Story about a dog

10 of the Best Novels and Short Stories about Dogs – Interesting Literature

Literature

Novelists and short-story writers have created some classic narratives about man’s best friend, the dog. But what are the very best stories and novels about dogs? Where should we begin in assessing the classic, canonical literature that features dogs?

From Homer’s Odyssey onwards – where the hero’s faithful hound remembered him upon his return to Ithaca – the annals of literature are full of famous literary dogs. Here are ten of the best works of fiction to feature our four-legged friends.

1. Mark Twain, ‘A Dog’s Tale’.

My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and see other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got so much education …

This 1903 tale is one of several stories on this list which are told from the dog’s perspective. The dog in question is sold to a new owner and is sad to leave her mother behind, but the family she goes to live with are kind to her. One day, a fire breaks out in the nursery of the house – and the dog comes to the rescue …

2. Eleanor Atkinson, Greyfriars Bobby.

Bobby slipped out, dry as his own delectable bone, from under the tomb of Mistress Jean Grant, and nearly wagged his tail off with pleasure. Mistress Jeanie was set in a proud flutter when the Grand Leddy rang at the lodge kitchen and asked if she and Bobby could have their tea there with the old couple by the cozy grate fire …

Perhaps the most famous novel ever written about a dog, Greyfriars Bobby (1912) is a Scottish tale about the faithfulness of dogs towards their owners. Written from the perspective of the Skye terrier which gives the novel its title, the novel also features Auld Jock, Bobby’s owner, who has a close bond with his pet terrier.

When (spoiler alert) Jock dies, Bobby refuses to leave his master’s side, even when Jock is buried. Bobby ends up guarding Jock’s grave, by day and night, thus neatly symbolising the two main features associated with dogs: fidelity and vigilance.

3. O. Henry, ‘Memoirs of a Yellow Dog’.

But you needn’t look for any stuck-up literature in my piece, such as Bearoo, the bear, and Snakoo, the snake, and Tammanoo, the tiger, talk in the jungle books. A yellow dog that’s spent most of his life in a cheap New York flat, sleeping in a corner on an old sateen underskirt (the one she spilled port wine on at the Lady Longshoremen’s banquet), mustn’t be expectcd to perform any tricks with the art of speech …

In this 1903 story from one of America’s greatest writers of the short story, the yellow dog of the story’s title recounts his life, his owners, and his love for his master (and his dislike for his master’s wife). Man and dog really do have a stronger bond in this story than man and wife – but we won’t spoil the ending …

4. Rudyard Kipling, ‘Garm – a Hostage’.

First published in 1899, this short story from the writer who also gave us the poem ‘The Power of the Dog’ – tells of a man whose friend gives him a bull-terrier as a ‘hostage’. However, ‘Garm’ – the name the narrator gives to his newly acquired dog – misses his original owner, who visits his beloved terrier on a regular basis. This is another tale tinged with sadness, but shot through with the strong bond between a man and his dog.

5. Jack London, The Call of the Wild.

London (1876-1916) was the first writer to become a millionaire from his writing, and although he wrote a vast number of different books including an early dystopian novel (The Iron Heel) and a novel set in the days of early man (Before Adam), he is best-known for his two short novels set in the Yukon Territory in Canada during the Gold Rush, The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906).

The first of these is probably the most famous and widely read, and focuses on a dog which is stolen from its home in California and made to work as a sled-dog in the snowy wilds of Alaska. As the novel’s title suggests, The Call of the Wild is about the canine protagonist’s transition from a life among civilisation to the relative freedom he finds among the wilderness of the Yukon.

6. Virginia Woolf, Flush: A Biography.

Although it’s subtitled A Biography, this short 1933 book is as much fiction as non-fiction. However, its subject was real enough: the Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s pet dog. The cocker spaniel, Flush, is acquired by Barrett Browning and taken from the countryside to London, where he lives among the London literati before travelling out with the Brownings to Italy. This is Woolf’s funniest book, and although it’s wildly different from The Waves or Mrs Dalloway, it shows off her distinctive modernist style.

