Alyonka: The Story of the Cinnamon Bun and the Three-Headed Dragon

In the looking-glass chronicles of our Home, three names keep coming up: Alyonka, Bagheera, and Bibisechka. For anyone discovering this site and stepping over the threshold of our manifesto for the first time, it’s time to tell the first three, foundational stories about those without whom these walls would be nothing more than a cold antique museum.

And we’ll start with Alyonka — our Cinnamon Bun.

🌹 A Forbidden Petal from the Pet Shop

This happened back in the days when pet shops were still allowed to sell animals out of cramped plastic boxes. Mom and her youngest son, out looking for pretty beds and treats for their beloved dogs, visited one such pet shop. But for Mom’s heart, visits like that are a high-risk zone. It’s always an emotional wound: she feels desperately sorry for every animal, wants to hug and take each one home right that second. Two previous trips had already ended in the happy rescue of puppies (we’ve mentioned one of them before). This day was no exception.

In one of the plastic boxes sat a creature of indeterminate breed and a wonderful cinnamon color. The little girl’s ears were curled tightly back, like rose petals. She was cheerful, spirited, barking desperately and begging to be let out.

Mom — who has an eye for these things, knows her breeds, and was already raising a beloved chihuahua at home — asked the seller what breed the puppy was, since it was obvious to her the pedigree here wasn’t exactly pristine. The seller answered with total confidence: “French Bulldog!” “She’s a bulldog-chihuahua mix,” Mom stated flatly. The seller sighed and agreed. And selling mixed breeds in pet shops was strictly forbidden.

The cinnamon girl with the petal ears wouldn’t leave Mom’s worried mind. The next day, Mom went back “just to look” at the puppy — but she picked her up, and in our Home that means a hundred-percent, irreversible rescue. The little dog was noticeably weaker by then, a bit listless. The move still needed approval from the family and the other dogs. Getting everyone on board didn’t go entirely smoothly, but Mom’s intuition kept pulling her forward. On the third day, with a nagging worry she couldn’t shake, Mom drove back out to that faraway pet shop. The puppy was clearly sick by then — listless, with a high fever. They drove straight home.

🚿 Brown Grime and the Alpha Quarantine

While waiting for the family vet, the newest member of the household needed at least a wash and a look-over. An endless stream of strange brown grime kept running off the little dog, and it wouldn’t stop. The kids came home from school, and a full-scale rescue operation began: bathing the girl together, wrapping her in towels, drying her, dressing her.

The horror surfaced in the first few hours, when Mom lay down on the bed with the puppy. Enormous insects were found on her tiny body — they were literally eating the baby alive, and that “brown grime” turned out to be her own dried blood.

The vet who came arrived, ran tests, and confirmed the worst: the puppy was seriously ill, riddled with all sorts of things, including simple parasites that can easily infect humans too. Luckily, careful, ever-worried Mom had immediately put the new dog into strict quarantine in her own bedroom. Though Mom herself fell ill too — denying herself the pleasure of kissing a tiny rescued puppy on the nose was simply beyond human willpower. Our vet laughed for a long time back then, writing out identical prescriptions for the bedroom’s two main patients. In the language of dog breeding, it all lined up perfectly: Mom, too, could be called the Home’s “top bitch” — in the most noble, pack-leader sense of the word. A strong, inconvenient, difficult Alpha who keeps discipline, listens to no one, and fiercely protects her own. They both recovered. And became best friends. Mom named Alyonka: “My cinnamon bun.”

🥿 The Architect of Order and the Rose Garden

The Bun grew up, mastering the bedroom, the stairs, the house, the garden, and… Mom’s shoes! She turned out to be a true connoisseur of high fashion: she developed a deep love of expensive shoes — the pricier, the tastier. And Alyonka always needed just one shoe from each pair. She would carefully carry a single shoe out to the garden, chew it there with total abandon, and hide it in the grass. Mom lost quite a lot of footwear this way, but gained, in return, a whole new model of order — no shoes are ever left out in the open in our Home anymore. Heels and leather retreated behind cabinet doors, giving way to minimalism.

Alyonka made friends easily with the other dogs; their little pack grew stronger and gained a sisterly sense of care and control. Like a proper girl, she checked on everyone, organized everyone, looked after Antoshka and Malka, tenderly licking each of them in turn. The three of them were a wonderful, inseparable trio. True, fearless guardians of the Home!

And in the rose garden, the Cinnamon Bun worked hard helping Mom: digging and digging, burying and burying, snipping roses — an excellent pastime, in her opinion. She loved rose petals with her whole soul (those petal ears explain a lot), and she also adored playing with food and the garden hose. A funny, fearless little one. The three of them always went everywhere together. Like three heads of one household dragon.

Time in our Home flows by its own, looking-glass rules. Today, Antoshka — our little silver bell — and faithful Malka have already crossed the rainbow bridge at a venerable old age. Of that mighty three-headed dragon, only Alyonka remains in the Home. From a funny, grubby puppy with rose-petal ears, she has become the chief, wise keeper of its analog warmth.

As our 23-year-old Mishka well remembers, Alyonka now sleeps, by full right, on the big master bed. She no longer hides shoes in the garden, but she still keeps a watchful guard over the peace of the dining room, greets us by the four-meter table, and listens to the quiet ticking of the old, carefully wrapped Flemish clock. The dragon hasn’t vanished — its faithful heart still beats inside our Cinnamon Bun.

And the story of my dogs will continue…