← Misc · December 2024 – November 2026

Wangcai

Twenty-four months of our dog, mostly through my wife's camera.

24 months · December 2024 – November 2026
one foster week · one adoption in Boston · a donut bed, a sofa and a teepee · a yellow duck and a yellow octopus · whipped cream, an empty yogurt tub and one cake · Huntington Dog Beach, Crystal Cove and the hills of Irvine · a lot of back seat · a bee, a hot dog, Sherlock Holmes and a blonde wig

This post is about our dog, Wangcai. How she came to us is its own story: a foster week in Los Angeles in December 2024, a month in which she was supposed to be someone else's dog, and then a shelter listing in Boston that sent my wife, and a week later me, across the country to bring her home. That story, and where her name comes from, is in Bringing Wangcai Home. This post is everything since.

Most of the photos here are my wife's. She takes far more pictures of Wangcai than I do, and a large share of her camera roll from these two years is the dog: asleep, on a walk, in a hat. I went through it month by month and kept what the photos show. Where I was there too, I say "we"; some of these walks were just the two of them.

Shuffle

Before the months, a shuffle: 401 photos of Wangcai from her first week with us to now, in a random order that changes every time the page loads.

Twenty-four months

One photo for every month, from the foster week to this one. The first is from December 2024, when she was still Muffin and only staying with us for a week; the second is from her first evening back in Los Angeles in January, asleep in her yellow pajamas.

Wangcai on a leash under a tree wrapped in white lights at night. — One photo a month. Places, left to right: downtown Los Angeles; the Wedge in Newport Beach (May 2025); Crystal Cove (Sep 2025); Long Beach (Oct 2025); Huntington Dog Beach (Nov 2025 and Nov 2026); Newport Beach (Mar 2026); the hills of Irvine (Jun 2026); Upper Newport Bay (Jul 2026); Santa Cruz (Aug 2026). April 2026 is in the car and September 2026 on an outing; the rest are at home.

Wangcai asleep in yellow pajamas on a fluffy grey blanket. — One photo a month. Places, left to right: downtown Los Angeles; the Wedge in Newport Beach (May 2025); Crystal Cove (Sep 2025); Long Beach (Oct 2025); Huntington Dog Beach (Nov 2025 and Nov 2026); Newport Beach (Mar 2026); the hills of Irvine (Jun 2026); Upper Newport Bay (Jul 2026); Santa Cruz (Aug 2026). April 2026 is in the car and September 2026 on an outing; the rest are at home.

Looking at them in a row, a few things repeat. She is almost always looking straight at the camera. She has a lot of hats. And many of them are outdoors, on the beaches and hills of Orange County. The sections below follow those threads.

The hats and bandanas deserve a note of their own, since they are in five of the twenty-four. In June 2025 it was a brown plaid deerstalker with a cape, which made her Sherlock Holmes for the evening. On March 18, 2026, at a sidewalk table in Newport Beach, she wore a yellow bandana printed with the word PUP. On May 11, 2026, a little after midnight, it was a pink gingham bucket hat with a bandana to match, and in October 2026 a pink cowboy hat.

A few of the months are trips. The August 2026 photo is from the Tahoe loop: at four minutes to midnight on August 25, in our room in Santa Cruz, she was curled up in the middle of the white duvet. The December 2024 photo is from the foster week, on an evening walk in downtown Los Angeles under a tree wrapped in white lights, near the end of that week.

Asleep

A large share of the photos are of Wangcai asleep. She has a grey donut bed, and one way she uses it is upside down, with all four legs in the air and her head tipped back over the rim. This one is from 8:43 one morning in July 2025.

Another is under the covers. In January 2026 she was photographed at 1:25 in the morning wrapped in a beige blanket so that only her face showed, and in March 2025 my wife photographed her from very close, head on the pillow, nose first.

Wangcai's face peeking out of a beige blanket. — January 28, 2026, 1:25 am.

A close-up of Wangcai's nose and eyes, her head resting on a pillow. — Nose first, March 28, 2025.

Toys

Her toys in these photos are plush and mostly yellow or green. She also has a white teepee, and on the evening of October 21, 2026 she was lying inside it with her head on a big yellow plush duck. In April 2026 she was shaking a green one hard enough that the photo came out as a blur of fur and felt.

Wangcai lying in a white teepee with her head on a large yellow plush duck. — The teepee and the duck, October 21, 2026.

A motion-blurred Wangcai with a green plush toy in her mouth. — April 12, 2026.

Whipped cream, yogurt and a cake

During her foster week she discovered the little cups of whipped cream that coffee shops give to dogs, and that has not changed. On November 2, 2026, at an outdoor table at a Starbucks, she sat next to her cup.

Wangcai sitting at an outdoor table next to a Starbucks drink and a small cup of whipped cream. — A pup cup, November 2, 2026, 1:59 pm.

