Pavlov's Dog

Misha is a tiny puppy when Vladimir Durov starts training her as part of his troupe at the prestigious Salamonsky Circus in Moscow. She quickly becomes an audience sensation for her comic turns, her tightrope skills and her ability to count. On an illicit outing one day, she gets lost and begins a solo adventure that will take her more than 400 miles north to St Petersburg. Along the way, she witnesses the coronation of Tsar Nikolai II, is adopted by two down-and-outs, has her heart broken by a young boy, joins burlaks on a river-barge, jumps a freight-train and stays in a brothel. She learns when to display her circus tricks in order to get food from humans - and when to seem entirely ordinary. But what awaits her in St Petersburg is not the realisation of her dream of going away to sea, with the wind in her ears and a dashing red scarf around her neck, but something much darker; something that she fears she may not survive.