For Bailey

5 September 2013 to 19 March 2026

by Harriet Moxey

I was eleven years old and very excited to be getting a puppy. I evidently also had some time on my hands, because his full name, saved in his own iPhone contact, which I had at one point memorised word for word by getting Siri to recite it back to me, reads as follows:

Bailey Junior Toby Bush Precious Lil' Spaz Digger Kneelicker Ratface BebeSqueebs Peepipe HayBales Cuteness Fish Breath Cute Poo Sausage Meat Bailey Boy Boy Boy Boy Boy Boy Little Guy Cutie Poo Bark Box Fluffster Poobag Pooface Bubbaloola Bubba Freckle Face Face Spooshippo Snoogie Poogie Melon Princey Wincey Wincey Wincey Wincey Wincey Trouble Beebers Snoogleflump Snoreface Doogie Turkey Brains Poser Mr. On My Bed Baby Su Chef Doodie Bubs Bubby Baby Wombat Doofy Woofy Handsome Superbales Puddlejumper Buddy Booba The Springer Dooby Wooby Pickle Chicken Peanut Sunshine Fleabag Snuggleface Moxey.

Those are, all of them, names he was called at various points through his life. Several are libellous.

The dog
before the dog

The story of Bailey starts before Bailey existed. My mum had grown up with a springer spaniel named Toby, and she had always wanted another, and it had never quite happened. Then one day everything clicked. We were living in Bath, my sister and I had just been told we were moving back to Seattle, and we were taking it about as well as you'd expect. Mum said "let's get a springer when we land," which had exactly the effect she hoped it would. From that point, Imee and I spent the next few months counting down the days and becoming completely obsessed with a litter that didn't yet exist.

He was named before he was born. My dad and I walked past the world famous Bath Spa buildings into a Timpson, the building was from 1673; the Timpson sign much newer, and picked out a Union Jack tag in the shape of a bone. Mum's maiden name is Baillie. We went with Bailey, on the gender-neutral hedge. It was, of course, perfect. He wore it for years.

The Mix-Up

When we got in touch with the breeder, we put our order in for a girl, a little dog named Precious, whose photo Imee and I had already fallen completely in love with. Then the breeder called. She had made a mistake. Precious was actually a boy.

We were briefly devastated. We got over it very quickly. As it turned out, a boy was exactly what our family needed, and we would spend the next twelve and a half years being extremely right about that.

September 2013

5 November 2013. Port Orchard, Washington. A long drive out in the Volvo. The breeder's house smelled strongly of cigarettes. Bailey was the last of the litter. His mother was called Dorothy. His father was, by complete coincidence, also called Bailey. The breeder rubbed a purple blanket over both of them so he'd have the smell of home for the journey.

We set up newspapers in the backseat in case he needed the loo, and somewhere between Port Orchard and Seattle, he crawled onto my lap and fell asleep for the rest of the drive. When we got home, he was too small to get up the steps but after being offered a bully stick to chew, we discovered he could in fact clamber up into the house, with the right incentive.

He was a tri-colour springer, liver, white, and tan, which apparently gave the breeder reason to charge even more than the standard options. He had freckles across his nose, a white stripe down his face, and a white diamond on his back. Strangers stopped to compliment his coat regularly, which seemed to be just fine by him, because he liked the attention.

Eight homes. One dog.

Bailey lived in eight houses across Seattle with me. The house on 1828, the first Greenlake flat, then 1835 across the road, the second Greenlake flat, 649, 751, 3506, 4621. My parents divorced in the early part of that list, and Bailey travelled back and forth with me as the one thing that didn't change.

He was a solitary guy at heart, which only became fully obvious once Austin and Kat joined the family in 2017. As Austin claimed one of the comfy chairs, Bailey wore an expression that said: who is this? Then Harper arrived in 2020 as a cute crazy white golden puppy, and Bailey’s expression shifted to: you cannot be serious. By the time Blanca appeared in 2022, Bailey had stopped reacting. He simply accepted that he was now, against his stated preferences, going to be ambushed by a small white attack puppy on a regular basis.

Through it all, he adapted, settled, and claimed his corner of wherever we were. He'd sleep anywhere. He'd go in any car. Just say alleyupp and he was in while the other dogs scrambled over him. He loved his own company, and would frequently wander into Austin's crate to avoid the others, and just chill in there, completely unbothered and on his own terms.

Bailey was a different dog at my mum's, alone, than he was at my dad's with the others. At my mum's he ate slowly, unbothered by his surroundings. At my dad's he ate like the food was being timed.

Wherever he was though, he snored at a volume that should not have been possible for his size. He stole pillows and wrecked freshly made beds within minutes. And he loved being right next to me: when I sought some bathroom privacy he would run at the door and, with a crash, headbutt it open. I’m not sure whether he broke the bathroom lock or just discovered that willpower and sufficient force would overcome it. Regardless, that became the routine and he’d sit on my feet, then roll onto his back in a deep sleep with all four legs in the air, completely at peace with everything.

The Crimes...

It would be a gross omission to write about Bailey without acknowledging the crimes.

