitedly out of a window at the back stairs, anticipating someone’s arrival. For most of the time Barley and I have been together, our orbit been narrow and largely exclusive. Her routine is my routine, and she is an enthusiastic copilot. Visiting my parents provides an opportunity to see her adopt a wider routine involving the habits of others. Every morning, my dad takes a walk, so she knows where to station herself to be ready for his return. In the later afternoon, she knows to check in with my mom to receive a little treat while dinner gets put together. While she still spends most of her time with me, it’s nice to see her going on these little sidequests.

Juniper, a brown dog, is very happy on her big brown couch after getting home from a vigorous walk. As much as Juniper’s mind is filled with potentialities at all times, as is that of any Dog With A Job, her opportunities to execute on a plan are at best intermittent. As such, she is no great athlete, and tires herself out pretty fast given the opportunity. Walks are an especially high-activation undertaking, since they involve venturing into unknown territory, and after a short distance, she’s all too eager to return to her command center, her battle bridge, her war room, the Big Brown Couch.

Barley, a dog, is caught mid-blink as she hangs out near some goats. There’s something weird about expressing gratitude for Barley. Not because she doesn’t deserve it; obviously, she’s a blessing to all who encounter her. It’s more that her gratitude is so immediate and automatic. It’s never a performance, she has only the faintest glimmer of an idea of “performing” in any sense. To take stock, to be deliberate in my reflection of how thankful I am for Barley’s many wonderful qualities, isn’t true to the essence of her spirit, which is to instead do so instantly and unreservedly. Food for thought.

Barley, a dog, sniffs excitedly along the roots of a tree, surrounded by fallen leaves. As a creature who gravitates towards edges and boundaries, Barley has many more perimeters to check during the fall. In addition to the usual targets (tree roots, where walls meet ground, benches), the heaping of leaves by winds and workers create prickly, fractal combs that can catch and hold all manner of sniff-worthy portents. The colder temperatures don’t hurt: Barley trots more briskly when it’s cold, so this season sees her zipping around like a kid on a scavenger hunt.

Barley, a dog, looks toward a house under construction that, aside from its roof, appears to be made entirely from particleboard. From time to time, I encounter objects in the world that feel so much like video game assets that they induce a wave of, well, “anti-graphics” sentiment. Here, for example, we see an object that’s giving off enormous MyHouse.WAD energy. I feel pretty confident that even a person with zero video game experience would agree that this house looks uncanny. I can’t tell if Barley, by contrast, has any sense at all of violated aesthetic expectation. Her acceptance of the world as it is proceeds with no hesitation or resistance.

Barley, a dog, is tuckered right out on the office carpet. On account of the time of year, I’ve had a few late days at the office recently. Barley, of course, would prefer to be wherever I’m at, so she doesn’t seem to mind, but her expectation that “someone might stop by to say hi” keeps her in her lighter, more vigilant “nap” mode for a lot longer than she would be at home. Here, while napping with an eye and an ear on the door to monitor for visitors, she has slipped into deeper, dreamier sleep. Which tells me that at least she feels safe!

Barley, a dog, stands in front of a series of shiny metal planters containing a shrubbery and edible vegetables. Of the various residential aesthetics I come across on my walks, “farmcore” is the one I find most perplexing. I’m happy to live and let live, of course; people can go wild with their yards as far as I’m concerned. I just don’t quite get why you would want your residential garden to look like a working farm. In my admittedly limited experience, modern farms are very much working environments, full of heavy equipment, paint that needs a fresh coat, and a patina of mud spatter that folks are too busy to bother to clean off. It’s a functional environment, not a demonstrative, performative one. So what is someone performing that aesthetic looking to communicate? It makes about as much aesthetic sense to me as fashioning your yard in the style of an oil refinery or a quarry.

Barley, a dog, lies in the back seat of a car, atop a comforter spread out for her convenience. Barley is consistently excited to go for a ride. She has now, however, developed too keen a sense of which car is mine. From her perspective, anyone milling about near a car is worth investigating, and the open door itself is practically an invitation. Once in a car, her enthusiasm is a bit more ambiguous than I think it used to be. Mostly, she sprawls atop the blanket provided for her. She may have come to realize that all it takes is one quick deceleration for her to gutterball into the precipice before her.

Juniper, a dog, sits on the grass in a yard and scans her surroundings while holding a tennis ball in her mouth. Patrolling the grounds is a regular part of Juniper’s routine, and even when the weather is a little rainy, she’ll still stick her head out briefly to check on the yard and make sure everything is as it should be. Partly, this dutiful reliability stems from her deep need to be a Dog With A Job, but there is also an architectural reason for it: Unlike the front yard, which she can survey from the comfort of the living room couch, there aren’t any windows through which she can get a clear view of the back yard for various reasons. So, the only way to really be sure that the homestead is safe from invaders is to venture forth and check for herself.

Barley, a dog, gazes calmly ahead in a park setting. Barley, a dog, turns her head a bit to the right and adopts a concerned expression. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Barley become truly relaxed in an outdoor setting. Sure, she’ll calm down and rest, especially if the weather is warm or the walk has been long, but the sights, sounds, and smells of the world never entirely escape her awareness. This is very much not a state of anxiety. If she becomes nervous, Barley’s whole demeanor gets slinky and avoidant, attentive but also getting out of dodge. No, the steady sniff-cycling and the pricking of her ears at each whoosh and rustle are signs of Barley being well and truly present in these settings, a creature whose mind doesn’t wander because that’s what her legs are for.

Barley, a dog, sleeps while curled into a ball in her home crate. Barley sleeps at all times of day or night, but she clearly understands the difference between a vigilant nap and deep slumber. Once the day has wound down and she’s had her night dollop of probiotic yogurt, she knows that the show’s over and usually retires to her crate until Lights Out. Therein, she sleeps more deeply than she usually does during the day, and mumbled sleep woofs can occasionally be heard leaking out from her dreams.

Barley, a dog, sits in a driveway. Behind her, a combination motion-sensor-light-camera-speaker informs her that she is being recorded. There is something uniquely infuriating about being jump-scared so many times by the same chipper recorded voice announcing that your passage is being documented that you come to dread passing that particular house. It doesn’t matter how far across the street you are: The voice reports your detection even if you’re in the yard across the street. So, I hope it got a great look at this amazing dog, and myself as I made my own record of it, and her.

Barley, a dog, lies on a futon half-curled, her hind legs poking out from what is otherwise a pretty tight little bundle. Most dogs draw comfort from a mild feeling of pressure. This is presumably the mechanism behind the calming effects of a thundershirt, and why many dogs will lean against their owners, especially if they are feeling stressed out. For her part, Barley frequently capitalizes on this effect when presented with both horizontal and vertical soft and squishy surfaces. Here, we see her taking full advantage of the arrangement of pillows to sleep in such a way that the futon is giving her a hug.