At home, the equivalent is an empty yogurt tub. In May 2026, just before one in the morning, she had one between her paws and was licking it clean. I took a photo of the same moment.

Wangcai lying on the carpet licking the inside of a yogurt tub held between her paws. — May 8, 2026.

Nobody knows her real birthday, so we count the day she was adopted as her birthday. On January 17, 2026, a year to the day after my wife picked her up from the MSPCA in Boston, she had her first birthday cake: a dog cake covered in sugar flowers, with a paw print and the letters MUFFIN, her name from the foster week, on top. A few minutes later her face was in it.

A small round dog cake with sugar flowers, a paw print and the word MUFFIN. — Her first birthday, January 17, 2026, 5:37 pm.

Wangcai with her nose in the cake. — 5:41 pm.

Sand, grass and one patch of snow

The walks in these photos are mostly along the Orange County coast: the bluffs at Crystal Cove, Upper Newport Bay, and Huntington Dog Beach, the dog beach in Huntington Beach. On November 1, 2025 she stood at the waterline and watched the waves; on a July morning in 2026 she lay in the grass above the beach; and on November 7, 2026 she let herself be buried in the sand up to the neck, which is the last photo in the grid.

Many of these walks are around sunset. On May 9, 2025 she was on the sand at the Wedge, at the tip of the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, at 7:44 pm, with the sky going orange behind her. On September 19, 2025 she sat on a wooden deck above Crystal Cove at 6:50 pm. On July 6, 2026 she was nose-down in the grass on the bluffs over Upper Newport Bay, with the marsh and the water behind her, at 7:40 pm. All three are in the grid.

Wangcai lying on green grass on a bluff, with a wooden fence and the ocean behind. — Above the beach in Huntington Beach, July 20, 2026, 9:49 am.

Inland, the trails are the dry hills of Irvine. On September 6, 2025, a little before sunset, she was out on a dirt trail near Quail Hill, small in the middle of the path with the hills going gold around her. The June 2026 photo in the grid is from the same hills.

Wangcai standing on a wide dirt trail between dry brush, with hills in low evening light. — Near Quail Hill, Irvine, September 6, 2025, 6:29 pm.

Snow is rare in these photos. One is from her first week with us, in Boston in January 2025, when my wife was there with her on her own, before I flew in: on the afternoon of January 23 she was standing in snow beside a tree, on a pink leash, with paw prints around her. Another is on the road, at Crater Lake.

Wangcai on a pink leash standing in fresh snow beside a tree trunk, paw prints around her. — Boston, January 23, 2025, 4:29 pm. My wife's photo, from their week there without me.

The back seat

Wangcai spends a lot of time in the back seat. In May 2025, on the evening of the first drive in our new car, we took her to the Wedge in Newport Beach for the sunset (May in the grid), and in the car she looked over the back seat at the camera, tongue out. In July she rode with her head by the window, watching the road go by.

Wangcai looking over the back of a car seat, tongue out. — May 9, 2025, 7:31 pm.

July 25, 2025.

Dressing up

The hats in the grid are only part of the wardrobe. For Halloween 2025 she was a bee, in a striped body and a yellow hood with little wings. In October 2025 we also took her to Long Beach in a plaid cap and coat (October in the grid).

Wangcai lying on a wooden floor in a black-and-yellow bee costume with wings. — A bee, October 31, 2025.

Wangcai lying on a striped rug in an orange costume and a blonde wig. — A blonde wig, October 12, 2026, 9:43 pm.

In 2026 Halloween started early. On October 12 she tried on a blonde wig at home, on the 26th a pink cowboy hat and bandana, and on October 31 we took her to a Halloween dog-costume parade in Long Beach, in a diner uniform. By then Christmas had started too: on October 23 the giant tree at the Irvine Spectrum was already up and lit, and she stood under it.

Wangcai standing at night under a giant lit Christmas tree in an outdoor plaza. — Irvine Spectrum, October 23, 2026, 7:59 pm.

On the road

Wangcai has come on many of our road trips since she came home, and those posts have more of her: the drive to Phoenix and Arcosanti in March 2025, two months in; Santa Barbara and the dunes and the giant hands at Joshua Tree in the summer of 2025; a cabin weekend at Big Bear; Labor Day in Las Vegas; Thanksgiving in Oregon, with Crater Lake in snow; Sedona in January 2026; the spring-break loop to the Bisti badlands and Red Rocks; my wife's drive up to the Bay Area with her in the summer of 2026; the Tahoe loop in August 2026; and two visits to San Diego in October 2026. Closer to home, she is in Irvine and Around, the LA hills, on the pier beside the USS Iowa and at the Manhattan Beach pier.

Photo locations have been removed from the published images, and where we live is never shown or named.

Some photos in this post are my wife's.

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