as within, so without

14/06/2025 In Dogs By Anja Troha

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”You always had this little way of making the dull and dreary bright and radiant, the ordinary extraordinary, the mundane magic. To you, everything was an adventure. And in your silly, wild presence, I always felt like every moment mattered – like all of life should be cherished.”

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Once upon a time, a little puppy entered my life. I thought I was lucky back then, but now I know we were destined.
She slipped into my life like a missing piece falling into place, and gave it meaning, gave it purpose, gave it direction. My butterfly effect.

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“There are things in life that we choose, and there are things for which we are chosen.”

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Vicky was everything a little girl could have asked for; intelligent, gentle, endlessly kind. I always knew she was an old soul ~ a quiet confidence that grounded us both.
She was a team player, and she was a best friend. She loved everyone and everything, and she always fit in – no matter where we went or what we did, she simply belonged.

I like to say we raised each other.

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I thought of it – we did it. I asked – she delivered. I dreamt it – she made it real.
We tried it all, and ticked off every wild little box on our bucket list.

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Trying our luck in any sport there was out there, agility, dogsfrisbee, sheepherding, mantrailing, canicross, dock diving, dogdancing,… I’ve admired her for how fast she learned, how she never gave up, but mostly, how much passion she had for doing it all. I surely learned a thing or two about persistence from her; she always knew what she wanted, and she knew how to get there.

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If she could choose, though, she’d live on the farm and chase those sheep all day long. Our time spent in Scotland was some of my favourite with her, as we were living a little girl’s dream: owning a Border Collie, working sheep on a real farm. As she aged and her hearing began to fade, the passion only continued to grow — and so did my inability to both stop her and catch her once she got into the pasture. It meant losing my breath chasing her and trying to convince her to stop. I still signed her up for all the farm trials. It made her the happiest.

My God, did she love those sheep. I would dare to say more than anything in life.

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Her loving personality let me take her everywhere. Therapy work, workshops, cafés, classrooms – she was never just my sidekick; she was part of me. She came to college with me every single day, curled up under desks, riding buses, joining lunches, stealing hearts. I was always so proud of how effortlessly she fit in, how much she loved everyone, how fully she was present in it all. She was my shadow, my comfort, my rock.

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We traveled the world. By foot, by car, by plane. Squeezed in tents, crammed in cars like sardines, or curled up in cheap Airbnbs. Never knowing where we were going, but we ran, we ran. Campfires at the beach, crowded cities, sleeping under the stars at the top of a cliff by the sea, jumping into cold mountain lakes, backpacking, spending days on the road, wild camping in the middle of nowhere, running through endless sandy beaches. She loved the change, the chaos, the adventure – just as much as I did.

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I dove deeper into photography and video-making – all inspired by her. I made her a YouTube channel, and people fell in love. She was known. She was admired. She inspired others – both to get a dog like her and to chase the kind of life we lived and loved.

And yet, everything people saw online was just a glimpse of how incredible she truly was.

♡

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She gave me two beautiful litters.
A mother to twelve, and a grandmother to ten, I’ve always hoped they gift their owners the same kind of magic she had me experience.
Every time I see a reflection of her in her children, my heart lights up with love – and pain – but I know she lives on in them.

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In one way or another, she’s behind every person I know and love.
She was the thread that wove strangers into friends, and friendships into family.
The link between so many hearts and the one that shaped mine.
She’s the love I feel every time I lose my grip and every time I fall. I treasure these connections because they all lead back to her.

She was my light and my strength.
Through all those years, there isn’t a part of me that she isn’t a part of. At every point in my life, she became who I needed ~ and vice versa.
As she aged, her personality only grew, and with it, the love. Life revolved around her and her only; she always effortlessly directed it.
What she gave me can’t be measured, and what I feel for her, grateful never fully covered it.

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Vicky was a lot of things.
But behind the fancy photos and videos, she was simply my dog. My best girl.
With soft cinnamon curls and blue eyes, the sweetest gaze that seemed to speak, as if you could hear her thoughts without a single word.
My gentle, spoilt-rotten, stubborn-hearted Queen, who knew, without a doubt, that life would always go her way.
And it always did.

”I willed this. I knit the threads of fate until they spelled your name.”

The biggest personality I’ve ever known. The kind of wisdom that surpasses time and space. The embodied love and kindness.
The determination you can’t question. The confidence that keeps you grounded. The passion that spreads like a wildfire.
The centre of my Universe for well over half of my life, my whole heart, my Vicky.

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I worshipped this dog like the Goddess she was.
Celebrated her like the Queen.
Adored her with every single beat of my heart.
Every single day of her life.
And ~ she knew.

She lit my path, she guided me home.
She guided me back to myself, again and again.
She gave me purpose, kept me going. She kept me sane.
She kept us living the dream.
Life with her felt like breathing, and she was the oxygen.

I like to think she was all I had;

“Who am I without you?”

But I know you will live in me.
You’ll live through me.
In all the ways you shaped me.

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