Barley, a dog, peers at the camera through the railing of a wooden deck. Her paws poke out from under the railing. When visiting my parents, Barley mostly doesn’t take advantage of the deck to survey the world below. As widely documented on this page, she prefers to soak in the sun. The exception, however, is whenever my parents or I do some yard work. Then, she’ll post up at a spot not obstructed by a hedge and patiently survey the work being done. The pictured angle is typical - she tends to avoid letting her face touch the barrier itself. One gets that impression that as long as we remain within her line of sight, even if we’re pretty far away, she still feels like we’re all hanging out together.

Barley, a dog, snatches a thrown toy from the air as it comes almost straight down. One thing that immediately struck me when Barley first came home with us from the shelter, and remains striking even to this day, is how good she is at catching things. If she knows you’re going to throw something, you really need to chuck it to get it going past her - more likely, she’ll displace her whole body in order to interpose her face and bring the flying object to rest. And when she’s alert and paying attention? You might think she’s sitting all nice and polite, but that short fur conceals a whole chain of coiled springs.

Juniper, a puppy, lies with her upper body beneath a bed. She has twisted her body into a J shape to peer back out past the fringe of the hanging sheet. An early sign that puppy Juniper might be growing into nervous Nelliehood was how much she enjoyed wedging herself under a low bed. Sometimes, you would walk into the room to see just a single foot sticking out; other times, her whole rump would still be exposed. She ended up getting the nickname “wormshark” because she seemed really enthusiastic about belly-crawling and generally wormin’ around under that bed, as well as doing the same under a weighted blanket, while leaving distinctive bodyparts visible above the figurative water line, Jaws-like.

Barley, a dog, cranes her neck over some flowers to examine some dry mulch just beyond them. I’ve commented on this before, but I remain eternally tickled as how little Barley stops to smell the flowers. She so completely embodies the spirit of that idiom in how she lives every day of her life, and at the same time would be utterly baffled to discover that humans think flowers are worth stopping to smell.

Barley, a dog, stands on wet grass. Ahead of her, all the fallen leaves have been corralled around the trunks of leaves and lampposts, as and to the edge of the grass. I understand the liability motivation for the unending scourge of autumn leafblowing: keep the paths clear, minimize the risks of people slipping and falling. If you own a property with a lot of foot traffic, you’re playing with fire if you don’t have folks honkin’ and whonkin’ those dangerous leaves. What’s a little weirder to me is the aesthetic of leafblowing as it applies to stretches of lawn. Surely, if there is wet and muddy grass, some level of slippage is inevitable, and surely, if the paths themselves are clear, pedestrians should have a clear idea of where they are expected to walk. And yet, the standard practice in these parts is to give every tall object (tree, streetlight, fence, hedge) a halo of dead leaves and clear the grass. It’s not a small amount of extra work, so there must be a reason for it, but maybe it’s nothing more than that some people want fall to look tidy? Mysteries upon mysteries.

Barley, a dog, poses next to a display case containing “Memories of Tokyo-To” on vinyl, by 2 Mello. I have a lot of art on my walls. I think it’s important to enrich your space with symbols and imagery that you find meaningful, and that it’s worth finding a way to do this even when finances are tight; maybe even especially then. A while ago, despite being a 100% digital music person, I bought “Memories of Tokyo-To” by cohost’s own @MelloMakes on vinyl for the express purpose of having it as an artifact. I then sat on my hands because I didn’t have a good way to display it. My patient vigilance has just now been rewarded, because I got the box frame pictured here for a mere $20 in a store clearance section. I then carefully measured and cut the matte myself from a bit of scrap I’ve been hanging on to for years. All told, my long-standing appreciation for this album (which I’ve kept on regular rotation for years) and the extra effort needed to figure out how to mount it make for an object that I’m thrilled to have on my wall.

Barley, a dog, makes her way across a big green lawn. Barley likes to run, but otherwise I genuinely don’t think she finds that lawns have much to offer. Even in Florida, with a pretty large back yard at her disposal, her “circuit” for running laps involved circling around the one dense thicker of bushes and shrubs and then cutting through it at high speed. Over and over, she would burst through the underbrush, get herself turned around and in position over the course of a big arc, and then do it again. Her ideal playground, I think, would probably be a patch of pretty dense woods with a couple clearings and lots of hidey holes. Too bad I wouldn’t be able to fit all the places she would no doubt want to show me.

Barley, a dog, suns herself on a wooden deck next to her very favorite black rubber chew toy. Now that the weather is consistently cold and frequently gross, what a nice time to remember when there was as much sun as you could possibly want (and more!). Of course, not all among us are sun worshippers, but Barley certainly got her share when we last visited my parents during the last heat wave of summer. I often find myself envious of how simple Barley’s needs are: Just give her a toy that can stand up to her chomps, a supply of cool water when needed, and all the Sol juice she can drink.

Barley, a dog, flops exhaustedly on her side, resting against a stretch of cool, shady grass. I had occasion to take Barley on one of our longest walks in recent memory, a substantial meander that kept us on the move for the better part of two hours. It was neither especially warm nor especially cold, and Barley didn’t seem to be panting, but she was walking very slowly, so as I matched pace, we were down to only perhaps three tenths of an amble. Mere blocks from home, she saw this cool patch of grass and called an audible: No more, it’s flop time. Naturally, I obliged, and sat on the curb beside her. Giving her some gentle pets, I could feel the warmth of her shoulder and thigh muscles. After perhaps five or six minutes, she seemed largely restored, and we finished our journey at a moderate pace. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Barley go to sleep as enthusiastically as she did that day, hopping very purposefully onto the futon and immediately slipping into an unusually deep slumber.

Juniper, a dog, noodles around in the ankle-deep water of a kiddie pool laid out on a big, brown lawn. Juniper’s experiences with being in deep water have been almost exclusively negative. She can swim, but as soon as she can’t feel the bottom, no thank you, time to head back to shore. She does, however, really enjoy being in shallow water, especially if it doesn’t make any sudden moves. On hot days, she’s very good at keeping herself busy, staring into the glimmer of the waves she makes with her little tippy taps.

Barley, a dog, leads the way down a narrow side street. Some dogs on walks have a very clear sense that their owner is taking lead and their job is to dutifully follow. I’ve made no effort to cultivate that disposition in Barley, and as such she is often the one making forward progress. Mind you, I’m very much the one deciding which turns to make and thus where we’re going, but these are fleeting redirections. Since Barley’s main modes are “Forward!” and “Wait, that smells interesting…” I don’t know that she even realizes how little say she has in where we go. Instead, the extent to which she’s taking point or lagging behind is mainly a function of how tired she is.

