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Ian C Peake

@thesearedogyears.dog
708 followers 2K following 58 posts

Writing the time-hopping, people/dog anthology nobody asked for. They're not *about* dogs, but they're not *not* about dogs. There's always a dog (exclusions apply). Free to read at thesearedogyears.dog. Dog pics from the Scottish hinterland too.

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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 24/08/2026
New week, new sniffs. #dogsofbluesky #Scotland
A gorgeous black Labrador sniffs the ground in a beech woodland, silhouetted against low morning sunlight streaming between the tree trunks. Dappled green canopy overhead, bare earth and woodland plants underfoot.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 17/08/2026
I hope someone enjoyed the Grebe or Water Rail their phone mistook for the pigletty sound of my wet crocs on grass this morning. #dogsofbluesky #birding #Scotland
A stunning black Labrador sits in long wet grass, looking up at the camera with amber eyes and an expression of mild concern. Two crocs-clad feet are visible in the foreground.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 16/08/2026
"You must throw the stick. ...You may not touch the stick. You must throw the stick." -Echo #dogsofbluesky #labrador #Scotland
An objectively perfect soaking wet black Labrador stands on a leaf-strewn woodland path, tongue out, looking directly at the camera with an expression of absolute intent. A stick lies on the ground in the foreground, untouched. A moss-covered burn runs through the trees behind her.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 14/08/2026
1972 Norwegian Arctic. Strøm mushes his dog pack, the past mushes him, while something colder and darker than the polar night waits out on the ice. thesearedogyears.dog/anomaly.html #shortstory #booksky #horror #dogsofbluesky
Anomaly at ARCESS-7. Svalbard Archipelago, Norwegian Arctic, 1972. Text reads: "Fucking Eriksen and his fool's errand. Four kilometers out. Another six to the ridge."
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 22/07/2026
I hurdled, she limboed. We shared the wild raspberries on the other side. #DogsOfBluesky #Nature #Scotland
Sunlight filters through an open woodland with tall grass and a moss-covered fallen tree across the foreground. A black dog ducks underneath the trunk, with only her back half and upright tail visible, heading towards a bright clearing.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 19/07/2026
thirty miles of good clean air between our hill and someone else's mountain tonight
A view over a hedgerow, out of focus in the foreground, onto a green field where cattle lie at rest. Beyond, a dark line of beech trees, and on the horizon the mountains of Arran, blue-grey against a pale evening sky streaked with soft cloud.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 30/06/2026
I have a Dog Years story I want to share for Pride. Just in time! It's set a long time ago, with a wolf who finds herself drawn to strange creatures and their fire, and the pack who scent the difference in her. Part of a series, come and see. thesearedogyears.dog/crossing.html #Pride
thesearedogyears.dog
Aurignac, Southern France · 32,000 BCE — Dog Years
A wolf at the treeline. A fire in the dark. The moment everything changed.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 19/03/2026
Scottish winters can be relentless. Stormy, cold, wet and dark. If you like the outdoors and you work and commute, you can end up living for the weekend. Hoping for dry weather on your day off. Then the day arrives when you realise the 9-5 has left you enough light, and the world is wide again.
A black dog silhouetted in the shallows against a vivid pink and orange sunset over the Firth of Clyde, Arran in the distance.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 12/03/2026
1/2 Packless: a stray's life on the Dakota frontier. Loyal, abandoned, surviving, alone. Animal lives can be hard. Even (maybe especially) the ones who get close to us. thesearedogyears.dog/packless.html
thesearedogyears.dog
Dakota Territory, USA · 1885 — Dog Years
Dakota Territory, 1885. A wagon's wheel. A stray bleeding out in the grass. The sky pulling harder.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 10/03/2026
The stories page was a list. Functional and... fine. The problem: each story lives in a completely different time and place. A list flattens that. So I rebuilt it as a carousel: one story, one image, one world at a time. thesearedogyears.dog #webdev #booksky #amwriting #indieweb
A full-screen carousel card for the Dog Years stories page. A sepia photograph of a stray dog on a dusty frontier street. The title 'Packless', date '1885', location 'Dakota Territory USA', and a gold-outlined 'Read This Story' button.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 09/03/2026
Dogs have been everywhere that humans have, but didn't try to narrate it or give their hot take. They just caught the scent of joy, heard mischief on the hill a mile off, felt danger coming along their spine. That makes them the perfect comrades for adventure. Here's Echo this weekend.
