IN time he might have killed her, this mother drowning in exhausted dreams.

Her mysterious boy's twisted mess, a strangely indifferent calm flared with incandescent rage; untraceable thoughts encased in a complexity no mind could fathom.

Plenty of labels, but no promise for him, his mum, his dad. His little brother.

If not her, she'd constantly worry, he would kill somebody else.

Why, he would escape then scarper through freeway traffic - she doesn't know just how the truck missed. He'd try to leap from an open car window as the family SUV hit highway speeds.

Hands from behind slipped over eyes. Once, again from the back seat, kick, kick, kicking his mother, slamming into a shoulder so hard, a bludgeoned socket, then a reaction sought in his particular, detached way.

"Well, does THAT hurt?"

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Improbable family time lost as he tries to smash shop windows, another outburst nigh on impossible to explain.

A boy so enraged when told "Corey, ask me more nicely" at an equine therapy session - all he wanted, loudly, aggressively, constrained by being Corey, was someone's help - that he grabbed a pole and tried to fell a horse.

Belinda Moore has fought for him for years, for he's her boy, with her lonely trauma pitted squarely against what she sees as big-bureaucracy's cold-hearted intransigence.

And now she's been forced to fight again, even on finding out, after all, that the light indeed exists. Corey's light. She's puzzled, frustrated, heartbroken; forever worn-out and trapped.

Her older son regularly, randomly exploded with a frightening rage, often assaulting his mum. As a result, she and Corey's dad began hiding knives, locking windows day and night, turning a key in deadlocks front and back.

The yard of their East Albury home had to be better secured, lest the boy tried to flee once again, through erecting a six-foot wire fence all round.

Corey's behaviour, so beyond his control that he never, not once, could reflect on the wildness he meted out, turned a home into a prison.

She had more than enough diagnoses to explain why he acted in such a way. He's got autism, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a general intellectual disability, oppositional defiance disorder, frontal lobe brain damage, a sensory processing disorder and, if the list even needed to be bolstered, and again by another disorder, there's one for language.

Such an unwieldy bag of medical terminology served only to exacerbate the sense of hopelessness, even while proffering insight as to the "why?".

Still, this made no headway into her resolve, as Corey's immense struggles threatened to engulf them all. For Corey, who will turn 15 in September, needed a voice, she says, as she reaches deep into her family's lot, her belligerent courage softened by two bouts of tears.

This exasperated boy - now a loving teenager, thanks to a big, loping dog who wants nothing more than to lick and sniff then lick again, barreling into pats with the precision, not the grace, of a race-night hound obsessed with a mechanical hare - had reached his personal nadir.

Even though, as his mum says again, he didn't know.

"Corey was reverting to getting knives to try to stab me," she says, somehow finding more tears, salted half-dry, to spill.

"And I'm literally running away from him. I've been living in basically a jail and fighting for Corey, to get help for him."

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This came, but the circuit-breaker for a boy with a psyche locked as hard and tight as the stunned shoulder he inflicted on his mother did so only because of her refusal to never give up.

It was in spite of being told how, by the tender age of 12, she'd have to let him go, placed into a care home of some sort that, to her, was of such unnatural consequence.

Again though there's the constant fear that was instilled in her by Corey's meltdowns.

"I was scared that he was going to kill me in my sleep. I was scared for his life, as well as the community."

Back then, as a boy aged about 10, he'd whip her with electrical cords, anything he could grab that he knew would hurt.

Growing bigger and stronger escalated the pain he inflicted. He was always in "the red zone". Anything could set him off.

But he didn't care. If he didn't want his younger brother, now aged 12, in the car with him, that is who he would attack. He focused most harshly on his mum, as she was the one who battled daily to impose boundaries to protect him and those in his orbit.

Alongside the violence came the silence.

Nothing could break through so no one could truly help. Health workers did their best, but she sensed they became so frustrated that ultimately all they could do was pass him from one expert to the next, from speech or occupational therapy to any one of a myriad of other services.

"Corey," came the anecdotal, generic conclusion, she says, "is beyond our capabilities."

"He wouldn't talk to me. He saw me as the bad person because I was the one disciplining him, I was the one telling him 'no, you can't do this and that'."

Corey was stuck on this wretched trajectory until, not long after he underwent open-heart surgery as a nine-year-old, something unexpected occurred. Wodonga's Belvoir Special School, where he is a student, had a pet therapy dog.