Barley, a dog, looks back into a seemingly never-ending array of stairs and railings in a dense residential complex. I don’t get the impression that Barley really bothers to navigate at all. To her, it seems, the metaphor for the world wouldn’t be a map. Instead, I imagine that she sees the world more in terms of a Choose Your Own Adventure gamebook, with smell cues rather than text prompts. Frankly, I think she has a point. For one another, no matter how convoluted the architecture, I never get the impression that she feels lost.

Barley, a dog, stands before an inflated lawn decoration of a black cat, scaled up to be much larger than Barley. Barley’s fur along the line of her back is visibly standing on end. Lending further evidence that Barley’s instantaneous assessment of a possible animal is based on their silhouette, she immediately recognized at a distance that this Halloween inflatable was cat shaped and advanced with all due enthusiasm. As she approached, she slowed, and eventually froze, her tail lowering slightly and her fur raising. She did not growl, nor did she take her eyes off the monstrous feline. After a few moments (and managing to snap a picture), I told Barley that it was OK, and she glanced back at me very quickly before locking back in on the inflatable. Only with my cajoling did she made very cautious steps toward it. Only when she skirted around it and sniffed at its haunches did she seem to realize that it wasn’t a beast at all. That, in some sense, it wasn’t “real.” Still, as we walked away, she glanced back, as if worried it might pursue us.

Barley, a dog, takes a break beside a drinking fountain that memorializes Marion Pattullo and her dog Angus. I first walked past this memorial almost 25 years ago. It’s hard to miss, but it’s also easy to miss that it is a memorial. While I’m certain that I’ve read the plaque before, doing so never before made enough of an impression on me that it formed a memory I can today retrieve. Perhaps, in writing this entry, I can make a very slightly more durable mark on my mind. Once you start to watch for them, you realize that public spaces are full of such memorials. A bench here, a water fountain there. A brick wall, with names etched into the bricks. In modern life, even as we live less among the dead than ever before, we cannot help but be crowded from all directions by the memories of the living made physical. As I write this, I have within line of sight and arm’s reach two desk accessories. Each is engraved with the name of one of my grandfathers, at a time that the two lived on opposite sides of the world. They are with me still, but only and solely as memories. Marion Pattullo died in 1993, and she and her terrier Angus were beloved enough that a memorial was erected in their names. The man who designed and built the memorial in turn passed away in 2009. I did not know the woman or her dog, nor…

Barley, a dog, investigates a malevolent “deep gnome” who has no doubt emerged for an unholy observance of All Hallow’s Eve. I’m generally inclined to agree with the criticisms that the gnomes of Dungeons and Dragons are irredeemably twee. A good case for this is how difficult it is to take “deep gnomes” seriously. Goblins, by comparison, can cover the full spectrum, from silly to terrifying, but no hero has ever trembled at the prospect of being overrun by deep gnomes. That said, the gnomes described by Wil Hugen and Rien Poortvliet are a lot more compelling, and I think you could really make the case that their Unseelie counterparts could be very frightening indeed.

Barley, a dog, tolerates having eyeglasses draped over her face as she tries to sleep. In her longstanding opposition to headwear, there’s never really a time you can put glasses on her for comedic effect. The other day, however, I just about managed while she was sprawled out on the carpet in contented nap mode. She was a good sport about it, and I didn’t overstay my welcome.

Juniper, a dog, eats a large carrot with tiny, dainty nibbles. Juniper, a dog, makes incremental progress on her carrot, leaving many morsels by the wayside. Juniper’s overall level of daintiness is ridiculous, but her approach to carrots is especially royal. Over an extended periods, she will carefully nibble away the carrot, seeming to consider whether each morsel is acceptable. Some, she deems tasty and chews contentedly. Others fall from her mouth, never to be retrieved. She’s very pleased to be given a carrot, and proceeds in this manner becalmed for quite a long time, but the mess she leaves behind could strike fear into even the most hardened crudité.

Barley, a dog, sniffs a little too eagerly around a picnic table. Aside from Canadian goose droppings, the Things Barley Shouldn’t Eat that pose the greatest risk always seem to find themselves around picnic tables. Of course, I get it: People eating at a table outside aren’t going to be as vigilant about food waste as they are when they eat inside. But I’ve begun to view picnic tables with a sort of vigilant suspicion and have Barley locked in my sights as we approach. You wouldn’t believe how many chicken bones I’ve had to get out of her mouth because I was just a tiny bit slower on the uptake than she was while near a picnic table!

Barley, a dog, curls herself up for a nap and somehow seems to shrink in the process. I sometimes catch Barley napping in a way that feels as though she somehow shrank. Intellectually, I know it’s all a matter of angles and partial cover (there’s a whole shoulder behind that pillow on account of how she has slinkied her neck), but I figure there’s no harm in going over and giving her a hug just to make sure.

Barley, a dog, sits in a parking spot and looks up at a sign saying RESERVED PARKING FOR AUCTION WINNER. Don’t you worry none, Barley, you can park it wherever you like.

Barley, a dog, is completely oblivious to a skeleton sitting in a tree swing. An amusing discovery I’ve made this Spooky Season is that Barley categorically does not recognize skeletons as person-like. Sure, if they moved she would probably be startled, but she’s often fooled by silhouettes, at least momentarily. Stuff a shirt and some jeans with straw to make a scarecrow and she’ll at least check it out. So such luck for the xylophone crew: She treat skeletal yard decorations with a disinterest that borders on blindness. As such, this photo was particularly difficult to get. She kept just walking past the skeleton, back and forth, and even when I got her to stand still in front of the thing, she was convinced that surely I was trying to draw her attention toward something else.

Barley, a dog, has her paws on two toys at once. Since Barley is pretty ham-fisted with her paws (just stomping them around in the vicinity of their target), she occasionally gets herself into a pickle. Here, she was trying to wrangle the blue bone and wasn’t quite getting it because of its round ends. So in trying to stomp it into a fixed position, she coincidentally found herself on top of this dinosaur. As benign as this may seem, her paws ended up getting entangled with the dino, and she could not manage to get her right paw over onto the other side of the bone because the dino was in the way. At the moment of the photograph, she is pausing and looking up at me as if to say, “Uh, little help here?”

Barley, a dog, tromps around in some lush green ivy. Ivy is a common low-effort landscaping option in sufficiently damp climates, and Barley has a particular interest. I think she appreciates that you always know about how deep the ivy is, so she can trundle through it all-a-sniffin’ without there being a risk of her foot suddenly dropping into a hole or hitting a big patch of mud. You’d think it would be more trouble in terms of Barley finding something she shouldn’t be eating to snarfle up, but generally not! So I’m happy to let her scope a patch out so long as she doesn’t drag me out into it with her.