7. Franz Kafka, ‘Investigations of a Dog’.

Kafka is a master of the weird, the unusual, the not-quite-right, his stories and novels haunting us long after we have finished reading them. And although he’s well-known for longer works like The Castle and The Trial, he was also a master of the short story form, including the long short story (witness his masterpiece, ‘The Metamorphosis’).

This 1922 story is another tale narrated by a dog, telling us about its experiences. But Kafka’s canine narrator is a philosophical creature, who is interested in the deeper meaning behind his existence and who seeks rational explanations for the things which have befallen him.

8. Richard Adams, The Plague Dogs.

Everyone knows of Watership Down, Adams’ bestselling 1972 novel about a group of rabbits, but his 1977 novel The Plague Dogs is not as well-known. The novel focuses on Rowf and Snitter, two dogs which escape from a government research station in the Lake District in northern England.

They survive among the wilds of Cumbria, which Adams describes with great power and skill, but there’s a price on their backs – especially as it’s feared they may be carrying a deadly strain of plague which they acquired at the research station …

9. Philip K. Dick, ‘Roog’.

This story was written in 1951, and is an early work by the prolific science-fiction author – and a patron saint of the counterculture – Philip K. Dick (1928-82), best-known for writing the novel that inspired the film Blade Runner as well as other classic novels and stories such as ‘The Minority Report’ (also made into a film) and for the alternative-history novel, The Man in the High Castle.

This is another story told from the point of view of a dog. Boris believes the garbage-men who come to collect the trash from his owner’s house are aliens invading from another planet. He calls the strange creatures ‘Roogs’, but his attempts to warn his owners about the alien invasion are futile. But Dick leaves enough doubt in our minds that the dog may, after all, be right, and the ‘garbage-men’ may not be all they seem – as usual with Dick’s fiction, our understanding of reality and everything we take for granted is given a good shake.

10. Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Perhaps no pick of the best novels and stories about dogs could be without this more recent example, this 2003 mystery novel loosely inspired by the Sherlock Holmes adventures and featuring a teenage protagonist, Christopher, who goes in search of the neighbour’s missing dog. Although people tend to assume that Christopher has Asperger’s, Haddon has refuted this, and the book makes no reference to it. Instead, as Haddon has said in a blog post, the novel is about being an outsider.

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Tags: Books, Classics, Dogs, Literature, Novels, short stories

A short story about a dog: 5 short stories

1. A short story about a dog Vovchik

On the outskirts of our city there was a wild area, popularly called the Strelbishche. There used to be a military unit here. Then the part was closed, the wastelands-polygons were overgrown with burdock and they began to distribute them as dachas. Our aunt also got a plot here. And I must say, I was very happy about it. We have rich lands - plant whatever you want, everything will sprout.

She began to go to her dacha on weekends. Yes, that's the trouble, a mad dog showed up in those parts. Not even a dog, but a whole dog: the growth of a giant, teeth in all directions. As it growls, the soul will go to the heels, and if it chases, then the end of the fairy tale.

Our aunt was a lonely woman, and for the sake of self-defense she always carried salt and pepper with her. So she was taught at school, a beneficial remedy for a rabid dog is to sprinkle salt or pepper in her face, or even better all at once. Only, probably, those who invented this science, such as the local monster wolfhound, have not even been seen in books. Otherwise, they would have forgotten all their recommendations in an instant.

Meeting

One day, on Monday, an aunt returns from her land. The sky is dusk. Until the stop another five hundred meters through an ownerless field. And as luck would have it, none of the people. Lucky summer residents usually come here on weekends. Well, my aunt has an unplanned weekday off, what can you do?

She is walking and suddenly she sees someone's evil eyes looking out of the grass. Stopped. Died. Her hand intuitively reached for her pocket of salt and pepper. A hefty white carcass fell out onto the road here. The mouth is open, mad saliva is flowing, and the pupils are red, crazed.

Auntie's hand then broke away from her pocket by itself, and hung there. Here, even a bucket of spices spilling, there will be no sense. The woman cried out in fear. What else do you order? She even closed her eyes. Suddenly she feels something soft rubbing against her. She slightly opened one eye and sees that the shaggy monster seems to take pity on her. And the muzzle of a dog up to her chest - that's how hefty. But her eyes are not at all red and not crazy, but rather dreary and intelligent.

