The story of a little ginger puppy girl named Suri. Yelena Dovjique

sometimes fluffy. Suri was highly disappointed.

      “Mom!” Once, it all got to be too much for Suri, and she ran to complain to her mother. “Mom! This is very unfair!”

      “What is unfair, my baby?” Mom looked at her daughter in surprise.

      “It’s not fair that I am like this!” Suri cried.

      “Like what?” Mom was completely at a loss.

      “Well, this… ugly.” Suri lowered her head so that her mother would not see her tears, but a trembling voice betrayed her. “You and grandma are so beautiful! And I thought I would be like you! Dad is also handsome, and my brothers take after him. But I…” Suri buried her nose in her mother’s neck. “I don’t look like anyone. I’m like some kind of shaggy branch.”

      “My silly thing,” mom gently pressed her muzzle to Suri. “What a fool you are! You are exceptionally beautiful!”

      “Not true,” Suri sniffed, but she still looked at her mother with hope.

      “It is the truth! So beautiful! And you will become even more beautiful,” mom winked.

      “How do you know?” Suri narrowed her eyes.

      “Because I myself was a ‘shaggy branch’ at your age,” mom laughed. “That’s right, and I too, would run to complain to my mother, Granny Pea!”

      “Really?” Suri brushed away the remnants of her tears and her eyes sparkled with joy. “So, I will soon become as beautiful as you and grandma?”

      “Well, I can’t say it will be soon, but in a year you definitely will!”

      “A year is a long time!” Suri pretended to be outraged, but in fact she was ecstatic.

      The world around Suri also began to change. The nights were longer and cooler. The grass was no longer as soft as at the beginning of summer – it turned yellow and became tough. Thorns and thistles appeared everywhere, which clung to the fur, burrowed deep into it, and stuck fast. One had to constantly pull them out with the teeth. Suri found it terribly annoying. She even tried rolling and writhing around on the grass, thinking that by doing this the thorns would fall off faster, but all she succeeded in doing was sticking them to herself even more firmly.

      The worst thing was when thorns clung to her fur. Smooth-haired dad and her brothers had no idea how troublesome this was. Mom and grandmother walked very carefully and tried not to go near the tall grass and bushes. But Suri’s curiosity often got the better of her, and she was constantly forgetting about the thorns as she ran through the bushes with joy, catching lizards and grasshoppers. She paid the price afterwards, though, laying down in front of her mother or grandmother and enduring the tedious process of them pulling all of the nasty invaders out of her fur.

      It is worth relaying a couple of stories about grasshoppers. By the end of the summer, Suri discovered that she, too, could hunt and forage. Of course, mom and dad brought food, but the puppies had grown so much that there was not enough of it for everyone. One day Suri noticed something small, something jumping. It leaped so swiftly and so far that none of the puppies could catch it. They all would run after the little jumpers, snapping their jaws loudly, but nothing came of it. The grasshoppers dodged them deftly and hid in the dry grass.

      Then Suri decided to try another method. She moved away from the noisy flock of puppies and began to look closely at an especially large grasshopper that jumped on a nearby blade of grass. Suri froze, then approached it, ever so quietly, so that the grasshopper did not notice her. Suddenly, she jumped on it. Crushing it with her front paws and sticking up her behind and wagging tail in a comical fashion. It turned out to be very effective! Suri was quick to bury her nose between her paws and munch on her prey. The grasshopper was delicious!

      If Suri had not been so hungry, she probably would not have eaten them, but instead just played with the jumping creatures, trying to catch up with them and outsmart them. But a fast-growing puppy needs a lot of food, and although mom and dad always shared the booty with everyone, the portions turned out to be small. So Suri was happy to run and jump this way and that, all across the clearing, catching grasshoppers with her little paws. Finally, she had plenty to eat!

      Of course, she shared her hunting secret with the other puppies. However, none of them had Suri’s skill, and the grasshoppers would still escape from them. Suri began to catch them for her brothers and friends. How grateful they were to her! For the puppies, grasshoppers were probably as much of a delicacy as ripe berries are for children. Everyone began to call Suri a hunter. Suri herself was very proud that she, the smallest one in the pack, could help and feed others just like an adult dog.

      As the nights grew colder, the trees around them began to change.

      “Grandma, what happened to the leaves?” Suri looked in amazement at her and her grandmother’s beloved tree. “They’ve become kind of strange!”

      “They’ve just turned yellow. That’s what happens in the fall,” Grandma replied. “Then they will begin to tumble from the trees and spin ever so beautifully to the ground. You can run after them and try to catch them before they land!”

      “Will the trees be completely bare?” Suri was not the least bit keen on this prospect. “And how are we going to lie down together in the shade?”

      Granny Pea sighed.

      “Suri, you don’t need shade in winter. It will be cold, and we will need to seek out every ray of sunshine to keep warm. But don’t think about that now,” said Granny Pea, noticing that Suri was looking increasingly puzzled. “Winter is not yet here, and it is not too cold to go play with your brothers!”