We ask photographer Alex Garland to follow marchers in the rain and do crazy things like trying to make yet another picture of yet another huge apartment building look interesting. We thought we’d ask him to do something a little more fun. Here’s the first edition of Capitol Hill Pets, a semi-regular look at our furry, fuzzy, feathered, and finned friends found out and about on Capitol Hill.

Meet Barley. Barley the bulldog hangs out at the newly opened Optimism Brewery where the canine is a valued part of the ownership team. But it almost didn’t work out that way. At one point over the summer during the brewery’s long construction, Barley wandered outside and disappeared. After a few weeks, the Optimism crew — despite their happy name — gave up hope that they would ever see Barley again. But three months later, Barley’s social network made a connection. A brewery worker’s friend of a friend who works helping homeless families said she had met a couple living in a van underneath the West Seattle Bridge who had just gotten a “free English Bulldog named Barley.” A few calls and a meeting at a local vet to make sure this bulldog with the name “Barley” on its dog tag was the right Barley. It was. And now Barley is hanging out at the dog-friendly Optimism, greeting beer drinkers and saying hey to fellow pooch pals when the brewery is open for service, Thursdays through Sundays. We’re told Barley is proud to have his story published “although he still doesn’t talk much about it.”