Other than some slight ocular degeneration, Boris is fighting fit at 12
years old. (And this, I learn from the vet, is actually 69 in people years,
not 84 as I had supposed. The 7-to-1 rule is for bigger dogs. At 27 lbs,
Boris is aging at only 5.75 to 1.) It’s not an original thought, but when
discussing these things with the vet, I can’t help hearing Time’s winged
chariot rumbling away behind me somewhere. In the accelerated lives of
these little cretures, we see our own lives in miniature; in their aging and
death we glimpse our own. Somber reflections… but perhaps that’s part of
the reason we are given these companions to love and then lose–so that we
won’t lose sight of our own mortality.