Birthday Blog

Not mine. I cancelled this year's birthday - not because of any vain attempt to rage against the fact that I will be turning 50 next year, but because I was (and still am) in no mood to celebrate. I once read something about balancing one's life out using various 'baskets': family, friends, romance, work, leisure time, health, creativity etc. The splendidly ingenious idea is that you invest roughly equal time and energy in each, so that if one basket is suddenly depleted your whole life doesn't fall apart because the others are still nice and full.

Well, when birthday number 49 screeched around earlier this week I am afraid my baskets were not in order. They are still not in order. They are, in fact, as chaotic as my decking was last summer after my 10-year-old daughter and her friends had finished clubbing a piñata to the ground and tearing at it with their bare hands in a scene reminiscent of The Walking Dead.

Leisure and Health have teamed up and decided to take a sabbatical of undetermined length, emptying out regular 5k runs, yoga and my very sensible DrinkAware app in favour of languishing on the sofa every evening, shunning fruit and veg and drinking gin and tonic, whilst Creativity sits rotting in the corner, eyeing them balefully. Romance shrugs its mystified little handles and sighs emptily, considering its options. Poor old Friends and Family baskets, left to take up the slack as usual, are groaning under the strain and a few holes have inevitably started to appear. Work is functioning well, but purely on remote control; an Amazon basket, if you will (ho ho).

I feel compelled, even obliged, to write honestly about my BPD, and once I am feeling stronger I will drop this irritating basket analogy and do so. Today, though, I will write about my greyhound, Annie. Her birthday was a few days after mine, in dog years she is also 49, and in terms of baskets she is far too long and gangly to require one. After a racing career and possibly years of sleeping on hard floors in chilly kennels, what many greyhounds love best (after their owners, and zoomies*, and eating) is a comfy sofa.

I never thought that as an adult I would want a dog. Don't get me wrong - I love them; I am a sucker for a gorgeous smiley dog wagging its whole body in delight (which greyhounds don't tend to do, as it happens), but having grown up in a home full of animals I felt a dog would be too much of a tie. How would we manage weekends away, or an impromptu day out in London? Did I really want to commit to many years of bagging up poo on a daily basis? What about work? We couldn't leave a dog home alone all day. So when I caught my older daughter (then aged around eight) reading a chapter in the Girls' Book of Everything entitled 'How to convince your parents to get you a dog', we decided to go down the guinea pig route instead.

In retrospect, it was not our finest decision. We did our research and looked after our guineas well (not that we had much choice, as our home, garden and guinea paraphernalia were all assessed by a chap from the local rescue centre before we were given permission to adopt - yes, honestly!), but a series of tragedies ensued over the next few years which I do not have the mental strength to revisit. Sausage, Diego, Tilly and Jack Speed, suffice to say I honour the memories of each of you.

It was another eight years before my daughter was finally united with the dog of her heart, meaning it is her younger sister who is now reaping the benefits of growing up with a canine pal. Life is unfair, but we needed to be in a position to offer a dog the best life we could. Moving somewhere with a park almost on our doorstep was serendipitous, as was the option of hybrid working for both myself and my husband. My doting parents were on hand to house their beloved grand-dog for any dog-free holidays and days out. We had run out of excuses, so visited the excellent Brambleberry Greyhounds - who, for the record, treat their dogs very well (heated kennels and deep beds of shredded paper shared by pairs of hounds) - and fell in love with a tri-pawed brindle girl we named Annie.

Why a greyhound?

Big daughter and I had always known that if we got a dog we would adopt rather than shop. The bonus with ex-racer greyhounds, for those who argue against rescue dogs on the grounds that they might 'turn' due to trauma they have encountered, is that generally the history of ex-racers is known and not abusive. Strictly speaking they are not rescue dogs, but they are here and they are in need of loving homes. By nature greyhounds are gentle dogs who oscillate endlessly and effortlessly between noble and daft. They are low maintenance because of their laziness, snoozing and lounging around for up to 20 hours in every 24, and most require just two 20-minute walks per day - plus the occasional zoom, of course.

Greyhound-specific vocab for the uninitiated

• *Zoomies - a greyhound sprint; lightning speed run usually accompanied by a huge toothy grin (and that's just their humans expressing the unparalleled joy of watching them)

• Roaching - lounging on one's back with paws akimbo. As a tri-pawed grey, Annie finds it difficult to keep her balance when roaching but it can be done, as illustrated beautifully below

• Chittering - teeth chattering, often when roaching; an expression of chilled out delight

A differently-abled dog

Annie adjusted quickly to retired life, shedding her 'kennel coat' (coarse hair suited to outdoor living, as the name suggests) and becoming sleek and pampered. Over those first few weeks and months we got to know our new family member ("She's not a family member, she's a dog!" snaps my husband, rolling his eyes). Our biggest delights were watching her learn to play (initially she would watch us kick or throw a ball with no idea what to do with it), splash and soak in the dog paddling pool her indulgent grandad bought her, and carry a collection of shoes to her bed. Visitors to our home are still bemused and often charmed by Annie's propensity to pick up one or both of their shoes, then scuttle away and place them gently on her bed, before flumping down on top of them like a nesting duck.

One thing I hadn't banked on was the never ending stream of comments and questions about Annie's missing back leg. We had fallen in love with this particular dog, who just happened to have three legs instead of four, so hearing parents proclaim loudly to their children that "these kind people rescued her" (which has happened several times) makes me uncomfortable. I never, ever mind people asking (as they do, almost daily) what happened to Annie's leg - particularly children, who are always polite and genuinely interested - and enjoy reassuring them that she is a very happy, well-loved dog who can still run really fast. I show them the racing tattoos in her ears and tell them why I am not a fan of dog racing - though a missing leg illustrates this better than my words can.

Overly sympathetic adults annoy me ("awwwww"; "oh nooooo, what happened!?" etc). When they appear I tend to throw a hasty treat into the air so they can witness Annie launch herself skywards from her one back leg and catch it before we both run away. Neither of us needs that kind of negativity. The strangest encounter was with a woman we passed sitting on a bench, who promptly burst into tears and wailed "Thank you for looking after her!", much to my children's embarrassment.

As Annie and I head towards 50 (which, in Annie's case, will happen on 23 July at which point she'll overtake me) I think it's fair to say she has a far better handle on life than I do. Her baskets (relaxing, eating, playing, being pampered, exercising, exploring/sniffing, stealing shoes), are replete and balanced, and she can express herself most eloquently through barking, "doing the woo" (a kind of pleading dog-song) and - when needed - a well-timed deadly fart.

Maybe I've been overcomplicating things.