If you followed Rog’s link in his last post, you’ll have seen that to get a rented place in San Francisco, you need a doggy resumé. I had a go at adapting the one shown for one of our dogs - guess which.

DOG RESUME
Rover

Description: Rover is a genocidal, large dog who will not hesitate to use his teeth on guests. He is a 5 year old 40kg Black Russian terrier who is immature, excitable and highly-strung. We have had Rover for five years, and he is a cherished member of our family, but we’ve still not managed to train him out of biting guests and menacing Roger’s mother. If you have any questions about our dog, please ask the last victim, now in hospital in Kiev.

Health/Grooming: Rover is neutered, which hasn’t benefited his behaviour one jot. He regularly picks up fleas, which we don’t always notice straight away. In fact, we often only notice when he starts throwing up on our landlord’s carpets. We brush Rover when there’s an R in the month - why bother when he moults regularly on all the furniture he lies on? We have him professionally groomed biannually if we can find someone with good insurance. Rover is kept up-to-date on all vaccinations (we wouldn’t want such a paragon of doggie virtues to snuff it).

Activities: We walk Rover three times a day, and go to one of the Kiev’s many off-leash areas for more vigorous exercise at least twice a week. Rover’s behaviour on and off-leash is poor. On-leash, he tugs like a traction engine to get closer to small dogs and kill them. Off-leash he menaces small children with food, chases smaller dogs, larger dogs, horses and sometimes cars. He loves the beach, and friends often beg us to leave him at home. These activities satisfy Rover’s exercise requirements, and he is calm and content relaxing indoors while we are away at work. (Sadly, this is not true of our other dog, Roveretta, who is great with people, but so nervous of being left alone that she scratches the doors down in a blind panic when we go out.)

About us: As dog owners, we always try to act responsibly. We have taken three classes on dog behavior, had a vet psychologist to visit us, and hired an ex-Ukrainian army dog teacher to beat Rover into submission, er, we mean train Rover. We always clean up after our dog, and we arrange for reliable pet care if we are going away. We are so sure Rover will be a “good tenant,” we are willing to put up an additional security deposit of $1,000,000. We are committed to responsible, caring pet ownership - if only our pets were committed to responsible people ownership in return.

References: Our current landlord has just died. Other letters of recommendation were lost in transit when we moved to Ukraine.

We would be happy to have a potential landlord meet Rover, so long as he took out personal medical insurance and wore protective clothing.

Before we move to the US, we need to find a place to live. Ravening hounds are not welcome in rented houses. If you want to buy a house you have to see it first. If you want to see a house you have to go to the US. If you want to go to the US, you shouldn’t put your passport thought the hot wash.

Another year, another blog.

We decided to ditch the old blog and didn’t get round to setting up its replacement until now. Hope you like it.

We’ve moved to a new blog because the readership had got pretty bored, specifically it included a lot of people at my office who don’t actually know I’m moving to the US yet. Oh yeah, that’s the reason behind all the San Francisco references. The point of this blog is to document the next stage in out journey. Our time in the snowy wastes is nearly over and we’re off to sunnier climes.