Our Kind of Dog

Daddy, is the dog also Jewish?

The Conduit and Shvambraniya

After the war, the victors brought from Germany, along with other symbols of the good life, one hitherto unknown in the USSR, pure-bred dogs with impeccable pedigrees. But when my grandfather went to register his exquisitely pure-bred German trophy spaniel, he was told, “German spaniel? Are you crazy? We just don’t have the right to put down such a breed. Pedigree? So what? Spaniel is OK, but Russian, not German.”

That outstanding dog sired more than one generation of Russian spaniels... But when a few years ago we wanted to register another descendant of the glorious breed, we were told, “Russian spaniel? Are you crazy? There can be no question of such a breed! Just look at this, they’ve Russified even dogs! Pedigree? So what? First, not pedigree but genealogy, and second, Ukrainian spaniel, not Russian!

They put it down exactly like this: “Breed — Ukrainian spaniel.”

Look at our dogs. They are beautiful, clever, kind, faithful, delicate, quick-witted, undemanding, and ever so patient! In a word, a whole list of the distinctive features of a real Ukrainian. So, I guess it would be fair to write in the passports of our dogs simply “Ukrainian dog” instead of such things as Mastiff or Deutsch-Drahthaar.

For even if a dog is a mongrel but survives in our conditions, this means it is a true Ukrainian like all of us (those who survive, of course). If only we could have four paws to steady ourselves and a little fur to keep the frost off (and a tail to look nice), there would be no nation in the world that could equal our vitality.