Juniper, a dog, is curled up on a lap. She is very small, and extremely puppy. Juniper is a rescue, but unlike most rescues, she was born in the shelter. As such, she was as fresh-faced and puppy as they come when she was rescued. She and her ten litter-mates were bumbling around an enclosure when we met her, as part of a larger adoption event involving dozens of dogs. Even then, she was different. In that chaotic scene of puppies playing, most of her siblings were keenly interested in all the other dogs that were around, so much so that they’d barely look at you. Juniper, instead, was interested in the people. “Who are you?” she seemed to ask with huge, piercing eyes. It quickly became a mutual fascination.

Barley, a dog, sits uncharacteristically, with her legs beneath her, while enthusiastically chewing on a toy that is just out of sight. As noted earlier, Barley does not generally sit with her legs beneath her body, and when she does, it’s not a relaxed, low-energy affair. We here see one such case: Dinner with my parents. While we are eating dinner, she stakes of her station next to the dinner table and spends maybe the first 15 minutes or so champin’ and chompin’ on one of her robust rubber toys, doing so with all the potential energy of a wound spring. Even here, however, she can’t quite sphinx her legs up beneath her, resulting in a look that undercuts her gravitas somewhat.

Barley, a dog, extends her prodigious tongue skyward on a bright day with clear blue skies. Most dogs, in my experience, lack decorum. Even if they’re pretty reserved, they’re generally pretty easy to read. So I’m under no illusion that Barley is especially expressive. But boy howdy, is she uninhibited compared to nearly all humans in my day to day life. She’s just taking a big bite out life, every day, and yes a second helping would be lovely thank you. No need to hold back, there’s unlimited world out there. The sky’s the limit.

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

Barley, a dog, pulls on the ear of a plush dog toy in the shape of a donkey. Barley’s latest acquisition has a rather strange design: the “ears” are a single continuous piece that threads through the “head,” such that pulling on one ear makes it longer and makes the other shorter. Watching Barley pull on one end thus gives the impression that she is “flossing” the toy’s brain like this is some sort of Saturday morning cartoon. Truly, Barley can get that ass, but it’s a very no-thoughts-head-empty undertaking.

Barley, a dog, snoozes on the couch. The angle of the photograph happens to make her rump appear especially large. Much is made about how both dogs and cats “sleep all day,” and it’s true that both tend to get more hours of sleep a day than would be normal for a human. However, I feel like most people commenting on this don’t look at things from their point as view. I get the impression that Barley snoozes recreationally, and that while she does so as a hobby, she would go pro if she could.

Barley, a dog, stands in front of some mossy rocks that have a prominent outgrowth of ferns. If you’re of a certain age, than your childhood was substantially changed by the 1993 release of Jurassic Park. Dinosaurs, already respectably positioned among “topics about which kids have strong opinions,” rocketed up the charts, and with them came a whole aesthetic. Artists of the time heavily favored depicting dinosaurs living in lush, primordial forests and jungles, in the style of Land Of The Lost. Since flowering plants didn’t come on the scene until the early Cretaceous period, artists instead filled their foregrounds with a much older variety of foliage: Ferns. To this day, every day I come across a yard with a big fern motif, I hear the Jurassic Park theme.

Barley, a dog, lies expectantly near an apartment entryway, fully downstream of a standing fan. Barley is not usually one to wait by doors to signal her needs, but during the tail end of a couple of the summer’s heatwaves, she seemed to realize how nice sitting in the fan’s airflow could feel. Now that temperatures have returned to manageable levels, she has returned to her old habit of sitting directly next to my chair when she needs something, so I think this rare move reflected, more than anything, how badly she (and all of us) needed a breeze.

Barley, a dog, stands in an arid patch of rocky dirt. Behind her, a lush hedge springs up, along an unnaturally sharp border. An unavoidable compromise in procedural generation for open worlds is the division of a design team’s labor into the crafting of biomes, which in turn results in the player discovering “seams” along which those two design languages meet. When we encounter them in games, we tend to politely ignore them, the way we would a theatrical performer flubbing a line - after all, we can only ask so much of those who have labored to make our entertainment. Exploring residential environments, with Barley, however, I often notice that the way we split up the use of space also creates unreasonably sharp boundaries. Here, we see Barley standing in what amounts to an empty lot that has somehow been kept clear of any weeds. Just behind her, at the property line, there stands not only an enormous hedge that extends for tens of feet, but beyond it is the sort of lush, verdant yard that is only possible with constant year-round watering.

Juniper, a dog, looks up very blearily from the back seat before returning to a deep vehicular slumber. Hardly an enthusiastic window-peerer to begin with, Juniper find highway driving to be especially snooze-inducing. On the one hand, she seems to find the imagery whipping past to be a little unsettling, but on the other, the rumbling hum of the road seems to sooth her. The upshot is that I’ve never seen this ordinarily vigilant dog as fully zonked out as she is when the car stops for gas on a long car ride.

Barley, a dog, lies on a couch in a patch of sunlight, with her paws up on the armrest, as if to show you here nails. For the most part, I only ever think of Barley’s feet as unitary parts of her body. Certainly, that’s how she thinks of them - if she’s going to paw at something, it’s going to be a fully ham-fisted bop using the whole of her foot. Every once in a while, however, I catch her at an angle where it’s impossible to ignore that yes, Barley really does have individual articulated toes on dem feets.

Barley, a dog, stands attentively in front of a dog gate in a doorway, peering down the hallway with ears on alert. For the most part, Barley does not spend office time right up at the gate. She prefers to nap a bit closer to me and a bit farther from the gate, though still oriented in such a way that she can spring to her feet and greet someone who has come to say hi. Sometimes, however, there’s simply too much going on in the hallway, and an inquiry must be launched to keep an eye on events as they unfold!

Barley, a dog, lies on her side on a futon, with her head supported by a larger and loftier pillow than is strictly ideal for this position. It’s unclear to me how Barley makes the distinction between “toy” and “pillow” but I’m grateful that she does not consider the pillows in her environment to be manipulable. They’re just the knots and whorls of the softness landscape, about which nothing can be done. This attitude of simply taking pillows as she finds them finds her, not uncommonly trying to snooze in positions that give me a crick in my neck just looking at them.

Barley, a dog, stands in front of a suspiciously perfect-looking pile of large stones, heaped neatly in a pile. Walking through residential neighborhoods will give you lots of opportunities to reflect on the types of personalities that get externalized through the choices people make about their yards. Some yards reflect a kind of tattered, unkempt mind, not quite wild but definitely letting itself go. Others feel neat and controlled to the point of being alarming. This heap of rocks falls onto the latter end of that continuum. It looks fully like a single asset purchased from a menu in The Sims. One gets the feeling that, having bought a bulk order of gently smoothed stones from a home goods store, the owners found themselves with extra on hand, and needing to satisfy their need to keep everything neat, bundled them together into this incongruous have-a-penny-leave-a-penny display.

