Guess who’s One

Today is Laika’s first birthday. There have been many, many times when I wondered if we’d make it this far. There have been threats of leaving her out on the street or returning her to the pet market; there have been near-misses by Ukrainian drivers (which typically means it was a near-miss for me as well); and there was the terrible day that she made a break for it so that the entire neighborhood could see her crazy American owner running around the park screaming for her for over half an hour.

But there have also been the snuggly times (okay, these are pretty few and far between, but that just makes them more special); there’s the look on her face when she admits that she loves us; there’s the funny little snort that she makes when she is so frustrated with us, but we just giggle; and there’s her elusive tail wag that makes us shout “look at her tail!”

This is a video that I shot a few months ago and used some spiffy software to put together in montage format. It makes us giggle every time we watch it. Laika’s playing with her favorite toy - a stuffed sheep that we bought at a market the week after we got her and promptly named Wooley. He’s looking a little worn at this point, and we’re worried about what we’re going to do if he ever completely wears out because she is absolutely in love with him. Anyway, you’ll see that the video is very touching (the music and slow motion helps), but the really funny part is that in real time, she’s flinging him around by the neck as if she’s trying to kill him. This is how she shows her love, you see.