Auntie to the dog says:
— Do you want to eat?
Animal whines. Then the aunt took out her lunch sandwich from her bag. Slowly, carefully. She handed it to the dog. She licked the delicacy without hesitation, and asks for more. And my aunt has nothing else.

The two of them went on to the bus stop. Now it's slowly, no one is afraid. After all, there is a special charm in twilight.

Since then, our aunt's guide has appeared. Clever, knows unmistakably what days to expect her. She told him - chicken legs, sausages, sausages, in general, that is what it brings. And he will take her to the site, wait there until she redoes all the work, and then escort her back to the bus stop.

Yes, I almost forgot, my aunt called her wild friend Vovchik. Why so, is not recognized. Well, she knows better.

2. A short story about the dog Caesar

In a large country house lived a fat clumsy dog Caesar. The doctor strictly forbade the owners to overfeed her, and especially to allow her to eat various unhealthy foods like sausages, cheeses and cakes with sour cream.

A week has passed since the ill-fated visit to the doctor. Caesar lost as much as two kilograms. The owners were happy, but the dog was afraid that if it goes on like this, he might completely disappear.

So dad brought a stick of excellent smoked sausage from work. The air smelled so that Caesar's vision went dark. But, of course, no one was going to give him sausages.

Savvy

As you know, the need for inventions is cunning. So Caesar figured out how to get what he wants. Constructing his saddest and most unhappy expression, he went to the front door and began to ask for help. Mom was taking a bath at that time, I was doing my homework in my room, and dad had just put the food on the table and was going to watch TV. But it is impossible to resist the natural dog's call (and Caesar was well aware of this).

Dad had to put on his shoes again and take the dog outside. As soon as they were outside the threshold, like a fat man, he flew off the steps like a bullet and rushed around the corner of the house. Having rounded the building and having reached the back entrance, he pushed the door with his paw and (lo and behold!) it was not locked. Caesar flew into a small corridor, from there into the kitchen, there - onto the ottoman and from the ottoman to the table for sausage. The piece was fragrant, but quite small. So for one tooth.

The dog immediately ate it and rushed back to the street.

In the meantime, my father was slowly walking around the house. And when he reached the back door, he saw a dog by the bush peacefully doing his dog business. Nothing suspicious.

After the walk, dad and Caesar came home. Mom set the table and we all sat down to eat. And the next day, dad wanted a sausage sandwich for breakfast. It was then that it turned out that there were no sausages in the house. Dad remembered and remembered and finally decided that he forgot the product in the store.

That would have been the end of the story if Caesar hadn't made his cunning plan a habit. They caught him like that from the third time. And having compared all the non-random accidents, they guessed everything.

3. A short story about the dog Shilly-Shagan

Dogs are like people. There are quiet and complaisant. And there are wayward and capricious. The problem is that it is impossible to immediately understand the special properties of the acquired pet. At first, they are all cute puppies.

So was our rogue, very glorious, with sad tearful eyes. It was even sold for half the price. Why, you ask? Allegedly, they wanted to quickly attach in good hands.

We brought our bundle of happiness home. Small, frail, on thin trembling legs. Painfully fragile breed - Russian toy terrier.

They fed me, gave me drink, put me to bed. The dog already had a name in his passport - Shilly Shagan. Not some Bobby or Tuzik.

The next day, Schilli determined for himself his favorite place in the house - the corner on the sofa, just opposite the TV. Fine, don't say anything. The only problem was that our dad also loved this place very much and was not going to share it with the dog at all.

And the battle broke out

Dad comes home from work in the evening. Look - your favorite place is occupied. He is Shilly lightly with his palm - a rod! Go ahead, find yourself something else. But the dog is not appeased. He grinned with his tiny teeth, growls, sparkles with his eyes. Doesn't want to leave. Dad then took it with two fingers and lowered it to the floor, and he sat down on the sofa.

But the dog is also not a blunder. Lurking and waiting. Dad just gets up from the sofa - the dog is right there in HIS rightful place. Such a struggle for power continued for several days. Until one fine day, dad came home from work and saw how this microdog (a hybrid, as he called it, dogs and mice) marks his favorite sofa.

