odin has a favorite book called "three questions" which is a children's adaptation of "three questions" by leo tolstoy. in the book, a boy named nikolai which has a dog named pushkin and lately odin been telling us that he'd like to have a dog named pushkin. so, after some deliberation we decided to grant his wish and went to a local animal shelter and collectively fell in love with a 1.5 year-old bernese mountain dog/labrador retriever mix who shall forevermore be called, not surprisingly, pushkin.

soon after getting home, pushkin, got a bath ( in process in this photo ) :-)

without going into the details pushkin was severely abused as puppy by his first owner, but was loved by his second owner before he was taken to the shelter due to "lifestyle changes". he's smart and obedient and loves getting big hugs from odin. we trust he'll be a happy member of our family for a long, long time to come.

all this, of course, begs the question - where's mauja? well, there's no easy way to break the news but after living a decade, about the average lifespan for a large-breed alaskan malamute, mauja is now running around in doggie heaven, free of the pain of the hip dysplasia that afflicted him since he was 9 months old. the veterinary surgeon who operated on him when he was 9 months old said he would probably be lucky to live until he was 4 or 5 years old. we couldn't feel more fortunate that mauja proved him wrong and provided us all with many years of happiness.

mauja passed away last spring and we decided to keep it private, not knowing quite how to convey the news to his legions of fans during what was obviously a difficult time for us.

so, join us in welcoming a new friend, while remembering fondly an old, dear one.

oh, while sir moo moo is somewhat indifferent to the newest member of the family, truck is a little more vocal in her unhappiness ( which is odd since she got along with mauja and pushkin doesn't seem particularly interested in her ). hopefully cat and dog will be living in harmony soon :-)