How I Turned into an Acorn.

                            

                 The Life and times of Borry - the                  Russian Rat-on-stilts

                                   One of the reasons we got on so well together was because

                                                   we  had a mutual love of graveyeards.

                                                   

                                                                     

                                                 

My grandfather bred be-spoke horses and dogs for an Estate in Lincolnshire - Hounds and British Bulldogs.  My mother bred Airdales and rescued Alsations. I grew up with, and later owned, dogs who were all Mighty Mutts - strong and tough and clever

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And then, after a life-time of knowing exactly what a real dog was, and how to train big, proper dog-sized dogs, and what to expect from them, and how to feed them, bathe them, excercise them, love them.... 2.75kilograms of what I was informed was also a dog - shivering, red-eyed, fragile, double-knuckled toes - came into my life.

This unknown creature was not, as most people assummed, a Chihouha. It had ears like a fruit-bat, long spindle-shanked legs, similar to a deer's; a short coat so softly-smooth it felt like velvet, and a tattoo. He was a pedigreed Russian Toy Terrier, who had won Best of Show in his homeland of Russia. He had been brought into the world, and at the age of 7, bought and flown, alone, over to England, both for the same reason. To make money. And, on the night I gingerly brought him home, he had an impacted penis.

I'd been earlier in the day to the place in which he lived with 6 Russian Toy bitches; where  his only value was to impregnate them - and theirs to give birth. The purpose of them all was to make lots of money. I saw his cage, I was introduced to the reality of nappies for dogs who had no freedom, and observed that he was completely untrained, hysterical, and had no idea what "play" meant. I was also told that he hated men passionately and could not be in the same room as one. Which was rather tough titty as I currently had a 6ft (well, almost) son at home in my small studio-flat.

I'd thrown that hateful bag of nappies in the skip outside as I got out of the car with him and knew the moment I managed to up-end him to look at his undercarriage, that I should have burned  them and danced in their ashes. His nappy-wearing had led to his generative organs being bathed in uric acid for god-knows-how-long each day. The delicate sheath surrounding it had swollen to an eye-wateringly size leaving only a minute slit for his little lipstick to return to it's protective lip-stick-cover. I'd noticed it earlier in the day but thought it just a momentary thing, until I realised that had been almost 7 hours ago. It was scratched and red and, well, pretty hideous. Battling with that took me quite some time but, by the time my son got home we'd progressed to a stage where, with baby-oil and cotton-wool I had at last a fighting chance of getting him his dignity back.

Thus the despised Man in the House got one quick look, sank into a chair and wailed "Ah Mum, no! That's bringing tears to my eyes!!!".  Perhaps that intimate and 100% empathetic interaction was why, within 3 weeks, the male he reportedly could not be in the same room with, was carrying Boris - as he was then - around in his arm (only needed one arm for a scrap like Boris) like a small baby:eyes closed in bliss or sleep and whose entire, most vulnerable, soft pink belly was upturned and trustingly exposed to a bearded face, . They both adored each other for the rest of Borry's life.

Though the house I had taken him from was in a rural area the first time I took him outside he stepped on a large, dry leaf which cracked loudly and crumbled. He rose almost vertically into the air squealing and terrified.  But it did show me that weeing was no longer a problem! Now it was Nature. But cars on the road terrified him and the build-up of traffic noises at certain times of the day overwhelmed him so much he'd bury his tiny head under my armpits and try to crawl right through my body to escape.

That led to the first daft thing I had to do for Boz: I would take him up to increasingly larger intersections, wrap him into a soft shawl and sing to him. Out loud. While arriving pedestrians would shuffle away from us with funny looks. I tried to teach him to play with a ball or a stick, and would repeatedly throw it, running after it myself and pretending to pick it up in my mouth in the middle of Preston Park. But the minute I came back and threw it again, he would look excitedly up at me, plonk his little bum down and then, obviously, wait for me perform my trick of running after it and bringing it back. Even though surrounded by heaps of other dogs playing "Fetch" he never caught on.  That remained forever, in his mind, as one of MY beloved games.

It took a couple of years after I got him for him to lose his  abject fear of other dogs, and then he began to observe dog-behaviour. Until even a couple of weeks ago he got the whole scratch-your-scatt thing arse about face. He had no instinctive idea of why other animals would scratch at the ground behind them after defecation. He never came to realise it was reserved for No. 2 anyway.  So he'd squeeze out even the smallest drop of wee and then race around far and wide, stopping to turn around to scratch grass and weeds and flowers madly behind him  - pointless, but convinced he was now One of the Gang. He never once did it for a poo-bag dollop!

He taught me so much over the next decade and never ceased to surprise, entertain, or reduce me to tears of laughter. My biggest regret of all is that, aside from a couple of honoured friends, people never got to see him playing.  That was reserved for his Boyfriend and as an At-Home activity, but he also got some of that slightly wrong, too. 

No-one had ever explained to him that The Zoomies was a cat-thing. He would suddenly launch himself from the couch and take off  through my tiny flat as though The Hounds of Hell were after him; at a speed I'll bet no-one ever expected he could even attain. He'd slip on a rug, skid into a wall, lose his footing and do a triple roll, jump back on the couch and off again, use the table-legs like an obstacle-course, and all you could do was pick a safe place to perch and be ready for the final, death-defying leap towards your lap where the only thing that could stop him trying to burrow through your body as if it were a rabbit-hill was a Treat. Or a couple of treats. Or however many he could con you into you giving him through your laughter.

Although people tell me now that I gave HIM a good life, I don't think anyone other than family, very close friends and my doctor knew how much He did for ME? People would give me that "Pull the other one" look when I said he was a Service Dog. Some would even laugh. But he was my life-line.

 I was diagnosed as Bi-polar (then known only as "Manic Depression") when I was 12 - at a time when mental illness in children was not considered a "thing". Being Barmy was something only adults had dibs on, and was kept quiet - because  the only 'cure' for Manic Depression back then was a frontal lobotomy - when  Electrolasis failed. As it always did. But I was also labelled  both 'precocious" and 'academically gifted' and I learned, growing up, that no-one ever, in those times, connected such a kid with mental illness. So I learned how to negotiate life playing off research and writing and winning Grants;  alongside Theatre & Entertainment - which I was also born into - for escape. And got to live a rather amazing life, interspersed with periods of hospitalisation.

But as I get older 'escape' got more difficult until a series of events over the past 15 years started to pretty much destroy avenues of escape. And during this time I landed in the UK where mental illness is an entirely different ball-game to anywhere else I'd ever lived. And I began to let go. 

That is, until an equally damaged, wonky & disturbed being, who had got themself  through life despite the same amounts of traumatic incidents I'd battled, literally landed in my lap. This last year has been pretty bad for me, and I know - and knew all through it - that without Boris/Borry/Boz/Bozza whose evolving name marked different periods for us both, that without him I would have stopped fighting. How does one even begin to explain that it is I who owe him, rather than any thought of it being vice-versa?

I haven't cried yet for Bozza. I'm too scared.  Oh sure, my eyes leak almost continuously, but I know that once I start actually to confront this reality I will be forced to accept that I shall have to get through whatever comes my way by standing alone. I'm so very frightened now of going through the rest of my life without him that I can't let my mind even go there. How will I do that?

So I know that only some of those who knew Boris and/or me will ever read this which is why, despite not being able to weep, I have at least been honest. As I am towards all of you now that perhaps you have some idea of the depth to which I thank you all. You might not have known how much your support has helped get me even to get to this, the one week mark. So perhaps this will help you understand that I shall never forget anyone who has helped me get to here. Nor shall I ever forget those, aside from me, who loved him too.