Notes from a dog everyone said should be put to sleep.

Life One: The Street

I am three months old. I don’t remember how I ended up on the street. I probably had a mother once. Maybe brothers and sisters. I don’t remember them.

Summer. Heat. I am terribly hungry. They put a heavy lid on the rubbish bin I used to get food out of. Now I can’t lift it. I lie in the shade of a tree and look at another bin across the road. Two-legged ones walk past it and throw bags inside. So much food in them! But I am afraid to cross to the other side. There are enormous monsters there, rushing along fast and making a terrible racket.

The two-legged ones travel in the iron monsters. The two-legged ones are enemies. I don’t know what I did to upset them, but I have suffered plenty at their hands.

There are two kinds of two-legged ones: little ones and big ones. The little ones are crueller than the big ones. Once they threw stones at me. A contest—to see who had the best aim. Another time, as they went past, they threw a “little bomb”. It exploded, and the little two-legged ones had a lot of fun when I howled in fright. “Just like a wolf!” they laughed.

Once I went up to a big two-legged one. I was very hungry, and he was holding bread with meat in it. I went up and wagged my tail: asked for a little piece. The big two-legged one got scared and dropped his sandwich. I grabbed it, I was so hungry, and the two-legged one gave me a painful kick.

All sorts of things happened. I have scars for memories all over my body.

***

The rules of life on the street are very simple: defend yourself however you can; if that doesn’t work—run. I am not good at defending myself. The two-legged ones are better armed. They can throw a stone at me from a long way away, while I have to get right up close to attack them.

I started snapping back. Baring my teeth and barking. Now I don’t trust anyone. I try to attack first.

***

I am so hungry. So many tasty things on the other side of the road. What if I ran across? I can run very fast. Wait until there are fewer monsters and run. That’s it, I’ve decided.

Suddenly the sky was where the ground should be, and the ground was where the sky should be. The monster was faster. Terrible pain in my back. Run! To shelter, far away from the two-legged ones and their monsters. Why can’t I get up, why won’t my legs move?

Someone walks past. Now the enemies can do anything they like to me. I can’t feel my legs. Why isn’t anyone attacking? The two-legged ones suddenly turn kind. They shake their heads and say: “bad luck”, “poor thing”, “she’ll die”. The iron monsters slow down and go around me.

I try pulling myself along on my front paws. Slowly, but I can do it. My shoulders are still strong and push my body to the side of the road. It is no safer there, and I crawl on. A little street. There are iron monsters there too, but not so many.

I don’t understand what has happened yet. I have to wait, and my legs will work again. I wait a very long time. How many hours have passed? Or days?

A two-legged one stops beside me. I bare my teeth. He shakes his head and leaves. Comes back with smoked sausage. Puts it in front of me. I am very hungry, but it hurts too much to eat. I lie there and howl. For what seems like an eternity.

Life Two: Aida

Two female two-legged ones bent over me. Said there were ants crawling all over me. That I needed to be taken to a “clinic”. I didn’t know what a clinic was, but I didn’t care. I was out of my mind with pain. I let them put me in a box and take me away.

At the clinic, a stern two-legged one said my spine was broken and I would never walk. And suggested putting me to sleep. Apparently that was something bad, because the two-legged women looked at me very sadly. But I felt good. They injected me with something, and the pain went away.

***

The two-legged women were called Anna and Aida. Aida was the first two-legged one I loved. I went to live on her balcony. She fed me tasty food several times a day. Food I had never had on the street.

Aida would come home after work and talk to me for a long time. She told me that she and Anna, together with other two-legged ones, helped those like me. If someone was left without a mother or got sick, they would come, take them away, look after them, treat them and find them a family.

***

Two months later I moved in with a granny who had agreed to take me in for a while. I had developed bedsores from lying down for so long. They bled. They needed tending several times a day.

Granny was very old: she could barely walk. She fed me, but couldn’t manage my wounds. Every day after work Aida came to tend my wounds. 

I was so happy when she came. I would crawl towards her very, very fast, dragging my disobedient hind legs. She hugged me and said she kept making one single wish: for me to get up and walk. 

Aida often cried. She said the other two-legged ones in their group and that stern one in the white coat were trying to persuade her to put me to sleep. By then I knew what that meant. It is when they stick a needle with liquid into your skin, and you fall asleep and never wake up again.