Barley, a dog, stands happily with a large expanse of green grass stretching out behind her. During the first few weeks of owning a dog you have rescued, there’s a push-pull process of taking measured risks to find out who, exactly, this dog that you’ve welcomed into your life really is. Barley seemed very attached (following us from room to room), so it seemed plausible that she might be the sort to stay close in general. So it seemed reasonable to see how she would behave off leash in a mostly-enclosed courtyard behind our apartment. We figured that would be a good place to reinforce her recall and get her doing so on verbal command. So, cautiously, we unhooked her, at which point she sighted a gap between the buildings and sprinted, ignoring our shouts and racing out of sight around a corner almost immediately. In the Yakety Sax montage that followed, it all came into focus: Indoors, Barley preferred not to be left alone. Outdoors, however, it’s up to you to keep up with her.

Barley, a dog, sleeps on her side, with legs extended straight out and belly exposed. Barley’s enthusiasm at the start of any walk is always full-bore - leaping, scurrying, grabbing a toy because she just can’t contain herself, etc. Her energy level after a walk varies quite a bit more, because for all her enthusiasm she has always had mediocre-to-poor stamina. Here, we see Barley after a longer-than-average walk, the last 10 minutes of which consisted of her putting one heavy foot in front of another like a runner who has opted to walk the last leg of their very first 10k. Within moments of my putting up her leash and sitting down, she had flopped onto the carpet with belly out to shed heat, and was snoring hard.

Juniper, a dog, watches television. The closed captioning reads, “You deserve happiness, as do I.” Watching television is a consistent part of Juniper’s routine. After a busy day of (a) scoping out the front yard though windows and (b) patrolling the perimeter of the back yard, she enjoys calm, talky, colorful television. Action & science fiction tend to stress her out - she’ll slink off and chill in a quieter room if things are too dynamic. If there are Screen Beasts, well, it’s back into Protec & Intimidat Mode. But she seems to find sitcoms, cooking shows, and character dramas soothing, and she seems to attentively follow along for long stretches of time.

Barley, a dog, glances somewhat meekly over her shoulder in front of a copy of the book “Wild Animals I Have Known.” When happening upon this book at the Free Stuff table at a potluck, I immediately thought, “Oh wow, I know a wild animal! Let’s get a photo of you two together!” Because of all the people around that Barley wanted to spend the whole event saying hi to, however, she was quite reluctant to sit for the photo, and was clearly doing so under protest while I was cajoling her and lining up the shot. Now, viewed without context, it feels like she’s being sort of sheepish in the face of the unattainable standards of wildness depicted on this cover. Don’t worry, Barley, you’ll always be my wild animal.

An extreme closeup of one of the front paws of Barley, a dog, with pads and nails seeming to glisten. During the multi-day periods of triple-digit temperatures this year, Barley’s paw pads were starting to look pretty rough. Even though I did my best to keep her from spending any time on blacktop, sometimes you just need to cross the street. Thank goodness for Musher’s Secret, a literal wax for dogs. Liberally applied to her pads for about a week, and their alarming dryness cleared right up before it could devolved into a more complicated condition. The “misjudged the specular map” levels of shiny visible on her feet and nails was an amusing bonus.

Barley, a dog, gives her nose a big ole’ lick as she looks at the camera, while standing over an abstract bit of chalk art. It’s no rare thing to come across chalk art while walking a dog, especially during a warm & sunny time of year. Typically, however, you expect to either see none at all, or a mixed pocket of chalky sketches, doodles, and fragmentary writing. I hypothesize that not only are most chalk artists children, but they also almost always work as groups, jointly doing a bunch of things at once on a shared canvas. This piece, by contrast, was one of modest size, and was executed in a controlled, systematic fashion, without anything similar in the immediate surroundings. Asked her opinion upon encounter the work, Barley gave it one tongue up.

Barley, a dog, looks up from her sniffing to glance down the wooded path that extends ahead of her a short distance. Barley is generally well behaved on wooded paths, so long as she remains on leash. In general, any furry creatures that find themselves in a wooded area, lurking at the edge of a path, make themselves scarce long before Barley comes a’sniffing, and while on leash, she generally understands not to try to go places I can’t follow. She’s even become quite mindful of staying on the same side of trees as me so the leash doesn’t catch. That said, I’ve seen her sensibilities off-leash and she will absolutely chase prey through the underbrush. So the policy is clear, even far from any roads: Without rock-solid fencing, the leash stays on.

Barley, a dog, has only made it one body length out of her crate before she has flopped onto her side. Barley loves her crate: It’s dark, cozy, and no doubt very familiar-smelling. However, at the height of the summer heat wave, it seems that coziness was too much of a good thing. I do not, after all, have AC. So, one uncomfortably warm evening, I watched her groggily emerge from what appeared to be a deep sleep, take a couple heavy steps past the threshold of her crate, and flop right back into whatever dream had been interrupted by being too damned hot.

Barley, a dog, wiggles enthusiastically on some cool green grass. Barley, a dog, continues to wiggle, now kicking in the opposite direction. Barley, a dog, shakes it off, sending waves down the length of her leash. In many ways, this has been a Summer of Wiggles for Barley. Never has she wiggled so vigorously, or in so various a set of places. Beyond merely trying to cool off by shedding some heat into a shady patch of grass, as she is doing in this instance, it seems that she has only this year mastered the subtle art of giving herself scritches through tactical wiggling.

Juniper, a dog, presents a handsome profile as she looks out the window from a room lit with warm yellow light and into a yard lit with bright, pale sunlight. Setting aside how regal and dignified Juniper is at her most contemplative, I love the interplay of light in this photo. The sharper edges drawn by the sun on her snout fade as we follow the line of her body back into a part of the room less directly in the sun’s path, while the contours of the rest of her body are revealed by the ambient light of the room she is in. The manner in which this both reveals all the details in the photo without being washed out provides some important clues on how to photograph things lit from the side by the sun without losing half their details to shadow.

Barley, a dog, is right-of-frame in a panoramic photo of a colorful painted traffic roundabout themed around rainbow salmon. I don’t think someone can fully appreciate how much of photography is a kind of orchestrated deception until they assemble a panoramic photo by hand. Focal length, in particular, is a deliriously weird concept to deal with. This is just the inversion of the problem of mapping the Earth on a flat map: The world isn’t 2D, so compromises needs to be made to collapse the 3D world onto a plane. For example, at a glance, this photo seems reasonable, but my choice to have Barley be the focal center (despite not being centered in the frame) means that things get increasingly distorted as the eye travels to her left. Note, for example, that this roundabout does not look like the road has the same width all the way around (I assure you, the actual location is sensibly circular).

Barley, a dog, examined her surroundings on a cold, dim winter morning. My sunrise/sunset opinions aren’t especially popular. In my perfect reality, leaving for work should line up just about with dawn, such that you can feel things waking up when you arrive. Then, the sun should set maybe two hours or so after you get home from work. As such, I’m quietly looking forward to the shorter days in the coming months. No shade (cough) toward those who enjoy the sunlight, of course! And certainly, Barley’s got much more solar opinions on the matter, and that definitely counts for something.