By the way, the furniture was still new, with a soft pleasant pile, so that the corrosive smell was then removed for a long time and persistently.

4. A short story about the dog Barsik

In one village, in the yard of an ordinary house, there lived a dog. And the dog's name was Barsik. According to the old Russian tradition, a man's friend sat on a chain day and night. In front of him stood a bowl of water, blackened with age, and a bowl of porridge boiled in chicken bone broth. Next to the dog kennel was a pen with pockmarked mangy hens.

Toli because the chain was too short, or because of the close proximity of brainless chickens, or simply because of the vicissitudes and injustices of a dog's life, Barsik was always very angry. A hundred times a day (at least) he burst into such a feral bark that neighbors from neighboring houses cautiously locked their flimsy doors, and pedestrians passing along the street tried to get out as soon as possible.

Guest (like a bone)

One day, a very intelligent relative came from the capital city to the residents of the house in the yard of which Barsik lived. This man saw rural life only on TV, and read a lot about it in books. Seeing the conditions in which the dog is kept, he immediately began to lecture the owners. He appealed to their humanity and swore by the Society for the Protection of Nature.

In the end, humanism won. Barsik was moved away from the chickens, a new booth was built for him and they began to feed him with worthy canned dog food.

But some time passed, and the owners noticed that the dog was sad. He no longer barked furiously into the void, twitched back and forth on his chain, and showed no signs of a normal healthy creature at all. He just lay on the ground for days on end, putting his front paws under his head and sadly looked at the world.

Since the city relative had already left, the owners decided to return the dog to its original place. Oh, it will help. And indeed, a miracle happened. Barsik dispersed, barked and began to resemble himself.

The harsh truth

If only the owners could understand what dogs bark about and what chickens cackle about, the nature of such wonderful metamorphoses would become clearer than clear to them.

— You are wrong! Wrong! No, no, Bars Vasilyevich! the chickens cackled. - We are what we eat. And we eat food. Therefore, the better the food, the better we are. How can we deny the influence of the material on our lives?

But Barsik did not agree and furiously, spraying saliva in all directions, argued:

— Asceticism is the only true way for everyone who wants to achieve complete control over their body and mind. Values only distance us from understanding our own essence and make us hostages of empty, mortal worthlessness. Putting food and comfort at the forefront, you evaluate yourself at the level of these factors, and in order for a material thing to acquire moral value, at least some conviction, meaning must lie at the basis of its use ...

So Bars Vasilyevich and the chickens, whose names no one remembers, got inflamed day after day.

5. A short story about a dog and a smell

One day Uncle Vanya went to visit his army friend. I took with me, as usual, snacks of different and strong. They haven't seen each other for a long time. A friend of that lived at home a dog, small and shaggy. Outbred. But Uncle Vanya knew nothing about the dog.

Here the peasants met. They went into the kitchen, put snacks with alcohol on the table. They sit, chat, remember the past years - they have a good time.

In the meantime, a shaggy dog came out of the room and got under the table. Nobody noticed her. This dog suffered from indigestion at times. And now, she ate something, and she can't.

Uncle Vanya had just remembered about their regimental commander, when he suddenly senses something unkind. The smell is so worth it, as if his friend (forgive me for being rude) put it in his pants. At the same time, Uncle Vanin's friend smelled the smell. His eyes were watering from such a volley. "That's it, he gives!" the friend thinks to himself.

They sit, look at each other and say out loud awkwardly.
To somehow defuse the situation, Uncle Vanya says:
— Do you have our old album with photos?
A friend was glad that he could escape from the smell and took Uncle Vanya to the photography room to look.

Some more time has passed. They have already reviewed almost all the photos. Suddenly a dog enters the room. He approaches the owner and then loudly, publicly pours a striking volley over those sitting.

It was only then that the friends realized that they had slandered each other in vain. And they laughed out loud.