Somehow, without Corey having even the slightest cognitive ability to understand why, the dog calmed him down.

Normally, he couldn't self-regulate his anger or any other behaviour because of that frontal lobe damage, but the dog did the job.

It was a first that floored his mum, and set her to work on something that - as difficult as it has been at times, as with all that time before - actually gave hope. Guide dogs were a boon for the vision-impaired so, she thought it fair to reason, a calm companion animal for her son could do the same.

Soon enough, she tracked down the Queensland-based not-for-profit organisation Smart Pups. Corey was assessed and her application for an autism assistance dog was approved. Unlike a guide dog, Smart Pups' $20,000 cost had to come out of her own pocket.

It had already been a sad yet stoically accepted fact that living with Corey, living with their unquestionable love for him, meant living in poverty.

A fundraising effort was launched and, thanks to enormous community support "which we're forever grateful for", $10,400 was in the Corey kitty within 12 months. It was then she turned to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, or NDIS, convinced that if anyone was going to meet the criteria for help, her son surely would.

The application was rejected.

Gordy was a pet and nothing more, the NDIS, introduced by federal Labor in 2013 but not fully funded for another six or so years, reasoned.

The decision stunned Mrs Moore and hurt deeply, but the old resolve soon returned and eventually the rest of the money was donated by another organisation.

Gordy was on his way.

And yet, four years later - after extensive training for Mum and Dad, and a long, settling-in period for Corey and his absolutely No.1 best friend - a perceived indifference from the NDIS to her family's plight also returned.

The now three-year-old dog had an immediate impact on Corey, from the very moment he moved into their home. Even when Corey now has an occasional outburst, Gordy senses his mood and calms him by running straight to the teenager and placing his head on his lap for a pat.

Corey then leaves his bedroom, says sorry to Mum, gives her a hug, says sorry again and reaches long, lithe arms around her for a second squeeze.

A continuing issue is that for all the good that has come from Gordy, at times Corey still might be left stranded. He cannot go into respite care with his dog, for his carers in that environment have not been trained as accredited handlers.

If Corey becomes overwhelmed in care, for however brief that might be - such incidents now last, at most, around five minutes - nobody with him can act in a handler capacity.

And so that past, unchecked violence threatens to reignite.

It made sense for the family to submit another application to the NDIS, this time for $3000 for accredited handler training for two of Corey's carers. The money would cover Smart Pups' costs to have a trainer fly down from Queensland, for accommodation and their time, for the hire of a car.

Again, knocked back.

"They pretty much said that they don't fund pets, but Gordy's not a pet; he's a highly trained autism assistance dog, which is completely different."

She wanted an internal review of the decision but also decided to take-up her fight with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

In turn, the tribunal referred the matter back to the NDIS to await the completion of such a review. The case had become bogged down, then Mrs Moore, on further pursuing the matter with the NDIS, found out the relevant paperwork had been lost.

It was then that Anne Shortall, a lawyer with Melbourne firm Slater and Gordon - well-known for undertaking high-profile compensation and class-action cases - became aware of Corey's story and offered legal assistance.

AS MUM chats in the lounge, Corey - somewhere else inside their house - is laughing away, all high-pitched squeals, chuckles and whoops.

He's happy, otherwise serenely quiet, almost ready to come out and pose considered questions to Mum, to tell her how he's feeling, to ask the same of her.

But first to appear is Gordy, the Labrador making a quick dash through the family home's tight confines.

The excitement is almost too much for the dog, who is told to get into his large, kennel-cage sitting right next to the kitchen.

Corey emerges, leaning slightly to his left at the doorway, curious and calm and with an impish grin shining from within his first-attempt wispy-blonde beard, so Gordy flies back out of his cage.

Corey chats to Mum, embraces her, talking softy, then reaches down and scoops Gordy into his chest from behind.

"What do you love about Gordy?" she asks.

"Hugs," he says, smiling broadly. "Hugs. Hugs. Hugs." His eyes quickly scan the room, he smiles again. "Hugs."

He's a different kid, she says. Much happier. Far calmer. He's got his natural smile. His workers cannot believe the change in this lad, all because of his dog.

"And now, now, he's this beautiful boy, where I get told 'I love you'. I get cuddles.

"I get told I'm a good mum."

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