Journal

When you’ve loved a dog deeply, you stop believing they’re “just pets”.

I grew up with dogs.

Not one or two - ten.

When I immigrated from Africa to Australia, they came with me. Which sounds slightly outrageous (because it was), but it also made perfect sense. Dogs were never a side-note in my life. They were the thread running through it,  steady, loyal, uncomplicated in the way humans rarely are.

If you know my story, you’ll know life hasn’t always been gentle with me. For much of it, I’ve been a sole parent, and my animals have been my anchor, my comfort and my constant support. Through hard chapters, through seasons where I was simply trying to keep going, they were the ones who stayed close and didn’t need me to explain myself.

Dogs have a way of doing that.
They don’t demand a performance.
They just bring presence.

When Roxy was dying, I moved to the floor

Roxy died of lung cancer.

Even now, those words land heavy.

In her final month she stopped wanting to sleep on the bed with me, so I moved to the floor beside her. Not as a gesture. Just instinct. Because when a dog you love is scared or uncomfortable, you don’t negotiate. You simply go where they are.

So I slept on the floor with her, night after night, nurturing her, nursing her, staying close to the very end.

When she died, I was shattered. The real kind, where the world keeps moving and you’re left wondering how something that big can disappear while everyone else is still making coffee and checking emails.

And at the same time, her sister Shaggy, aka Muffin, my other little ruffian, was deep in the fog of dementia. So I was grieving one, and slowly losing the other.

It was a season of goodbye that felt like it went on forever.

Mia was my first solo dog.  And she arrived like a light

Before Mia, my dogs had come in sets, sisters, a pair. But Mia was different from the start.

She was my first solo dog, mine alone,  and she came into my life after I lost Roxy, when I didn’t feel like myself anymore.

Mia didn’t try to fix me (thank God).
She didn’t need me to be “better”.
She didn’t require strength, cheerfulness, or progress.

She just… loved me. Quietly. Persistently. Like it was her job.

And in doing that, she brought light and purpose back into my life, in the smallest ways that end up being the biggest:
the insistence of routine, the reason to get dressed, the tiny moments of joy that return before you even realise you’ve been missing them.

She’s little Miss Independence… and a baby thug

Mia is, without question, little Miss Independence.

She’s also what I affectionately call a baby thug, bold, confident, certain the house belongs to her, and completely unimpressed by anyone else’s opinions.

Her signature move?

She sleeps on top of me… but hates cuddling.

Make it make sense. 😄

It’s her way, always. Affection on her terms. Which, honestly, I respect. I’m raising a tiny queen with boundaries.

Dogs don’t just live alongside us.  They hold us up

My animals have been my support system in ways that are hard to articulate unless you’ve lived it.

In some chapters of my life, including a long, difficult relationship with my body and food, my animals were part of what kept me tethered. They were comfort without judgement. Love without conditions. A soft place to land when my own mind wasn’t always kind.

Dogs don’t lecture you.
They don’t analyse you.
They don’t ask you to be palatable.

They simply stay.

And sometimes, that’s the thing that makes healing possible.

So I started taking her everywhere

When Mia came along, I started taking her everywhere with me, not as an accessory (she’d hate that), but as my companion.

Because once you’ve been through loss like that, you stop taking love for granted.

You stop leaving the good things behind “for later”.

You build a life that includes what matters now.

And you start wanting the pieces you carry, the everyday essentials, the travel items, the things that move with you, to reflect the life you’re actually living: beautiful, busy, imperfect… and shared with a dog who is basically your heart in fur form.

That, in many ways, is the beginning of Mia Mor.

With love from us (me + Mia),
Angela 🤍🐾
Founder, Mia Mor

PS. If this story feels familiar, if a dog has carried you through a hard chapter, or brought you back to yourself, you’re not alone.

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