A black Labrador turning toward the camera in the foreground, mouth open, ears alert. Behind a metal farm gate, a group of cattle stand in mud backlit by a low winter sun. East Ayrshire, Scotland.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 08/03/2026
Beware the false spring.
A black Labrador stands on a muddy farm track at golden hour, silhouetted against a low winter sun breaking through bare trees at the field's edge. Tractor ruts score the ground around her. Her tail is raised.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 07/03/2026
wing's tip carves the sky mastery needs no witness the buzzard just is
A common buzzard soars against a cloudless deep blue sky, wings fully extended, primary feathers splayed at the tips like open fingers.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 06/03/2026
Planning a euro trip on the ferry early June. Belgium, Netherlands, Le Touquet. Echo has opinions (pro cheese mostly), but limited geographical knowledge. What's unmissable with a dog? Anywhere we shouldn't bother with? #DogsOfBluesky #Belgium #Netherlands #France #travel
A black Labrador sits at a ferry porthole, gazing out at the sea with the focused expression of someone who has important nautical contributions to make.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 05/03/2026
"The wheel catches her hindquarters and she's down hard, muzzle in the dirt, tasting dust and her own blood. She sees it coming for a good half-second, long enough to know her stiff hips won't turn, that her body has finally, decisively, failed to be fast enough." thesearedogyears.dog/packless.html
thesearedogyears.dog
Dakota Territory, USA · 1885 — Dog Years
Dakota Territory, 1885. A wagon's wheel. A stray bleeding out in the grass. The sky pulling harder.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 04/03/2026
My brain's writing a novella set in a corporate climate refuge in 2038 when I only asked it for a short story. Your dog's violated the terms of employment/residence/existence and the clock's ticking. I think it shares DNA with Terry Gilliam's Brazil, but nobody gets the luxury of going mad. #WIP
A man sits strapped in a chair wearing a metal helmet, facing a masked figure in a clinical setting. A still from Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985).
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 03/03/2026
Honestly I wasn't setting substack alight. But since leaving and building a wee site of my own (with no idea how), I found the fringe benefit of not having to pick your aesthetic from a limited menu. The page itself becomes part of the story, not just a container for it. #indieweb #booksky
Screenshot of four pages from an indie website hosting stories from a collection about dogs and humans across deep time.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 02/03/2026
'Why Dogs?' #3 Writing stories across different times and places needs witnesses. Dogs are perfect for that. Here's Echo from the Fife coast this weekend, fresh from everyone's business. #DogsOfBluesky #booksky #amwriting
A black Labrador sat on a Scottish beach with the harbour wall and fisherman's cottages visible in the background. Her snout is sandy.
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XPHAIEA @xphaiea.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
SPRING SENTINELS 🌱🌞 Two new characters inspired by the coming of Spring, emerging new growth and bulbs flowering. Made from reclaimed/recycled materials. xphaiea.bigcartel.com Thanks for all the love and comments on these two! #xphaiea #textileartist #artdolls #magick #spring
Spring themed art doll with bulb head in green and yellow hues
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Karmic Mishap (breaker of Law) @karmicmishap.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Ah, but the trick is I am a dragon poet. My words can destroy. #haiku #senryu #poetry
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 26/02/2026
"If I must be a relic in an attic, at least let the attic be my own." History is running hot in the early days of the twentieth century. In Vienna an aristocrat, his dog, and an empire are all on borrowed time. Read the story here while the Mahler plays: www.thesearedogyears.dog/herrengasse.html
thesearedogyears.dog
Vienna, Austria · 1898-1914 — Dog Years
Vienna, 1898-1914. A black Labrador. An empire collapsing. Loyalty until the end.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 25/02/2026
As Dog Years grows I'm wondering about structure. The collection spans from the Paleolithic to the far future, so should the future stories publish together as a bloc, or threaded through everything else in order of when I ship them? 😅 Genuine question. I have thoughts but I'm curious about yours.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 24/02/2026
I grew up on spoken word vinyl discs like HCA's Snow Queen, with voice acting, snowstorms, hoofbeats etc. That's why I'm risking hokeyness to put optional ambient sounds with the Dog Years stories. Nobody has to use them. But if they do, I hope they feel like bedtime stories for grown-ups. #indieweb