Barley, a dog, sits, squints, and pants in the sun amid a big patch of tall white flowers that bend their heads in the direction of the sunlight. We’ve had some hot ones this summer! We capture Barley here, beleaguered but dutifully posing for a photo toward the end of a walk. Her pace for the remainder of this walk will be slow, one foot in front of the other, and her two ports of call upon reaching home will be her water bowl and her bed.

Barley, a dog, stands in front of a monument reading “First house in Tacoma, built in 1865 25 yards from here by Job Carr, Tacoma’s first settler, mayor, postmaster, judicial officer, notary public. Erected 1964 by Pierce County Pioneer & Historical Ass’n Endower, Howard Carr Jr.” Historical markers like this one really tickle me. Setting aside the degree to which this marker was placed and then pretty much abandoned, I also find it very funny that the reason his monument is 25 yards away from the location it is meant to commemorate is that the spot in question is probably dead-center in the middle of a parking lot. Everyone’s got different priorities! Get in there early if you want to place your marker precisely!

Barley, a dog, looks up at the photographer from the bed she lies atop, surrounded by toys. Seeing Barley nap while surrounded by a goofy number of toys always warms my heart. Don’t get it twisted, though: she knows who’s a Person in her immediate vicinity, and if you get up to leave, she’ll check in as if to say, “Oh, hey, we goin’?”

Barley, a dog, pauses in the shade and flashes her winning smile. As a Florida dog, Barley handle the heat relatively well - she goes just as hard as usual at first, then starts shedding heat as soon as she needs to. In addition to panting with her housepainter’s brush of a tongue, she also pauses in the shade and rolls in damp green grass as appropriate. I know it’s anthropomorphizing to see this as a picture of her smiling, but from her alert ears and raised tail, I’m still confident she’s having a great time!

Juniper, a dog, rests on an enormous yellow beanbag in front of a blue wall. Same photo, but reimagined as the cover of Dune (1965). Much has been made of the AirBnB aesthetic as a slightly uncanny middle ground between the vacant anonymity of a hotel and the lived-in homeyness of someone’s actual home. For my part, I don’t find that aesthetic as worthy of derision as some others; I’m OK with someone trying to make a space seem nice without also feeling like I’m on a guided tour of the inside of their head. That said, I was very struck by the color scheme of the attached photo when I received it, and imagined that perhaps Juniper is dreaming of an ocean of sand in which she is an enormous beast and is worshipped as a demigod.

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.)

Juniper, a dog, balances on her hind legs as she watches to see whether a tennis ball offscreen will be thrown up or out into the yard behind her. Unsurprisingly, Juniper loves fetch. Her instincts to sprint and pursue are strong, but beyond that she Wants To Help with every fiber of her being, so she lives for the enthusiastic praise she receives when she brings the ball back. Being the smartie that she is, it’s important to mix things up, so sometimes the ball gets tossed up instead of forward. While Juniper’s not particularly good at catching a ball in midair, she does what she can. If the ball’s trajectory is especially vertical and she catches it right next to you, the need to run remains unsatisfied and she’ll take the ball for a little victory sprint before returning it for the next toss.

Barley, a dog, sploots contentedly on a vast expanse of grass, lit from directly overhead by a cloudless sky. I can say with some confidence that Barley’s eyes are fully unfocused, lidded just enough to keep the sun at bay but unfocused on that middle distance. Only the pricking of her ears this way and that, and a steady sniff cycle sampling the breeze, signal her sensory impressions as she sun-roasts.

Barley, a dog, is curled up atop a very lofty dog bed on top of a second dog bed. Barley is enjoying her Fortress of Softitude, but perhaps because it is so squishy, she favors it mainly when she feels the need to sleep deeply. Here, we see her only gradually awakening from a cocoon of sleep. When her naps are of a more vigilant sort, the kind from which she can spring into action (perhaps because of someone coming to my office), she prefers a surface with a little less give, the better to go from zero to standing in less than two seconds.

Barley, a dog, stands on a hill in front of a sign reading, “Make Orwell fiction again.” If I’m being honest, I’m consistently frustrated by people who see fiction as a sort of “fun aquarium” for problematic ideas. As if, somehow, producing fiction is an act of exorcism, a thing that banishes what we dislike to the Fiction Realm by bathing it in literary sunlight. Such people tend to be uncomfortable with the idea that, for example, Orwell’s writing is no more or less fictional than it was at the time it was published, and that literary works that have staying power do so not because they are containment zones, but because they are mirrors.

Barley, a dog, peers down from the top of a narrow staircase. Barley knows only one way to handle stairs, whether ascending or descending: A dead sprint. Given a cue (or even a misunderstood gesture) she barrels up the stairs as if chasing a mechanical rabbit mounted on the handrail. Given this hair-trigger approach, it’s not uncommon for her to misread the situation and climb the stairs alone. Her high-strung astonishment when no one follows her delights me to no end. Real Charlie Brown going for the football energy.

Barley, a dog, stands on a large lawn turned brown from the heat. Across a cobbled road is another law that remains a vibrant green. One of the many reasons I loathe homeowner associations is the outward uniformity they enforce on a neighborhood. I much prefer to walk around a swanky area and be able to spot at a distance which residents are willing to drench their lawns in a heat wave to keep them green and which have the wisdom to know that green grass will return with the rains.

Barley, a dog, fusses over a plush dog toy in the shape of a boar. Even after all this time, I don’t have a great track record of figuring out which toys Barley will get most excited about. Some of her nicer toys have barely warranted a second sniff, while other cheaper ones continue to beguile her. It seems like this boar is going to be another favorite, despite being cheaply made of stiff fabric and wiry fur. So when I’m out shopping, I keep a lookout for toys being sold at clearance prices and roll the dice on them pretty often. No point in trying to overthink Barley’s unpretentious taste in prey.

Juniper, a dog, rests atop a plush shark tow, atop a pillow, atop a dog bed, atop a sofa. Juniper, a dog, gently fusses with her plush shark toy. The condition of Baby Shark is all the more remarkable when you consider that is has been a beloved toy of Juniper’s for very nearly her entire life, now over 6 years. Such is her care in handling it: She carries it by the scruff and doesn’t roughhouse with it. She’ll gently fuss over it and reposition it with her paws and mouth, then vibe with it like a childhood friend.

Barley, a dog, looks back at the photographer, who is more concerned with capturing a waist-high cube-shaped hedge. There’s something perverse, I find, in planting a hedge and meticulously keeping it trimmed into shape made of right angles. Now, if the hedge forms a wall, I can understand where they’re are coming from - it’s nicer to look at than a sun-bleached fence. But to cube a hedge at a meter a side: That almost feels like a move by someone who secretly hates hedges.

