The Day Riot went ‘Home’

The day Riot went “home”

Sometimes life with dogs is all muddy paws, ridiculous zoomies, and the sort of chaos that makes you laugh into your coffee.

And sometimes, without you quite realising when it happened, one of them quietly moves from being a visitor in your life to being part of your future.
This week is one of those quieter moments for us — the kind that doesn’t announce itself loudly, but settles in your chest and stays there.
Riot will be moving on in a couple of days. But this isn’t a goodbye in the way people usually mean it.

He’s going back to his original mum. The person who had him from a pup. The person who’s missed him like mad while he’s been here with us.
Riot was meant to stay. He wasn’t a foster. He was supposed to be part of our long story here. But once I knew how deeply he was missed, I couldn’t stand in the way of love finding its way back to where it began.
There’s something profoundly right about watching a reunion take shape. About recognising when love is pulling in a direction that isn’t yours, and choosing to open your hands instead of closing them.
Still — knowing it’s right doesn’t stop it from hurting.
Riot didn’t arrive quietly. He arrived like all good Malinois do: eyes bright, brain faster than his feet, and absolutely convinced that wherever I was, that was exactly where he needed to be too. He became my shadow in the kitchen, my audience in the garden, my uninvited bathroom escort. He didn’t just live in the house. He stitched himself into the rhythm of our days.
It’s a strange thing, holding a place for a dog in your life. You tell yourself, from the start, that they are passing through. That you are a chapter, not the whole book. And then one day you realise how deeply they’ve written themselves into your story anyway.
Letting a dog go — even when the ending is a happy one — leaves behind a very specific kind of quiet. A lead that still hangs on its hook. A space on the floor that stays empty for a while. The automatic headcount in the garden that comes up one short before your brain catches up with your heart.
This space, Kai & Company, has always been about balance. About learning how to live well alongside the dogs who share our lives, in the messy, muddy, imperfect middle of it all. Sometimes that balance means opening the door and letting them in. And sometimes it means stepping aside when love is asking you to.
Riot goes with my love, my respect, and a genuine happiness that he’s heading back to someone who knows him from the very beginning — someone who’s been missing him every day, even while he was here building memories with us.
He leaves behind pawprints on the floor, dog hair in the corners, and a place in our story that doesn’t disappear just because he does.
And here, we’ll keep going. Muddy boots. Full bowls. Open hands. A pack that changes shape, but never really gets smaller.
— Lia

If you’ve ever done the right thing and found it still hurt, you’ll understand this moment. Thank you for being here, reading along, and sharing this small, dog-shaped piece of our world.