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My favorite dogs — Eduard Topol's story

I have never had a dog. Although I love dogs more than all other animals and animals. Because you can talk to a dog like a best friend. Dogs understand everything. You can make friends with them, play, go hunting and even sing songs in two voices. Honestly! I know one dog, she lives in Washington and her name is Richie - so she can sing all the songs of Lyudmila Zykina. Whatever song you start to sing, she sings along, and how exactly, you know! And I knew one more dog in the Soviet Union - she, on the contrary, did not tolerate music at all and for some reason especially hated the Anthem of the Soviet Union. Every morning, at exactly six in the morning, when somewhere in our house the radio began to play the Anthem of the Soviet Union, Yashka - that was the name of this dog - began to howl in a completely unbearable voice. He howled so loudly and so melancholy that his owners were afraid that they would be arrested because their dog did not like the Anthem of the Soviet Union. Therefore, they hid Yashka in the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the toilet, so that he would not hear that the Anthem of the Soviet Union was being played somewhere. But Yashka still heard - he had a real canine hearing. Moreover, when some other music played, he did not react, was silent, but as soon as the first bars of the Anthem of the Soviet Union sounded somewhere, Yashka began to howl so that he heard the whole house. That's what musical dogs are! Something in this anthem did not suit him, probably ...

But I'm not going to tell you about all the dogs I've known. Too many of them. I want to talk only about my most favorite dogs.

In general, some children are afraid of dogs. For example, my niece Asya, who now lives in Israel and to whom I dedicate these stories, has always been afraid of dogs. Especially the big ones. As soon as he sees a big dog, he stops, shrinks, whimpers and asks to be held. But I must tell you that being afraid of big dogs is a big mistake. Honestly. I, too, was afraid of big dogs as a child, and this is the story that came out of it.

I was six years old when I was admitted to the school. And I was very proud of this and did not allow either my grandmother or my mother to accompany me to school.

— I myself, — I told them, — I will go to school! - And went. Right from the first day I put on a satchel and went to school. On foot. True, it was not far to go - only three blocks.

Well, I'm walking along the sidewalk, all so proud and independent, waving some kind of stick and suddenly I see a big dog coming straight towards me. Maybe now I would decide that this is not a very large dog, but so-so - an average one. But then! After all, I was small - six years old, and this dog seemed huge to me, because it was taller than me. And she walked towards me along the sidewalk, alone, without a master. And I chickened out. Frightened, shrunken all over. I even remember her eyes to this day - ordinary and, in my opinion, even kind eyes, but then for some reason I thought that it would be better for me not to meet this dog. And so I decided that I'd better go to the other side of the street. And I went. Right across the pavement. And just at that moment a truck was driving down the street, and I just miraculously did not get under the wheels, but on the other hand, with all my might, I hit my head on the side of the car. And there was just some kind of iron hook sticking out, and now I hit my head right on this hook, and - it's good that I was short - the blow fell above the temple, almost on the top of my head. How I screamed! After all, blood gushed on my new white shirt, on my new knapsack, and in general I thought that now I would have a big hole in my head for the rest of my life. I was lying on the pavement, yelling with a good obscenity, holding my head, and a big dog was standing over me, because of which I was afraid to get up. It’s good that passers-by ran up, picked me up and carried me home.

And since then I have ceased to be afraid of big dogs. Because it's better to meet the biggest dog than get hit by a truck, so I decided. And what do you think? I turned out to be right! At first I was afraid to approach big dogs very close, but I just didn’t give way to them and that’s all, and when they sniffed me, I still shrank from fear inside, but then I saw that the larger the dog, the kinder it is to children, the less you need to be afraid of it, it turns out. And I became so bold that I stopped being afraid of all dogs and boldly approached the most terrible dog. It’s a little scary inside, but I still go straight to the dog and tell her right away: “Great! How are you? How do you feel? Let's play!" And then I start scratching her under the chin. You know how they love it when they scratch their neck under the chin! The greatest pleasure.

Well, in my childhood I was friends with a variety of dogs, but still I did not have a favorite dog. And my first favorite dog came to me when I moved to the ninth grade and moved from Ukraine to the Caucasus, to the city of Baku. There, I immediately became friends with a dog named Taejo. That was the dog! A huge Airedale Terrier of reddish chestnut color with a gray beard and two medals for clearing collective farm fields. The fact is that in his youth, Tejo was a service dog in the city of Moscow, and he was an expert in finding mines that remained in the fields after the war, and now he found so many of these mines that he received two special medals for this! And then, when his term of service ended, he was given to some people, and they brought Tejo to Baku.