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 23/02/2026
POV: we're in the kitchen at someone's party, you've made the mistake of asking about my writing project, and now you want to know why I couldn't have picked cats or horses instead of dogs for my 35k-year time-hopping short story thing. Buckle up. 🧵 1/4
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 22/02/2026
Left me with a furrowed brow. I'm not sure I could've left the pipers either.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 21/02/2026
She never remembers to put the flowers in a vase. Of course she doesn't 🥺. Great stuff.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 20/02/2026
Writing a story set in a 2038 corporate enclave, with a millennial protagonist in his mid-40s. How do we think millennials are going to read as characters by then? What will the tells be: the verbal tics, the specific exhaustions, the things they couldn't quite shake? Asking for a man and his dog.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 19/02/2026
A boy, his grandfather, the grandfather's grandmother, and the dogs they refused to let the priests lead away. Next, Dog Years visits Bronze Age China. “The ancestors demand much... but they do not know one dog from another.” thesearedogyears.dog/shu.html #ShortStories #HistFic #DogYears
thesearedogyears.dog
Yellow River Valley, Shang Dynasty China · 1200 BCE — Dog Years
Yellow River Valley, 1200 BCE. A grandfather's story. A ratter named Shu. The tomb that could not see.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 18/02/2026
Working on a story with a marriage ending- it's all terse words in the dog park at handover time. The question: how do you make it compelling/fun, and not just mean/sad? Hepburn and O'Toole have the masterclass. Goldman's words. Merciless wit. Irresistible, consummate cruelty. #WritingCommunity
The movie poster for the 1968 film 'The Lion in Winter.' It features Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II. They are dressed in regal medieval attire, their faces etched with a mixture of intense rivalry and deep, complicated affection. The atmosphere is one of high-stakes psychological warfare.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 17/02/2026
"I went from zero website to one website in four months and it hasn't made me a penny." ...is exactly why I don't have a productivity substack going gangbusters BUT I made a cute retro little online home for my stories AND learned a bit about coding which turns out to be kinda creative. ​#IndieWeb
Screenshot of a webpage for a short story featuring a wounded rabbit sheltering with a hunting dog at midwinter.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 16/02/2026
"Why dogs?" #1 We teamed up so long ago that we're like friends who've been close since kindergarten. There's no imagining either one without the other. We're a Gordian knot at this point. Anyway here's a pic of Echo from the weekend. #dogs #dogsofbluesky #writing #literaryfiction #history
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Edmonds Scanner @edmondsscanner.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Some advice: - be kind - tip well - stay weird - festoon your antlers with moss & wildflowers - disappear into a malevolent fog at least once a month - become a haunted horror at the dark heart of the forest
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 12/02/2026
34,000 years ago a boy sits sulking at the edge of the firelight. "The creature lifted its nose to catch the boy's scent: smoke, earth, milk-tooth breath, and something in it eased. It lowered itself to the ground, watching. Staying." Welcome to Dog Years thesearedogyears.dog/aurignacian.html
thesearedogyears.dog
Aurignac, France · 32,000 BCE — Dog Years
Aurignac, France, 32,000 BCE. A boy at the edge of firelight. A wolf-shape in the dark. The first choice.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 11/02/2026
Working on a Dog Years story with a separated couple sparring in a dog park. Shooting for Lion in Winter vicious/tender (with a dog obvs) How do you write reflex legacy care, threaded through with raw fresh spite? Fun finding out. #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #CraftNotes #Dialogue #EmotionalTruth
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 10/02/2026
-Smaller -Slower -Weirder -Kinder That's how my stories get to be when they're relaxing in their own space, and that's why I've been learning basic code stuff and building a website for them. Someone said it feels like circa 2002 internet and I'm absolutely chuffed with that.
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Ian C Peake @thesearedogyears.dog · 09/02/2026
I've been writing a collection called Dog Years. They're stories about humans and dogs across tens of thousands of years. Why? Dunno. But I'm having fun, and dogs are cool (and many other things too). Nine stories so far. More coming. They live free on my website www.thesearedogyears.dog
An ancient bone carving of a wolf, set on a floor of earth and gravel.
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