Baika
I was born an unwanted puppy in Siberia . Some really bad stuff happened in the first few days of my life that broke my jaw and gave me a scar above my eye. But I’d rather not talk about that. Then everything changed when Tatyana found me in Irkutsk , a Siberian city near Lake Baikal . I remember being in a cardboard box at the bottom of a pile of other unwanted puppies when someone picked me up and handed me over to Tatyana. I was just two weeks old at the time so I don’t remember much, but I remember being scared and shivering all the way home as she carried me back to her hotel room. She named me “Baika” after Lake Baikal . Her roommate at the hotel thought she should name me “Angara” after the river that empties into Baikal, but I’m happy she didn’t go with that.
The next day I took my first flight all the way to Moscow . Tatyana tried to sneak me on board, but wouldn’t you know it, I had to poop right as we were passing through security so I started screaming and squirming. So Tatyana was faced with the choice of getting on the plane and leaving me in Irkutsk or finding something to put me in and check me during the flight. Somehow, somewhere in the airport she found a cardboard box, made holes in it with her Swiss Army Knife, and lined it with a t-shirt of hers. In I went…for the next six hours.
When we arrived in Moscow, Tatyana wouldn’t leave the plane until they got me out of the cargo hold. Phew! That flight really sucked. I shivered again for the next two hours, but finally I fell asleep in Tatyana’s arms on the metro.
In Moscow, the real fun started…de-worming, housebreaking, eating solid food, and vaccinations.
And then we were back on a plane again…this time to New Jersey ! And then again…to California ! We lived in Berkeley for the next three years, which was okay but Tatyana made me hike every day. I like the views a lot, but don’t love the hiking up hills as much as she does.
Then I moved to New Jersey to live with Alex and grandma for a while. I love New Jersey. There’s so much good food there, air conditioning in the summertime, and snow to play in in the wintertime.
Now we live in San Francisco with Peter. Peter’s awesome and San Francisco is pretty nice. Peter takes me on walks and feeds me stuff like roast beef (which Tatyana never had in the house when we lived in Berkeley ). Sometimes I get to come to work with Tatyana, which is really fun for the first four hours, but after lunch it gets really boring and I can’t wait to go home. When I stay home, I stay busy by sitting on the ottoman under the window and barking at strangers that walk by on the street. I also try to find socks to steal, but they’re on to me and most days I don’t get any.