But Aida said she knew I could walk, and it would cost me nothing to try. I would have loved to. I felt sad when Aida cried. I tried, honestly, but I couldn’t do it.

***

One day Aida came and cried more than usual. Granny cried too. Aida said Anna and the other two-legged ones in the group had decided she was making me suffer: my wounds weren’t healing, I would never be able to walk, and everyone had decided I should be put to sleep.

Aida said she didn’t want me to suffer and had agreed to have me put to sleep. And that tomorrow she would come with the stern two-legged one in the coat and I would be given a shot. And then I would run along some rainbow—freely and without pain.

Mostly, Granny just fed me. But that day even she started talking to me and scolding me for making Aida cry.

***

I didn’t sleep all night. Thought for a long time. Tried for a long time. I don’t know what happened. Maybe I was terribly frightened of the shot. But in the morning, when Granny came with my bowl, I suddenly got up and took a few steps towards her. I swayed like a ship in a storm—that was what Granny said afterwards. But I walked.

Granny dropped the bowl with my food and rushed into the house, just like a young two-legged one. While I finished the meat off the ground, she shouted into the phone to Aida: she’s walking, she’s walking!

I was lying by the water when Aida came. I got up and walked towards her. Better than in the morning. Aida hugged me and cried. These two-legged ones are strange: sad—they cry, happy—they cry. She said she felt little ants running over her skin. I looked at her bare arms: there weren’t any ants there. They do like making things up.

Life Three: Home

I moved again. Granny was getting worse and worse. She could no longer cook my food. They spent a long time looking for another place for me to stay, but nobody wanted a “disabled dog”. As far as I could understand, disabled means nobody needs you.

Anna took me in. She lasted three days with me. I hadn’t forgotten that she had tried to persuade Aida to give me the shot, and I kept worrying that she would put me to sleep while I was sleeping.

So I didn’t sleep, and I didn’t let her sleep either. As soon as Anna moved, I lunged at her. Bared my teeth and growled terribly. For three days Anna spent almost all her time on the sofa. That was the only place she was safe from me: I hadn’t learnt to jump onto the sofa yet.

Another two-legged one used to visit Anna: Tika. I left her alone. She was almost invisible—so thin, and she was as afraid of shots as I was. Anyway, we got along.

***

One evening Hasmik came. Anna called from the sofa that she should be careful: I bite. But Hasmik came up to me, sat on the floor and stroked my head. I was so surprised I even forgot to bare my teeth.

She said we were going home. I liked the word. It had a feeling of calm about it.

When we went downstairs, I tensed up. There was an iron monster in the yard. Just like the monster that had broken my spine. I didn’t want to go near it. I stood still and trembled. Then Hasmik picked me up and put me in the monster’s belly.

The monster was very clean and smelled nice. It was clearly not the kind that breaks spines. I wanted to express somehow that I felt good and peaceful in here. I sat down and peed. So there would be not the slightest doubt about how much I liked it, I pooped straight away too.

Hasmik jumped out of the monster and started yelling. So loudly that Tika came running out of Anna’s house, got some paper and bags and started wiping the seat very, very fast.

Hasmik was the second two-legged one I loved. But she has her oddities too. For example, at the sight of little, harmless poops, she yells and waves her arms. And holds her nose. I can’t understand why. I, for one, like poop.

***

I liked home. There are lots of dogs here. And some very big ones too. They are called horses. They all walk normally. There is another two-legged one. She is called Anna too. She is good. There are two-legged men here too, and those are the ones I attack. Maybe there are good men too, but so far I have only met ones who hurt me.

I forgot to say, I have a name now. Because I attack everyone and bite them if I can, they started calling me Ktsan (Biter).

***

Little two-legged ones—children—come to the house. For therapy. That is when they don’t know how to walk—they probably had a bad encounter with a monster too—and they are put on a horse so they can learn. I don’t like children. They hurt me too. They don’t come near me. Neither do the big two-legged ones. Everyone is afraid of me.

The dogs don’t play with me. I tried going up to them, but they could tell I was different and ran away from me. They ran fast and jumped on each other, tumbled around on the grass. And I couldn’t even walk fast.

