A BELOVED tortoise owner has said she is thrilled to have her “little trooper” back after he went missing a year ago in Bradford on Avon – and was found less than a mile away from home.

Boris, a three-year-old Russian tortoise, was last seen by his owner Heather Clarke in July last year after he escaped from his cage and since then, she has searched near and far in woodland area behind her home in Elms Cross Drive.

Mrs Clarke said: “He went missing a year ago in July from our house and we must have searched the woods behind our house nearly every day.

“There were five sightings of tortoises in that time and then someone said they thought they saw one floating down the canal, I spent nearly a month looking there but after a while I presumed he must have been hibernating.”

Boris was eventually found in the driveway of bed and breakfast Granby House in Westwood which is less than a mile away.

Mrs Clarke joked: “I think he must have got tired from travelling.

“I’ve not stopped looking for him since he went missing and I thought one day last week I would pop into the vets to see if they had anyone bring in a tortoise or have any sightings. I have often done that since he went missing last year.

“On the off chance last week, the vet said they had someone bring a tortoise in and after seeing him, I immediately knew it was my Boris.

“He is such a little trooper.”

Despite the freezing temperatures of winter and the scorching weather we experienced last week, Boris was able to stay alive on a varied diet of plants and dandelions found in the grassland between his home and where he was found.

Mrs Clarke said, for a tortoise, Boris is known to walk rather fast despite the common connotation of them being slow.

“In the hot weather we experienced last week, I knew he must have been quite active and I have always kept hope that he would return home eventually,” she added.

“He looked incredibly well and he did put on quite a bit of weight but I always thought he was out there somewhere and I couldn’t believe how close he has been since he left.”

Since being home, Boris has settled back into family life and for the last week, he has been resting under his lamp.