Smokey is a beautifully complicated dog.

Smokey came to us at ten weeks old, a cloud of silver and white fur who would chase anything, play with everything, and trust the whole world. He was joyful. Easy. The kind of puppy who makes you feel you've done something right.

At home, he is still soft. He sprawls across the cool tile in the late afternoon, rests his nose on a knee, follows whoever is closest from room to room with the quiet loyalty Collies are known for. He is gentle with children, patient with the cats next door, and completely certain that the attention in any room belongs to him.

The first crack came when he was nine months old. Our automatic gate hadn't closed properly. He saw the world open up and ran out into the street, found a delivery rider on a motorbike, and did what young dogs do — chased the thing that was moving. The rider panicked, jumped off the bike, and swung his shoe at him. We got to Smokey within seconds. He wasn't seriously hurt. But something in him changed that morning, and we have not been able to change it back.

The list grew from there. A man in a wide-brimmed hat. The bin lorry on Tuesday mornings. Someone walking too fast, or strangely, or carrying something he can't quite place. We stopped trying to keep a list of triggers — the list keeps writing itself.

What we've learned instead is how to read him. When he needs distance. When he needs stillness. When the walk needs to end early and the day has to shrink to fit him. Some days that's enough.

The weeks we're home in Bangkok have a rhythm we've come to love. The evening walk down the soi after the heat breaks. The swimming class he loves more than he loves us. The slow Sunday afternoons at the dog park, where the world somehow gets quieter and he is — for a few hours — just a dog among dogs.