***

Once I was lying on the grass, feeling lonely. Suddenly a little dog ran up to me. Lay down in front of me, stretched out her front paws so they touched my outstretched ones. Lay with me like that for a little while and ran off.

She came again the next day. Her name is Mickey Muk. Muk means little mouse. She was given that name because she is very good at catching field mice. Mouse burrows have an entrance and an exit. Mickey Muk sticks her head into one little hole and starts pretend-sneezing. The frightened little mouse runs out of the other hole, and Mickey Muk grabs it.

Mickey Muk is my first dog friend. She had never lived on the street. She had another home and owners. Owners are two-legged ones who cook your food and let you live in their home. Her owners left her pregnant, without food or water, and went far away for several days. She gave birth and ate her puppies so they wouldn’t die a slow, agonising death. Her owners were horrified and threw her out of the house.

We would sit like that for a long time: paw to paw, talking. Mickey Muk told me that all the dogs here had either been picked up off the street or abandoned by their two-legged owners. Mickey Muk and I ran together too. Or rather, she ran, and I staggered along behind her. I couldn’t stay on my feet for long; I would fall and crawl. Mickey would stop and wait for me.

***

When I wasn’t playing with Mickey Muk, I followed Hasmik everywhere. I really had grown to love her very much. She said I was her shadow. That is a thing that follows you everywhere in the sunshine, but lying on the ground.

***

One day Hasmik said we were going to start intensive therapy now. I was frightened they would put me on a horse too. But Hasmik took me out to a field with little ditches full of water. She jumped over a ditch and called me. I plopped into the little stream.

We did this every day. Until I managed to jump across. We also went for long walks. To make my legs stronger. When I got tired, we lay down on the grass and rested.

Then Hasmik started putting bales of hay for the horses close together, and I had to walk over them. She put the bales across the passage so I could only reach her by going over them. I was scared. I would put my front legs on a bale, my hind legs would buckle, and I would fall.

When I learnt to climb onto a bale, Hasmik made steps out of two bales, then three. And invited me to climb them. I told you, the two-legged ones are strange. And their games are strange too.

I slept in the stable—the horses’ house. One day Hasmik finished giving them their hay for the night and called me. I could hear her voice, but couldn’t work out where it was coming from. I went to look for her and saw her sitting on the bales right at the top, under the roof, calling me. The roof of our stable, just so you understand, is 4.5 metres high.

Of course I refused. Whined for her to come down to me. But Hasmik said she would sit there all night until I climbed up to her.

I held out as long as I could. But I wanted to be with her so much. I climbed up three bales, got frightened and rolled back down. Then Hasmik came down to me and said we would climb up together. Together it wasn’t so scary. Before I knew it, I was up under the roof.

We sat right at the top, and Hasmik kissed me over and over and said I was such a clever girl, and that she felt little ants running over her skin. I didn’t even bother checking. You remember, don’t you, that these are made-up ants?

***

I got sick. My body was very hot, and there were drops of blood in my runny poop. I could tell from Hasmik’s frightened face that I had a serious illness. She called Mihran. Mihran is the stern two-legged one who wanted to give me a deadly shot. If your spine isn’t broken, he gives you other shots: you don’t die from them, quite the opposite, you get better. In the world of the two-legged ones, everything is simple: shots, tears and little ants. For every occasion.

Mihran was far away from his home, which is called a clinic, and couldn’t see us. Hasmik and Anna looked at me anxiously and kept saying two words: “enteritis” and “vodka”.

I didn’t know it then, but enteritis is a terrible illness. We had plenty of it here afterwards. It is very easy to die from it. Especially when you are little. I was six months old then.

I don’t even want to tell you about vodka. A disgusting drink. Burns up everything inside you. Even illnesses.

I didn’t like the smell of vodka, and they forced it into my mouth. The next day too. And, you know, that disgusting liquid worked: I got better. Although Mihran later scolded Hasmik and Anna for it.

***

Two-legged ones came with cameras. They were making a film about wolves. Wolves are dogs that humans haven’t tamed. The two-legged ones were looking for a puppy to play a wolf cub. Their chief said I was the only one who looked the part. I don’t know what it was called, but if you see a film with a wolf cub lying there baring its teeth, you should know: that’s me.