Barley, a dog, peeks over the back of a sofa and through the window standing between herself and the photographer. As far as Barley is concerned, there is only one view from my parents’ home that is worth a damn, and that’s the view out the back that lets her monitor the comings and goings of people leaving and arriving by car. Keen-eared, she knows the listen for motors and will stand, excited on the sofa to see who has come home. It is only once a person has approached far enough that she scoots off the sofa and navigates to the back door. Here, we see a decidedly different energy: That of people departing for some adventure and leaving her behind.

Barley, a dog, rests her head on her paws on the edge of a big pillow, with her elbows and chest supported by a second, shorter pillow, and her body below the waist on the remaining extent of the sofa. It was only after I snapped this picture that I realized we have witnessed another first in Barley’s eternal quest for comfort: the Pillow Staircase. This arrangement seems to have suited her especially well, because for once her eyes didn’t pop open the moment I raised an arm to take the photo.

Barley, a dog, is out of focus in the foreground. Behind her, a steep hill descends to a body of water, and beyond, an industrial port. We've not the time for games! I swear, I swear! The fog that seasonally cloaks the shore Has just now parted and revealed to me A city bright with lights and with spires tall! Let's see ourselves what game she plays at now! [All walk to the window] By all the gods, I see you speak the truth!

Barley, a dog, raises her head from her dedicated pillow, which is repeatedly emblazoned with “bonne nuit”. When Barley visits my parents, she has a dedicated pillow on the bed. This reflects the lessons learned from my early attempts to give her pillows wholly unsuited to her needs: Her “bonne nuit” pillow has a low profile and broad, tapered edges, more of a soft speedbump than a curb, and Barley is much more inclined to use such a pillow to rest her big block of a head.

Barley, a dog, looks over her shoulder lovingly as she lazes on the grass. One of the signs of how people-oriented Barley is the manner in which she deploys her vigilance. Some dogs, if stationed in the middle of a grassy expanse, will scan the horizon and keep an eye on the movement of distant pedestrians. Others will watch for wildlife (read: prey). Barley? She checks in on what you’re doing.

Juniper, a dog, sleeps in a snuggly loaf atop her comically large and soft dog bed, in the company of her beloved plush toy named Husky. As big a game as Juniper presents to strangers in her yard and beasts on the screen, she reveals, in the vulnerability of sleep, what a fundamentally soft creature she is. While her weight is typical for her a dog her size, she has a lot of excess skin, especially around her neck. Perhaps the world of her dreams a little softer than ours.

Barley, a dog, stands on some steps as a baffling array of concrete terraces stretch up behind her. People who live on hills have to put up with some nonsense, to be sure, but it’s certainly a choice to lean way into the incline and reconfigure your yard into a ziggurat. The design of this “yard” centers on a three-story staircase of poured concrete, banked by vast concrete terraces. This is recent work, and I gather those terraces will eventually serve as planters for various trees and shrubs, which would make the approach feel less like scaling a temple. What’s not clear is whether the property owners have decided against installing a handrail out of neglect or out of active spite for any delivery-person who needs a package signed for.

Barley, a dog, lies like a rag doll as a blue plush monkey appears to gaze longingly at her. I’ve said it before, but I will never not be charmed by how completely Barley hits the brakes when she decides to stop playing. “Playful” is less a mood for Barley than it is an emotional surge that overtakes her and then abates. Thing is, she doesn’t really do this with other dogs, just with her soft toys. It’s almost as if she will decide to one of her toys needs a thrashing, as if suspending her disbelief about its animacy. Then, at some point, it no longer registers as “lifelike” and it falls back into the oubliette of being a mere object, unworthy of further consideration.

Barley, a dog, chomps enthusiastically on a stout branch while simultaneously wiggling on her back. This is officially unprecedented behavior. Barley approached this stick, snapped it up and in the same motion flopped into a vigorous wiggle while giving big chomps. I’ve never observed this in all our years together. There’s no telling how much more powerful she’s going to become if she keeps innovating like this.

Barley, a dog, sits beside an unpaved street so steep that her hind paws are are high as her forward elbows. There’s something very funny to me about urban planners who drop grids onto maps with hardly a care for their grade, creating a couple extra plots of land to sell to whomever is willing to make it work. This is especially true because, with modern civic tools, there are very real limits to how steep a road can be and remain paved. Once you get over 30 degrees, you start to run a very real risk of that the road will simply start to slide down the hill unless a lot of expensive stabilization is done underneath. For this reason, famously steep roads that must be paved will sometimes resort instead to cobblestones. Now, I’m no surveyor, and I’ve done no formal study of the matter, but I feel like the street in the photo is definitely getting close to a 40 degree grade for this single block, and I’m not at all surprised that the city simply gave up trying to pave it at all. It’s pretty difficult to even walk down - your foot slides a bit with every step. So I’m calling it: Steepest street. I will not be taking any questions at this time.

Barley, a dog, lies on brown grass facing sunward, with a monkey puzzle tree in the background. It’s said that Araucaria araucana is called the “monkey puzzle tree” because a 19th century British barrister quipped, of its thorn-plated branches, that “it would puzzle a monkey to climb that.” Perhaps my own inner primate echoes that sentiment, because I’ve always felt a vague bafflement when I encounter one. For her part, Barley found nothing whatsoever of interest when examining it, but was perfectly willing to take five in the sun while I snapped a pic.

Barley, a dog, lies on her side as she is viewed from above, lying on an abstract blue-gray sheet struck through with chaotic white streaks. Perhaps the most alien thing about a dog to a human is its aesthetic sensibility. There’s no sense that Barley has any opinion about this visually striking linen set, any more than a plain white sheet. It’s not clear that Barley would recognize an object as “artistic.” Her world is eminently practical: Food is good, and tasty food is best. Soft surfaces are nice, rough surfaces not so much. From a cynical perspective, this paints a picture of a life lived in a kind of aesthetic void, a world of wiremesh geometries, automatic scripts, and meters that need refilling. And yet. She has joys as well: Being close, making eye contact, reunion with familiar people. Barley’s aesthetic sensibilities, it seems to me, are entirely social, and all the world’s beauty is found in the living. She doesn’t watch our movies: We are her movies. She doesn’t listen to our music: We are her music. We are beautiful. You are beautiful. Just ask Barley.

Juniper, a dog, stands on her hind legs to bark at a chiropteran monster on the television screen. Juniper remains a steadfast guardian against screen beasts, who she will not abide even for narrative purposes. On the one hand, one can hardly fault her for not paying attention to the movie; on the other, one presumes this is not the spirit in which the filmmakers intended for the work to be experienced.

