FitK9 Walking

When my daughter announced she'd bought a Chihuahua, I wasn't entirely convinced it was a sensible decision.

After all, I'd spent most of my life around larger dogs.

Working dogs.

Farm dogs.

Dobermans.

Kelpies.

Dogs that looked capable of surviving a minor apocalypse.

A Chihuahua seemed more like a nervous mouse with a bark.

But as often happens in life, reality had other ideas.

In this episode I reflect on Bowser, the tiny dog who slowly proved that courage has very little to do with size, and how sometimes the smallest characters leave the biggest impression.

As always, it's really not about dogs at all.

It's about life, family, perspective and the stories we discover along the way.

A 70-year-old bloke. Two Kelpies. One Chihuahua. No idea what happens next.

Gary discovers Brené Brown's Daring Greatly and, for the first time, reads Theodore Roosevelt's famous Man in the Arena passage. The words feel strangely familiar. Gary has spent most of his life thinking about the same idea through a simple framework of his own: bungee jumping.

Standing with your toes on the line means leaving what you know, accepting uncertainty and finding the courage to jump. Gary connects that framework with Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey and remembers the moment Monika called him "the Bungee Jumper" as he prepared to leave a secure corporate career and start his own business.

But courage is only part of the story. In the final act, Gary returns to vulnerability: showing up and allowing yourself to be seen and heard without armour. The spectators may watch and offer their opinions, but only the jumper experiences the journey. To step into the arena and begin your own Hero's Journey, you first need the courage to put your toes on the line.

Gary is walking through the supermarket buying food for Milo and Charlie when a simple question occurs to him: why do we have something called dog food?

Years earlier, a chance encounter with The Forever Dog in an airport bookshop introduced him to Bluey and Maggie, two Australian dogs reported to have lived to around thirty.

What began as curiosity about getting more years with a dog eventually changed the way Gary thought about what went into Milo and Charlie's bowls. It's a short, playful story about questioning the ordinary, buying food for dogs rather than 'dog food', and discovering that a good life may matter more than trying to engineer a forever one.

Bowser is a Chihuahua living in the Canadian wilderness, surrounded by bears, coyotes, mountain cougars and eagles big enough to make a meal of him. Inside the house, however, Bowser thinks he's in charge. He guards the sofa, barks at visitors and has defeated every anti-barking device Natascha has tried. Even the trusty spray bottle has stopped working. But when Bowser's behaviour gets worse, Natascha starts wondering whether she has failed the little dog she loves. A visit to the vet changes the question from "How do we stop Bowser barking?" to "How do we help Bowser feel safe?" Unfortunately, the answer also leaves Natascha with concentrated cannabis in the pantry, an accidentally very sleepy Chihuahua, and the delicate task of finding a dose that is just right. A funny and compassionate story about anxiety, understanding, and learning to see the dog underneath the behaviour.

Content Note

This episode contains personal reflections on childhood domestic violence, physical abuse, shame, grief, forgiveness and compassion. Some listeners may find these subjects difficult or confronting.

Please look after yourself and decide whether this is the right episode for you to listen to today.

Episode Description

After two quiet weeks, Gary explains why he wasn't ready to release the episode he had planned. His 92-year-old father-in-law, Ivan, is preparing to die, and a conversation about regret has left Gary reflecting on time, family and his own life.

That reflection takes him back to a childhood memory he had kept locked away for decades. At five years old, domestic violence left him carrying shame he did not understand and a survival response that followed him through life: when fear appeared, fight.

This is a story about shame, survival, forgiveness, compassion and finally recognising his father also was once a little boy carrying childhood trauma and shame.

When Gary was offered grief counselling after Monika died, he was certain he was okay.

Then a clinical psychologist asked him two simple questions: When was the last time you laughed? And what does play mean to you?

That conversation gave Gary a simple way to think about fear, love and Viktor Frankl's idea that, even when we cannot control what happens to us, we can still choose how we respond.

In this episode of FitK9 Walking, a childhood memory of growing up with one television channel becomes a practical metaphor for creating a pause between emotion and action: Channel 1 is fear. Channel 2 is love. You may not choose what appears on the television, but you can decide what you do with the remote.

At Monika's funeral, nearly three hundred people filled the chapel.

When it was Gary's turn to speak, he didn't arrive with cue cards or a prepared speech.

Instead, he told the story of their first date - and a moment with a newly appointed CEO that brought the chapel to laughter and a standing ovation. Years later, Gary finally understood why that story had moved people so deeply. They weren't simply hearing one of his memories of Monika. They were remembering their own. A story about humour, love, memory, and the remarkable way one person can change the feeling of a moment.

A phone call changed my life forever. When my wife Monika was diagnosed with leukaemia, I found myself sitting opposite an oncologist named Shanka. In just a few quiet minutes, he gave me advice that would shape not only the months that followed, but the next ten years of my life. As family and friends struggled with fear and grief, Shanka taught me a different way to walk beside someone you love—to stay in the moment, to protect their emotional energy, and to choose love over fear. This is a story about compassion, gratitude, and one remarkable man whose wisdom helped our family celebrate life, even in the darkest of times. Thank you, Shanka.

At twenty years old, Gary thought he was bulletproof—until he blacked out behind the wheel and woke up in hospital with his driver's licence suspended and the frightening possibility of epilepsy hanging over him.

What began as fear slowly became fascination as one elderly neurologist and a handful of medical students unknowingly encouraged a lifelong habit of asking questions.

This is a story about curiosity, learning and discovering that sometimes the greatest teachers never realise the impact they have.

Charlie accidentally joins a Saturday Parkrun, makes a few new mates, and settles into the café as if he'd planned it all along.

That simple moment sends Gary back to a tiny bar in Kuala Lumpur, where a band only knew five Dire Straits songs—and somehow that unforgettable night answered two questions he'd been carrying since losing Monika.

A funny story about a Kelpie becomes a gentle reminder that somewhere along the way many of us stop laughing, stop playing, and forget the joy of simply being present.