Life Four: Giving Birth

I am two years old. I have a boy. His name is Aslan. We live together in the same enclosure. And run together. I run quite fast. But I waddle, like someone drunk. Drunk is when you have had lots and lots of vodka and can’t stay on your feet. But I haven’t drunk vodka again since that time I got sick. It is just that my spine was broken, remember, and I will never walk steadily like other dogs. I am used to running this way now, and I am fine with it. 

Aslan licks my face and shares his food with me. Brings me bones. I start gnawing one straight away and hide the others for later. When other boys come up to me, Aslan growls quietly, and they move away at once. Aslan is big and strong. Everyone is afraid of him.

Hasmik and Anna don’t really approve of our friendship. I don’t know why. Every so often we go to Mihran for a check-up. He always puts a muzzle on me or ties my chin shut. So I won’t bite. We don’t like each other. I have a good memory. Every time, Mihran says I have an awful temperament and advises them to put me to sleep after all.  

Hasmik and Anna tell Mihran about my friendship with Aslan and ask him to spay me. I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t sound as scary as “put to sleep”.  

Mihran refuses. Says my legs might not stand up to it, and I could stop walking. And that they shouldn’t worry: Aslan won’t be able to jump on me, my legs will buckle, and I will fall. I don’t understand what they are talking about at all. I want Mihran to take this stupid muzzle off me.

***

Mihran seriously underestimated my legs. Creatures appeared in my belly. They were alive. They grew. Sometimes they pushed against me. Someone noticed I had got a little fatter. Later I saw this happen to other dogs. Their bellies grew enormous, but mine really was barely noticeable.

Everyone only realised what was happening when the tiny creatures started coming out of me. Hasmik ran back and forth in a panic, called Mihran, said I was going to die, shouted that it was too late to take me there now. But Anna told her to calm down and began helping me.

I gave birth to six boys. Very beautiful ones. They kept squeaking and asking for food. I was given triple portions, but it was never enough for them. I only left them briefly, when I went to the toilet. The rest of the time I stayed by their side and attacked anyone who came near us. I only growled at Hasmik and Anna, but I was afraid of them too: I didn’t know how they felt about my boys. Anna said I had developed a maternal instinct.

People came to look at me and my babies. Everyone said I was a very good mother, and that it was a miracle. A miracle is when something very good happens that couldn’t possibly have happened.

***

I lost all my little ones. They died one after another, and there was nothing I could do. I wouldn’t let anyone touch a dead puppy. I carried it by the scruff away from those who were still alive, dug a hole with my paws and buried it. All six of them, that way.

No, I didn’t stop eating. And I didn’t whine at night. I was silent. Didn’t want to have anything to do with anyone. Didn’t want anything. Not even to understand: why.

Mihran said they had died because I had an infection. An infection is a cruel creature inside you that kills children.

Mihran said I definitely had to be spayed now, or I could die too.

***

The night before I was spayed, Hasmik talked to me for a long time. Said everything would be fine, that I shouldn’t worry about anything. Stroked me and cried. I think crying is her favourite thing to do. I don’t mind, only I wish she would do it farther away from me. After she cries, my face is wet. 

Mihran put a muzzle on me and picked up a syringe. I tried to resist, but if Mihran has decided to give you a shot, nothing can stop him. He always does it before you have time to bare your teeth. 

After a while I got terribly sleepy. I resisted to the very end: you need to be careful around Mihran, and certainly not asleep. But my body wouldn’t obey me. Mihran said I could be put on the table now. He spread my legs and began tying them to the table. Hasmik tried to help him, but her hands were shaking so much that Mihran offered to give her a shot too.

***

I don’t know what happened next. I fell into darkness. When I came round, everything was swimming and swaying. I was lying on a blanket on the floor. Beside me a thing was glowing and giving me warmth.

I don’t know how long I lay like that, but the spinning gradually stopped, and I tried to get up. Hasmik didn’t come over to help me, as she always did when my legs grew weak and I started dragging them along the ground. She stood by the table, clasping her hands, looking at me with wide-open eyes.

After a few attempts I managed to get up. I swayed but stayed on my feet. Took two unsteady steps, fell, got up again.

“Fine,” said Mihran, “the legs are working. What a lucky dog.”