He ate an entire charcuterie board at a friend's lake cabin, the whole board was the centrepiece of the table. He would steal a sandwich from your hand if you let it dangle. He ate chocolate, so much on one occasion to warrant an urgent care visit. He lunged for dead rats with a commitment that caught everyone off guard, and drank sea water on Anderson Island that came back out as green foam in the back seat of our car. He ate goose poo at the lake with genuine enthusiasm, stole picnics, baguettes, and once Kat's entire gluten-free burger. It was known by all that anything left at Bailey’s level, counter, coffee table, unattended lap, was as good as gone.

His Loves

He loved blueberries, peanut butter, and cheese. Not so much a fan of Kat’s efforts to feed him "Healthy." He accepted raw egg, spinach, and broccoli on his dinner, though he'd typically toss them off the bowl and come back to them last, looking resentfully at each piece. Bananas he would spit out with quiet, considered dignity. He begged at the table without a shred of shame because we never trained it out of him, and if I'm honest, we didn't really try.

When he ran, he ran. If you were somewhere he could just go, he went. Discovery Park, a big open trail, watching him go full sprint with his ears flying was a genuinely heart warming thing. And he’d lurch up at trees in pursuit of a squirrel, but never once successful.

Camel or stubborn dog?

He could also be stubborn in a way that was impressive.

His bladder held for thirteen hours reliably. Fourteen on occasion. Every evening, but especially on cold or rainy nights, the conditions under which a sensible dog would have done his business quickly and run back inside, Bailey would stand in the garden and stare at me. I would stand with him. I would shelter inside yelling from the doorway. "Go wee wees, Bailey," I’d say, in the voice you use when you want a dog to do something NOW. He would cock a leg, consider, decline, move three feet, consider again. The ritual ran five to ten minutes. It was not negotiable.

One time he laid motionless, clamping a big fluffy Yeti toy in his mouth for what I can only estimate was forty-five minutes. Kat was trying to confiscate it and he was not giving in. In his own way, he was making a point.

The point, I now realise, was Bailey's general point, which was that some things are worth holding onto for as long as possible, and that no one can make you give them up if you stand your ground and look cute doing it.

The anxiety
and what it built

Bailey was a gentle dog. Soft-natured, deeply affectionate, the kind of calm presence that makes a house feel quieter just by being in it. But on some things he made his displeasure known.

He had a dislike of hats. He had a separate dislike of the postman, which became a dislike for any man wearing a hat who was not the postman.

He did not allow his nails to be cut. My dad, oblivious to what a quick was, and what would happen when a nail was cut WAY too short. A squealing puppy, lots of blood, two crying children, all in the car on the way to the 24-hour vet. The nail went black and stayed black and Bailey filed the experience permanently under "things one does not forgive." From there on he refused anyone touching his feet and would, despite the confidence of every groomer we visited that "he'll be ok with us", reliably poo on the table the moment they tried. Kat didn’t invent a product for that. She just banned dad from nail trimming.

But there was one thing that undid him completely: loud noises. Fireworks. Bangs. Shouting. 4th of July and New Year's were hard. He would sprint to the nearest closet and stay there, panting, shaking, ears back, until it was over. My response was always the same: calm music, a quiet space, as much natural support as I could give him. It helped. But watching a dog that gentle be that frightened never got easier.

That experience, lived, firsthand, across years, is what led to Bailey's No More Wiggles.

When Kat developed the formula for dogs with situational anxiety, it was built around exactly what Bailey needed: soothing botanicals, calming adaptogens, whole plant hemp extract. Something that genuinely supported a dog's nervous system rather than simply sedating it. His name is on the packaging, his face is on the website and he is the reason the formula was developed with such care. We knew what we were trying to solve because we lived with the dog who needed solving, and we could keep refining ingredients to pick the combination that worked best.

Bailey's No More Wiggles is now Austin and Kat's best-selling line. Thousands of dogs have a helping hand to get through life’s stressors, and all because of a tri-colour springer from Port Orchard who taught us what calm actually meant.

Goodbye, B man

I left for university in the UK in 2022 and since then he was my companion through all my breaks back home, from the moment I landed back in Seattle until I got back on the plane. I’ve since started work in England and can’t express how much I’ve missed him being in my daily life. It was a complete shock when mum called at 3am and said he’d stopped eating his dinner and she was worried. Within hours he was at the emergency vet, and over a teary family facetime, as the sun was rising in England, we learned he was not in a good place. The shock was overwhelming, but we got to see him. I’m grateful I got to say goodbye.

He died on Thursday 19th March 2026, twelve and a half years old, and happy right until the end.

I still feel hollow, and the feeling comes in waves. Last month at the London Marathon, at the mile 24 marker, I thought of him. It was too much. He was my running buddy for over a decade, and I thought of all the times we’d gone out exploring together. I crossed the finish line in floods of tears while trying to smile. It was a look.

I have never met a more gentle, loving, beautiful dog.

12 and a half years. Eight homes. One family.

We loved you ferociously, B man. x

@bailey.the.english.springer