And in Baku I met him.

It was a wonderful dog!

I don't even know where to start talking about him.

Well, first of all, he understood everything. Absolutely. For example, his mistress Tatyana Alekseevna even arranged whole performances - she showed that Tejo understands human speech. And she did it this way. They - Tatyana Alekseevna, her son Slava and Tezho - lived in a two-room apartment with a veranda. And Taejo had his own place in the second room, under the piano. He lay there all day long. Probably because it was the coolest place in the apartment, Taejo had a very thick warm coat, and it's so hot in Baku! Well, it means that Tejo is lying in the second room, and we - Tatyana Alekseevna, Slava, I and two or three other classmates of ours with Slava - are sitting in the first room, drinking tea or just chatting. And so Tatyana Alekseevna says:

- Do you want me to show you how Taejo understands human speech?

- We want, - we say. - Of course.

— But look, — he says, — I won't even give his name, but you will see how he will behave. - And after that she begins to speak like this: - Do you know, guys, how I love our dog! We have a wonderful dog. You come home from work tired and exhausted, and he runs out to meet you, caresses, rubs his head, smiles...

And, you know, as soon as she started talking about it, Tejo comes from the other room - although no one called him! - sits down in front of Tatyana Alekseevna, looks at her, listens and smiles. Yes, yes, honestly, so he opens his mouth, that is, his mouth, and smiles, honestly. And Tatyana Alekseevna continues:

- The only bad thing is that he doesn't like cats terribly. Here you go with him down the street, you walk and suddenly - somewhere far away he saw a cat. Everything, the dog becomes completely stupid, breaks out of my hands, growls, I, of course, cannot hold him back, breaks off the leash and runs after the cat. That's why, frankly, I don't like him!

You should have seen how Taejo reacted to those words!

He lowered his head low, low, offended, got up and went into another room - dejectedly, on bent legs. There he sighed, crawled under the piano, lay down and sighed until Tatyana Alekseevna began to praise him again. She said:

— But still, I love him very much! He is so kind, affectionate, understands everything, and it is always comfortable at home with him. Here you boys are always running around somewhere, disappearing, and I’m sitting at home with our dog, and I’m not so lonely, we listen to music and radio here with him ...

And just imagine, because again she even She didn’t call us by name, she only talked to us, and not to him, and he comes from the second room, sits down in front of Tatyana Alekseevna, looks at her, listens to how he is being praised, and smiles. What a dog it was! I was very fond of walking with him for a walk on Baku Boulevard, to the sea. There, on the seashore, I recited my first poems to Tejo.

Here I must say that in those years I was very amorous. I fell in love with the most beautiful girls from our street and in the neighboring school: when I studied, the schools were separate, the boys studied separately, the girls separately. So I fell in love with all the beautiful girls of the neighboring school, but they did not pay any attention to me. Because I was short, red-haired and freckled, and girls in the ninth - tenth grade only like tall brunettes or, in extreme cases, blonds. Therefore, I had no choice but to write all sorts of sad poems and, on the seashore, to the sound of the waves, read them to a strange dog named Tejo.

But how well Tejo understood my poems, how well he felt my mood and my soul! I lived a long life, I later read my poems to the most beloved women, I read them from the stage in crowded halls, but I have never seen such kind, such sympathetic, such all-understanding eyes as this dog had there, on the shore of the Caspian Sea, when I read him my very first love poems!

And now, after all these verses, after all that Taejo knew about me, and he knew literally everything about me, because, firstly, as you already know, he understood human speech, and secondly, I I told him everything about myself and even read all my poems to him, and so after all this such a story happened that I almost took offense at him for the rest of my life.