At last Hasmik came over, knelt down and—you can guess by now, can’t you?—cried. Good thing Mihran had said everything was fine. Otherwise you can never tell with her—is it good or bad? She cries over both.

After I was spayed, Aslan and I became friends. He stopped jumping on me. Apparently they had taken something important away from me, without which he was no longer interested in me as a girlfriend. I didn’t mind. I hadn’t forgotten how my little ones died.

Life Five: Autoimmune Disease

A little spot appeared on my eye. At first I thought something had got into it and tried to pull it out with my paw. But the spot didn’t just stay there, it began to grow. As though a thin film had been stretched over my eye. Which stopped me seeing properly.

We went to Mihran. He said I had an autoimmune disease. That I couldn’t be in the sun any more. If the sun’s rays fell on my eyes, I would lose my sight. And that I needed medicine dropped into my eyes every day. Which wasn’t available in Armenia and had to be brought from another country.

***

I moved out of Aslan’s enclosure and into the house. Thick fabrics were hung over the windows so the sun’s rays couldn’t reach me. I only went outside when it got dark.

I liked living in the house. I could climb onto the soft sofa and just lie there. During the day I only got off the sofa when I needed to eat or go to the toilet. If they let me out, I went to the toilet outside. If they didn’t do it in time, then—inside. It wasn’t as convenient as on the ground, but because of my broken spine I couldn’t hold it for long.

Hasmik shouted when I pooped and peed in the house. But I didn’t take offence. I was used to the two-legged ones’ oddities by now: they express love sometimes through tears, sometimes through shouting. The greater the love, the louder the shout.

***

Hasmik really likes fighting. She fights with the volunteers. These are two-legged ones who live at our house for a while and look after us and the horses. Since I moved into the house, Hasmik can no longer play her favourite game. As soon as someone squeezes her arms, for example, I rush over and grab the offender by the bottom.

Hasmik explains to me that no one is going to hurt her, that it is all pretend (like the little ants). But every time I still can’t help defending her. I love this two-legged one so very much. Once I even attacked Anna when she pinned Hasmik on her back for a joke.

***

On cloudy days I am allowed outside during the day too. The herdsman who drives the cows past our house to pasture always throws a stone at us dogs. Just in case. This infuriates the other dogs, and they start barking at him and pretending that now they really are all going to attack. But I stay silent and don’t move. I understand him perfectly. Maybe something happened in his life too, and now he can’t manage to trust.

***

Sometimes the film got in the way a lot. I had to tilt my head to one side to focus my eyes. Just in case, I would growl at everyone who came into the house first, and only then work out who was who.

One day a volunteer came to stay. He came in, I growled, but instead of recoiling, the volunteer came up to me and stroked my head. I was so surprised I even forgot to bite him. And he kept stroking me, smiling and saying I was very beautiful and looked like a wolf cub.

I liked the volunteer. He was always smiling and talked to me a lot. He was a very important volunteer in my life. After him, I began to think that perhaps two-legged men and children weren’t all nasty. Hasmik says that after him I finally learnt to trust. I even stopped attacking.

Well, stopped, sort of. I still attack the electrician straight away if he turns up without warning. Aslan taught me that. Despite his fearsome appearance, Aslan is very affectionate and loves everyone. He only attacks the electrician. Judge for yourselves. An electrician is a person who comes to demand money for electricity. And money is the little pieces of paper they buy our food with. So it turns out the electrician is trying to deprive us of food.

But I really did stop attacking everyone else. And that is very good. There is one story that still torments me.

Once some two-legged children came with their parents. I went up to a little two-legged one and nipped his bottom. As a precaution. He had a branch in his hands, and I didn’t know what he was going to do with it. He cried, his mother came running, uncovered his bottom, said it was just a scratch, and that it was his own fault, he had probably hit me with a stick. Because all the dogs here were very sweet, and none of them would bite him for no reason. The boy cried and kept saying he hadn’t done anything, but his mother didn’t believe him. She even stroked me and apologised. I really am very ashamed of that story.

***

In summer I moved again. Two-legged ones kept coming—for therapy and to visit—opening and closing the door, and I would run out into the sun. I moved back into the stable, into a horse’s room—a stall. The little window was covered with cardboard, and the stall was dim during the day.

