I’ve never met Valerie. Truthfully, I’m not sure I want to.
What I know of her came in fleeting whispers; fragments overheard during an obligatory trip to the salon. It wasn’t the usual chatter about biscuits or the weather, but something far more peculiar. Wilder.
Valerie is no ordinary dachshund. This little dog, missing for an astonishing 529 days, captured hearts across Australia with her incredible survival story. She wasn’t simply picked up from a neighbour’s yard or spotted trotting down a suburban street. Valerie was found in the wild, truly off the grid.
No collar, no leash, no guiding voice calling her home. For over a year and a half, she lived without structure, supervision, or shelter, defying the odds in the unforgiving bushland of the New South Wales South Coast. A small dog with a story far too big for casual conversation.
I needed two extra brushings just to shake the mental image.
She lived alone, they said. Slept under bushes. Ate what she could catch, not scavenged, hunted. I won’t go into details, but the significance isn’t in the act itself, it’s in the possibility of it. She did what most of us couldn’t fathom.
Naturally, I assumed she’d be whisked into the comforts of civilisation. Bathed, trained, and imbued with the refinements of domestic life. But to my surprise, Valerie wasn’t just welcomed back. She was celebrated. Admired, even. The whispers grew louder: “Isn’t she extraordinary?” “Such strength.” “She lived purely by intuition!”
But Valerie embodies something deeper. Something untamed. Something… free.
And here lies the dilemma.
The thought of foraging for my food or curling up beneath a bush makes my fur stand on end. I recoil at the idea of sleeping in the dirt, of uncertainty, of silence with no one to fill it. And yet, I can’t ignore a faint stirring inside me, one I hardly dare to name. Is it envy? Curiosity? A restless yearning I’ve buried so deeply it only surfaces in dreams? Could it be, heaven forbid, that I, too, have imagined slipping the leash?
What would it be like to choose your own path? To run, not because you’re called, but because something in you says go? To eat not what you’re served, but what you find? To live by instinct, not instruction?
The leash on society is growing tighter. We all feel it. What begins as a gentle tug of routine becomes a constant pull, subtle, then firm, then simply the way things are. And we accept it. Many of us even prefer it: safety dressed as stability, comfort measured out in predictable doses. But beneath the obedience, beneath the decorum and well-fed certainty, there’s something else. A quiet stirring.
Perhaps it isn’t envy. Perhaps it’s recognition.
Because what if freedom isn’t the antithesis of civility, but another kind of grace? A wild, untethered elegance?
Even so, I’ll stay where I am. Bed fluffed. Dinner on time. Let’s not be hasty.
Louis x
