This week’s zine was one of my favorites.
Confession: it also took the longest and gave me no end of trouble.
The idea was simple—show how my dogs react to every little thing around them, turning even the smallest changes (say, a bird landing on the fence) into full-blown existential threats. And when I say “react,” I don’t mean a polite request for the intruder to kindly vacate the premises. (For one, my dogs have no concept of “polite,” and for two, the birds wouldn’t listen anyway.)
No, it’s full-throttle, DEFCON-level barking, the kind that’s designed to alert the entire tri-county area to the dire threat of Feathered Trespassers.
And, honestly? That was also the way I was this week.

My dogs may see cottontails as their sworn enemies, but for me, it was Facebook Meta. I lost half a day trying to make a few basic changes to the Studio Second Street page, only to discover—after much trial, error, Googling, growling, and whimpering—that I couldn’t actually do it. Not without a secret password, three support tickets, and an incantation from someone at Meta HQ.
Bark bark bark bark bark.
Yeah. It was that bad.
We’ve also been having some work done on the house—installing a carport—so a mini-excavator was out there this week, digging up the side yard. The dogs went absolutely hysterical. I, meanwhile, sat at my desk trying to figure out why the printables I’d uploaded to my website last week were now giving me error messages. I hadn’t changed anything. What the fudge?!
The dogs didn’t think much better of the excavator.
Woof woof woof woof woof.
We did it for hours.
Now don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying these aren’t real monsters. Because what is a monster, really, if not something that threatens the stability of your world? The dogs aren’t wrong. These things exist. They’re just… not always what they seem.
Wednesday night, after wasting the entire afternoon wrestling with a glitchy Elementor plugin on the Fictional Frontier page—and after enduring the stabbing guilt of still not having this week’s online zine ready—I had a small epiphany.
The universe doesn’t care. Why do I?
If I think of myself as one small billiard ball on a table that’s seen 117 billion others roll by (yep, I looked it up—scientists estimate around 117 billion humans have ever lived), then, well... most things seem kind of small. Especially now, with 8 billion of us alive at once. That’s 7% of all humans ever. When you look at it that way, getting worked up over a website plugin or a misfired Facebook update feels—well, not quite pointless, but definitely optional.
Still. It helps to let it out sometimes.
I sympathize with Abby and Ginger. Dang it if those birds don’t look like they’re taunting them, just out of reach. I’m not saying I barked at a blog plugin for two hours straight… but I’m also not not saying that.
Here’s to a woof-less weekend.
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P.S. Want to see the full zine? Barkyard Guards: Unleashed & Unqualified is available now for free subscribers on my Substack newsletter. You’ll get a weekly email with the latest zine (or other entertaining tidbits) and a link to the Secret Draft Archive—that’s right, every free subscriber gets the key to the locked room where Barkyard Security is on duty. 🐕
Go to Realmscapes.substack.com to subscribe.