To keep the film from growing, I needed medicine dropped into my eyes all the time. Which, as you remember, wasn’t sold in Armenia. Marianna and Mary—two wonderful two-legged sisters—always found a way to send or bring me this medicine from a city called Moscow. They had a dog with the same illness as me and knew how important this medicine was.

***

One important thing happened that year. Mihran and I became friends. I stopped attacking him, and he came to respect me for being so strong.

In winter we had an epidemic—that is when everyone gets the same illness at the same time. It was called kennel cough. All the dogs coughed without stopping. Aslan and I were taken to Mihran to find out what we had. Me—because I was the sickest of all, and Aslan because we could travel very well in the car together.

Mihran prescribed treatment: pills and shots. He warned that treatment could take a long time, and that death was also likely. He looked at me as he said it. But I wasn’t going to give in to some cough. We had survived worse than that.

Every day Hasmik and Raffi filled 36 syringes with yellowish liquid and got a heap of pills for everyone, and went to the enclosures to treat us. Raffi is a two-legged one who lives in Ushi and helps us a lot. I never attacked him, even in my angriest periods. Raffi isn’t afraid of me. He isn’t afraid of anything at all, except “falling behind the fashions”. I don’t know what that means, that is what Hasmik says about him.

Some dogs didn’t want treatment, spat out their pills and raced all around the enclosure at the sight of a syringe. But I dutifully took all my medicine, and little by little the pus-filled snot stopped dripping from my nostrils, and my lungs cleared.

When we went to Mihran again, I wasn’t coughing at all any more. That was when Mihran said I was very strong and looked likely to survive anything. And stroked me. And for the first time didn’t put a muzzle on me. Well, I licked his hand. This two-legged one had saved my life so many times by now that it was time to forgive him for his earlier attempts to put me to sleep.

Life Six: Meningitis

I love spring. In spring there are lots of puddles to splash through. I really like getting myself filthy—with mud or cow dung, for example. In early and mid-spring it is often cloudy, and then I am allowed outside during the day too.

That spring Hasmik went away. On the first holiday of her life, she said. That is when you go far away from your usual life for a while, so you can miss it and love it again. No, Hasmik hadn’t stopped loving us. She was just tired of yelling at us and needed a rest.

Of course I missed her. But on the other hand, you could cover yourself in anything you liked, and no one shouted at you. Anna stayed with us, and she forgives us everything.

***

I don’t remember that day very well. Or the next few days either. The last thing I remember is that it was a nice day, the sun wasn’t too hot, and I went for a long walk and got vitamins from the sun.

The next day the volunteer Marietta came up to my stall and screamed. Anna came running at her scream and saw me lying in the stall with my body motionless and my head jerking from side to side in convulsions.

I was taken to Mihran immediately. It turned out I had acute cerebral meningitis. That is when your head gets inflamed, and you are somehow not here. My liver was also badly damaged. Mihran said I had practically no chance. If it hadn’t been for Anna, this time he would definitely have put me to sleep.

I learnt this, and everything that happened afterwards, later, from Anna’s stories. At the time I couldn’t make sense of anything. Anna took me to her mother’s, to a place with lots of other dogs. For the first two days I lay without moving and wheezed as though I were dying. Didn’t eat or drink. Aida came, but I didn’t even notice her. Mihran prescribed medicine, and Anna called him ten times a day. Mihran said I was suffering, and that it needed to stop.

On the third day I lapped some water. Tried to stand up, but fell. The next day I managed to stand and take a couple of steps. My head felt as though it were in a fog. It seemed as though pain was squeezing it from the outside. Anna’s mother was holding a piece of bread. I went up and sniffed it. Of course everyone cried with joy. But Mihran still didn’t believe anything would come of it. I don’t blame him. I think, for the first time, I wouldn’t have minded being put to sleep myself, if only that hellish pain would stop.

I started getting better, but then my condition took a sharp turn for the worse. So much so that Anna thought I might die and she needed to write to Hasmik.

***

Hasmik hitchhiked back from her holiday with two volunteers, picking up a dog with broken hind legs and a little swift with an injured wing on the way. She doesn’t need to do anything any more: all these sick and unfortunate creatures find her themselves.

