Juliette Borda has an impressive ability to capture multiple facets of a story in a single image. Her illustrations, which can be seen in the pages of the New York Times, Forbes, and the New Yorker, are made using gouache, a medium that applies vivid, water-based paint to paper and that Borda likes for its “assertiveness.”

Below, the Brooklyn-based artist shares some of the canine-friendly paintings she’s done over the course of her 17-year career. Some feature mutts front and center, while in others the four-legged have cameos, as if suggesting the unobtrusive, yet consistent, presence that our dogs have in our lives. “I love throwing them into my images,” says Borda, who lives with a pit bull/pointer mix named Seamus. “There’s such a multitude of shapes and varieties. They make fabulous visual accessories, plus there’s one for every taste.”

You can check out more of Borda’s work on her site, and can purchase prints from Renee Rhyner.