And that was it. One day I got sick. He caught a cold, probably because he spent the whole day walking in the rain and composing poems about unhappy love. I didn’t go to school in the morning - can you imagine? - and went to the boulevard to compose poetry and got wet in the rain. And I didn’t want to go home so that my grandmother wouldn’t swear that I was all wet. I decided to go to Tatyana Alekseevna and my school friend Slava. I come, but they are not at home. But I know that they always leave the key to the apartment under the rug, so I calmly take this key, open the apartment and enter. Taejo saw me, came up, greeted me, we talked a little, well, more precisely, I told him that I didn’t feel well, I had a cold, probably just shivering. So I boiled the kettle, drank tea with bagels, lay down on the sofa and fell asleep. I wake up - it's already six o'clock in the evening. It’s dark outside, it was winter, it’s time for me to run home, otherwise there’s already a panic, probably, I left for school in the morning and was not at home all day. Well, I jumped up from the sofa, I look - neither Tatyana Alekseevna nor Slavik are at home yet. Well, I write them a note: “So and so, I was with you, I waited, I didn’t wait, I’m going home. Edik. After that I go to my door, insert the key into the well and want to open the door. And what do you think? At this moment, Tejo comes up to me, so calmly takes my hand with which I want to open the door with his mouth, and holds this hand, does not let the key turn in the door. Do you understand? Doesn't bite, doesn't bark - nothing, just doesn't let the door open, that's all.

I was just stunned, I say:

- Taejo, what are you? Crazy?! It is me! I'm not some kind of thief! I didn't take anything. You know me. I read so many poems to you! Let me go, I need to go home! “And as soon as I want to turn the key in the door, I feel that he is pressing my hand with his teeth, looking into my eyes and growling so quietly and quietly - they say, I’m telling you in a good way, don’t even think about leaving until the owners come home. Well? Can you imagine? That's what a smart dog was - she let me into the apartment, but to leave - even me, whom he knew so well, Tejo still did not allow me to leave the apartment without the permission of the owners.

And I sat for an hour until Tatyana Alekseevna came home from work. Of course, I was offended by him then, but then I realized that he was right - without the permission of the owners, of course, I should not have entered their apartment.

And my other favorite dog was called Michael. I met him on the Iranian border. Do you know what the Iranian border is? There is now a war going on, and all sorts of events are taking place, but then, twenty years ago, there was no war there, but all the same, dogs guarded the border, helped to catch spies and all sorts of violators.

And so I came to this region to write a feuilleton about all sorts of swindlers who steal all sorts of people's property even in the border collective farms. The secretary of the local district party committee met me - this is such the most important boss in this place, and his last name was Ibragimov, so he met me at the station and settled me in a wonderful house in the garden right next to the district party committee. Now I'm thinking about how to explain to you, foreigners, what a district party committee is, and I can't figure it out. But, in general, you don’t even need to know this, thank God, just keep in mind that in the Soviet Union these are the most important organizations, and the secretaries of these organizations are the most glorious bosses.

And now I live in a wonderful, quiet, cozy little house in the garden of the district committee of the party, I collect all sorts of documents and materials for my feuilleton and write something all day long either on the veranda or in the room.

And one day, when I was writing something in the room, the door behind me suddenly opens and - I was just speechless - a huge shepherd dog, well, so healthy, I have never seen such shepherd dogs - neither before, nor since - and so, a huge shepherd dog the size of, well, a calf, silently enters the room, approaches my desk and, without even rising on its hind legs, looks at what I am writing. Imagine what a healthy dog it was if its muzzle was higher than my desk! So, he looked at what I was writing - I don’t know if he read it or didn’t read it, he didn’t tell me, - but only after that he looked into my eyes, I went out of the room, and on the way he looks back again and again looks into my eyes. Where do you think he invites me? And you know that since childhood I decided not to be afraid of big dogs. And so I get up and follow him. We go out into the garden, and he sits down on the grass and again looks into my eyes and waits. Well, I think, since this is the case, it's time for us to get to know him the way I get to know all dogs. I go up to him and say: “Hey, what's your name? My name is Edward. And you?" And I start stroking him and scratching under his chin. And what do you think? We immediately became friends with him, and to such an extent that you can’t imagine - after a few minutes, we began to play tricks, fight, growl at each other for fun, like real friends. Do you know what a strong dog it was ?! Simply mighty! He got up on his hind legs, put his front paws on my shoulders and pushed me with these paws so hard that I fell to the ground. But at the same time, I also grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to fall behind me. And so we wrestled with him in the grass, knocked each other over, growled pretend to intimidate each other even more, and I also growled at him, honestly! And he really liked it! And then he ran away from me, and I caught him, or vice versa, I ran away from him, and he caught me. In general, it was fun!