When Hasmik lowered herself to the ground in front of me, I almost bit her. It took me about 20 minutes to recognise her. I told you, my head wasn’t in the right place. I must have looked awful, because Hasmik cried and cried. And asked me to forgive her for something. And said that for the first time she understood Mihran’s wish to put me to sleep.

But I pulled through again. They kept treating me with shots and pills, strictly by the clock. I lived in the house again, sometimes pooped and peed there too, but Hasmik no longer shouted. She must have been terribly frightened at nearly losing me.

I had lost a lot of weight, my legs hurt from the shots, my coordination couldn’t have been worse, but I survived. Now I stagger a little more than before the illness, sometimes shake my head. Sometimes I attack a dog and afterwards don’t understand why myself.

But otherwise life started getting better. I became very good friends with a new volunteer, Fyodor. I go up to him and offer my neck for him to scratch. Close my eyes and enjoy it. Out of habit I growl at everyone who comes into the house, but I also calm down quickly and let them stroke me. Hasmik says that along with useful things, meningitis took away a good portion of my nastiness.

Life Seven: Life

I like lying in the sun and squinting. The volunteer Hans brought me special glasses from Germany for dogs with the same eyesight problem as mine.

My rescuing trio—Hasmik, Anna and Aida—discussed Optimmune for many days and decided it wasn’t right to keep me on this medicine for my whole life, because it surely had lots of side effects. That is when a medicine treats one problem but causes others. Glasses would be better, they decided. I don’t like the glasses and try to take them off. But at least in them I can get vitamins from the sun.

I tilt my head to one side so I can focus and see. Hasmik says I look like a learned thrush that way. I don’t know what that is; I hope it is something good.

***

I live sometimes in the stable, sometimes in the house. Now a wound has opened up on my thigh, and no one can understand why. They smear smelly ointment on it and put a collar on me. It is a sort of cone that goes around my neck and stops my mouth reaching the wound. These two-legged ones do love putting all sorts of things on me. I fight the collar too, have even torn it in several places, but so far it is holding firm.

We often walk in the fields. The others run, but I can’t run fast or for long. I fall behind. Hasmik stops and waits for me. And encourages me.

***

Almost all the two-legged ones who come to visit start feeling sorry for me. For many of them, if you aren’t their idea of a happy creature, they need to look at you and cry. The two-legged ones really love the word “happiness” in general. But I think they have no idea what it is. They also love talking about us dogs as though they had been in our skins and knew everything, everything, everything about our feelings, wishes and that same happiness.

Once a two-legged one came with her dog. This was a little dog. Her hair was pulled tight with little bows. She wanted to run and play with the others, but the two-legged one quickly picked her up and said her girl never got off the sofa at home, and she didn’t want her getting dirty. And that it hurt her, and she couldn’t bear to look at me. And called me unhappy. I don’t know. If I were trussed up with little bows and not allowed off the sofa… Well, what sort of happy life is that?

***

Throughout my life many two-legged ones have said you shouldn’t spend so much effort and money on one dog when you could spend it on lots of others. And that I should have been put to sleep. Money, remember, is those little pieces of paper that matter so much to the two-legged ones. They exchange them for food and medicine, for example. Hasmik says one life is just as important as several lives. But I understand the other two-legged ones’ point of view too. Apparently there aren’t all that many of these little pieces of paper in the world, and not enough to go round.

I am glad they didn’t put me to sleep. That I live. Run. Roll in horse manure. Sleep on soft, warm hay that smells of thyme. I like tilting my head back to have my neck scratched. Going for long walks in the fields. Squinting in the sun. Gnawing a bone. Chasing Picasso the cat, who is always trying to get under my tail and have a sniff. I adore running off and feasting on all sorts of tasty things from the rubbish dump. The main thing is to cover all my tracks before coming back, so Hasmik won’t shout.

To me, it doesn’t matter much how you walk or see. What is truly frightening is being needed by no one. There are lots of dogs, and two-legged ones too, who have everything in its place, but no one cares about them. I think there is something more important than this money. Dogs, two-legged ones and everyone else simply need to be loved. Unlike little pieces of paper, there is plenty of love and enough for everyone. But I don’t claim to be absolutely right about this. It is only the humble opinion of a dog who has been through a lot and survived precisely because of love.

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