Shark

Once in the USSR, I spent almost three summer months on an expedition in the steppes of Kyrgyzstan. There I had a little puppy.

Members of the expedition: drillers and geodesists, lived in square bresent soldier tents. We slept on iron soldiers' beds with springs in cotton sleeping bags with valves and with clamps-tailers-trees.

Workers were soldiers of the building in the number of ten people with a senior headed. They lived in a large ten-bed tent that even had windows. In case of bad weather, there was a stove in the tent. Every morning after breakfast, the people in two trucks traveled around the steppe. They were engaged in drilling wells, filming the terrain, and only by evening everyone was finally gathered in the tent camp. And so every day.

The puppy

Since we had two cars (GAZ-51 and ZIL-130), the people could afford on Saturday or Sunday to go to the nearest village to a club, where you could watch a movie, and then stay to dance. Our soldiers were especially pleased with this event.

And here, on one of the weekends, the desired people went by car to the village, and I went with a wheelchair to the arak, where the karashi were conducted. It was already dark when our travellers returned. In the hands of one of the soldiers, I saw a soldier’s panama, from which something white and eary came out. It turned out to be a cute little, white but dirty puppy.

It turned out that the puppy was asked by a hostess for me on the condition that it would be returned at the end of the summer. The puppy was dirty and flea, but we washed it with shampoo and it became clean and white. The fleas themselves died from this shampoo.

Sharrik

There was a thin puppy, but we put him on pleasure, and in a few days he wore off on a soldier’s sausage and canned so that he became like a round white ball. I called him Ball. Ballick turned out to be a good companion who painted the uniformity of the days, as well as a good guard who driven away from my tent all the vitality.

One day I heard his swirling loud voice near the entrance to the tent. I approach and see that it is he lying on the snake, jumping back every time the snake begins to whisper and try to bite him. I had to say the serpent kiss, and she stumbled. Shrek slept with me. Since the nights were cold, he walked up to me in the sleeping bag, and out there was only his black nose.

The summer season is over. It is time to go home. Over the summer, Shark grew up and no longer looked like a little puppy. As we did not make friends with him, I could not take him with me, I had to return him to his mistress.

Legs on Shoulders

So it happened that a few years later I got to the same village where we went to the club in the summer and from where I got the puppy Sharik. I walked around the village with my backpack, heading to the car, which was waiting for me on the outskirts, as I suddenly saw that from the nearest courtyard to me from all the feet carries a large dog. I only had time to think, “Well, all, the writer,” and she sticks my legs on my shoulders and begins to lick my face...