Barley, a dog, looks up from a toy that was, at one time, a lobster, before being whittled down by a process of damage and repair over many years. It’s wild to me that Barley has stuffed toys with literal years under their belt, the survivors of many tours of duty being enthusiastically thrashed by some serious chompers. Quite a few of these long-timers barely resemble their original forms, instead looking the way you might imagine a plushie would look if you could put one in a rock tumbler to smooth out its features. As always, the secret to such long and productive life is (a) making sure the toy remains understuffed, and (b) performing any needed repairs with short lengths of upholstery thread (whose durability relative to the thread used by garment makers continues to blow my mind).

Barley, a dog, looks up excited at an off-camera treat while licking her chops with gusto. Anyone who interacts with Barley hands-on is going to get to know her prodigious tongue, which she uses to bestow prosocial affection on everyone she meets. It’s genuinely wild how much surface area it can cover, and I find myself wondering how the entire slobbery lilypad of a thing can remain tucked so neatly inside her modest snout most of the time. Here, excitement over a treat has brought it out of hiding, and we get an unusually clear view how just how broadly it extends.

Barley, a dog, looks down the length of a bridge with orange lights. Barley, a dog, looks back over her shoulder on a bridge with blue lights. Over 20 years ago, the white globes covering a bridge’s light fixtures were replaced with blue globes as part of a weekend celebration. The community loved those blue lights so much that, when the white globes were restored, there was a general outcry. There was no going back, it was near-universally felt: The bridge must now be blue. So the powers that be swapped the party globes back in and the bridge has remained blue to this day. When, much later, a second bridge over the same body of water was built, symmetry demanded that the new bridge have a distinctive chromatic identity. I’m sure orange was an easy sell (it being a pretty typical color for lights to have), but it can’t have hurt that it sat directly opposite on the color wheel.

Barley, a dog, sits upon a vibrant, well-maintained mosaic bench, erected as a memorial to a man killed in a bicycle-vehicle collision. When I happened upon this bench, my first instinct was that it’s a very nice piece of public art, and that it’s a very community-oriented gesture to build such a piece on your property and have it face the sidewalks, as if to invite pedestrians to stop and rest for a moment. It was only after inviting Barley to have a seat so I could take a photo that I looked more closely at the six-panel story above the bench, declaring it a memorial dedicated to the memory of Matthew Schekel. In 1998, Matthew died at this intersection, and this bench was eventually erected in his memory. What struck me quite deeply was the condition of the mosaic tiles themselves: They had almost none of the grit or dusty residue that you would expect from something facing a street. The tiles were shiny, almost polished, in a way that you only expect from something that is being cleaned by hand on a regular basis. 25 years later, someone still cares enough to continue to tend to this memorial. It gave the deeply humbling feeling of sitting not in a memorial, but within the memory of the caretaker itself.

Barley, a dog, hovers her nose over a clay put half-filled with rain water. As the weather gets warmer each year, I need to become more vigilant about Barley deciding, mid-walk, to drink from one pool of water or another. The risk is much lower, however, immediately after rainfall. It’s hard to imagine the transformative effect of rain on a dog’s olfactory world, probably a bit like walking outdoors one day and realizing that “Oh, guess it’s just going to be one of those days when all the colors are ultra-saturated for some reason.” Here, we see Barley having an unusually long ponder about the smells coming from a half-full flower pot that, upon reflection, really could use better drainage.

A portrait of Barley, a dog, rendered as a minimalist ink sketch. If you’re looking to give your dog-loving extended family a low-cost gift, try this one simple trick! Simply affix a piece of paper onto a computer screen displaying a photo of your beloved pup and carefully trace the dog’s outline. Then, carefully add additional contour lines marking major boundaries (shoulders, hips, ears), with special attention to the parts of the face that are most expressive. Then add simple crosshatched shading, whiskers, and other details. Easy!

Juniper, a dog, stands on a floating dock and peers out across the water. As suspicious as Juniper is of the beach, you would think that she dislikes the sea. On the contrary - it is the waterline that she mistrusts, always ebbing and flowing and completely unresponsive to biting. Get her on a floating dock, and we learn that Juniper finds being out over the water enthralling. She has not, so far as I’m told, ever jumped in. She instead scans the horizon, and all the shimmering taking place between it and herself.

Barley, a dog, sleeps on her dog bed with her face fully under a pillow. When Barley was first getting settled in her current residence, I made available to her some of the auxiliary pillows that it seems impossible to progress through adulthood without accruing. To a comical degree, she does not seem to understand what such pillows are for or how to use them. One would think, with a noggin like hers, she’d want something soft to rest it on. Turns out, usually not so much. If anything, she seemed happiest when the pillows are positioned such that she can lie down normally, and then with a slight shimmy, wedge her hear into an enclosure.

Barley, a dog, splays out on shady concrete to shed some of her body heat into its cool expanse. Paved surfaces are, reliably, not fun surfaces. Of course, they’re not the worst - Barley will happily walk on them and all - but during a heat wave, it’s clear that she light-steps to get clear of the too-bright concrete and too-hot asphalt. However, in this particular instance, she and I were in a park with (a) no tall trees or grassy spaces (instead favoring an ecologically-minded low-water-consumption model), (b) near-constant winds coming in from an adjacent body of water, and (c) a fiery sky orb. Given the concrete’s tendency to reflect the incoming energy back at you from multiple angles, this had the effect of trying to take a stroll across a slow-cooking skillet. Fortunately, a maintenance/restroom area at the edge of the park had broad overhangs, keeping swathes of street in permanent shadow. Without any direct exposure to the sun, and continuously swept by a water-cooled breeze, this patch was legitimately cold to the touch. Realizing she had finally found a valid heat sink, Barley plopped her belly onto the ground with reckless enthusiasm.

Barley, a dog, pauses in the middle of an enthusiastic wiggle while lying on her back with her paws up. If anyone asks, you have my permission to send them this post. This is Updog.

Barley, a dog, turns to face the camera after being approached while asleep. Barley may be the lightest sleeper I’ve ever met, of any species. Even after lying still for tens of minutes, she will swivel an eye (or her whole head) to check in if she so much as hears your body shift in your chair. As such, I have a whole host of photos taken when trying and failing to catch her sleeping.

Barley, a dog, sits facing into the sun, caught on camera from a distance. Barley treats sunning herself on the deck much like a kid treats jumping into a pool. Given the opportunity, she’ll dive in and get herself a dose of sunlight. Then, once she’s too hot, she’ll come back inside and fall asleep. What’s fun is that she’ll get her sundoses on her own if the door is open. Here, she was spotted at a distance, having gone out to face the day star all on her own, and did not realize she was being observed. She came back in of her own accord about 10 minutes later.

Barley, a dog, makes a needy, expectant face when confronted with snacks made of barley grass. Bring! Treats For Dogs is a small business that sells baked snacks for pups. There’s a lot to love about their product: Made in small batches, using human-grade ingredients, they are nevertheless also quite reasonably priced! So imagine my surprise when I learned that they sell treats that literally have Barley’s name on them. There wasn’t any question - I had to get them.