And suddenly a gate creaked somewhere in the distance, and I see: my new friend - yurk into a hole in the fence and disappeared, ran away. I think what is? Why did he leave me out of nowhere? It turns out that it was his master who came, the secretary of the district committee of the party, Ibragimov. It turns out that he lived behind the fence and saw that his dog was in my yard. Here he came. We sat down to drink tea with him, he told me about his dog, said that this is the best dog on the entire Iranian border, the border guards gave him this dog and this dog's name is Michael.

But it must have been fun for this Michael to live on the border, where young soldiers always played with him, and here he lives alone, like a wolf, in his master's garden, so he's bored, so he found himself a comrade, me, that is. And every morning, as soon as his owner left for work, Michael came to me through a hole in the fence, and we played with him in the grass, raged and fooled around to the point of exhaustion. I remember that we were already so tired of running around and fighting that we lay in the grass, barely breathing, sticking out our tongues, and did not even have the strength to get up.

But as soon as his owner's car appeared on the street, Michael immediately jumped up and went to his yard through a hole in the fence. He did not love his master, I saw that clearly. They never played any games there, never did this Ibragimov talk to his dog, never shared any of his affairs with him, and in general they had nothing in common. They weren't friends, that's all. And I immediately became friends with Michael. Maybe also because he read a feuilleton on my table that I wrote about his master. Of course, you will say that dogs can’t read, that I make it all up, but it’s up to you - believe it or not, only I remember how he then came up to my desk and looked at what I wrote there about his master, and after that he immediately offered me his friendship and invited me into the yard to play with him and be friends.

Well, a week later, one evening on the eve of my departure, this secretary of the district committee, Ibragimov, comes to me, brings wine and all sorts of other treats and says:

- Listen, Edward. You, I see, write a feuilleton about me, you will scold me in the newspaper, right?

I am silent. I don’t want to lie, but it’s not supposed to say in advance what will be written in the newspaper. But after a whole week I dug through all sorts of documents and talked to all sorts of people, I already knew for sure that the most important thief and swindler in this area is precisely the secretary of the district committee, Ibragimov, he steals himself, and makes others steal for him. And I think that Michael also understood and felt this, and for this he did not love his master. Well, now this Ibragimov came to me, and he is not a fool either, he understands that I have already figured out that he, Ibragimov, is the main swindler in the district. And now he understands that I will write about all this in the newspaper, I will expose him. And so he says to me:

- Look, I see you like my dog. Let's agree this way: I will give you my dog, and you will give me your feuilleton, you will not write about me in the newspaper, huh?

Can you imagine my condition? All my life I dreamed of having a dog, I was just dying of envy for everyone who has a dog, and now they offer me a real service shepherd, and what! The best dog on the entire Iranian border! Michael, with whom I have already made friends and who loves me more than his master! And this dog is offered to me!

If he offered me money so that I would not criticize him in the newspaper, I would, of course, be terribly indignant! If he gave me any gifts, I would not take anything! But the dog. ..

And he says:

- Don't answer right away. Think about it. Until morning. And decide in the morning. Anyway, you leave in the morning, there is time. Goodnight. - And left.

Imagine what a “quiet” night I had! I didn’t sleep until morning, I remember lying by the window, looking at the stars and talking with the stars and with myself, whether I should take a dog or not. Of course, it is not good to take bribes, it is very bad, but, on the other hand, is it good for Michael to live with an unloved owner who does not even talk to him? Is it nice for Michael to live with a crook who is the main thief in the area? After all, Michael is a learned dog, he has been catching all sorts of crooks, thieves and violators all his life, and now he was given to live with the most important crook - is that fair? But on the third hand, how can I take a bribe from such a crook?

In short, I did not sleep until morning. And in the morning, when Ibragimov came to me with Michael, I told him:

- Excuse me, Michael! I can't take you.