Guess: What do you mean, we’re going hunting tomorrow. Aren’t you excited? No more of
this undesirable dullness and misfortune.
Squeezer: Oh, you silly beat. Have you not gotten it through your gnarly muzzle yet? All
those kids care about it competing with one another. You and I are only props in their
competitive game for respect and their father’s attention. It has created quite a sibling
rivalry.
Guess: That’s not true! Lomov adores me!
Squeezer: Lomov adores you when you’re in his line of sight. Afterwards you are
completely forgotten. A figment of your past, of your glory. He remembers you as the
glorious dog you were. Not as you now are.
Guess: I’ll show you. Those kids will take us hunting and I will win both of their hearts. I will
bring back the juiciest fowl this side of the Ural Mountains.
Squeezer: Sigh, I will allow you to bathe in disappointment my dear old friend. I hope your
heart can take it. It would be very lonely out here without you.

Lomov: You take that back! My dog could best your dog any day of the week. He’s lost a
big of speed but still more nimble than your fleabag
and could still hunt like the grace of a
cheetah.
Natalya: Oh my! Such fantasies. Did you not grow out of those as a young boy?
Lomov: Shall we make a wager? Perhaps you should hunt with Father and I tomorrow.
We’ll take Squeezer and Guess along and whoever bags the biggest duck wins.
Natalya: Such envy of my lovable little Squeezer. He shall trounce this sorry excuse any
day of the week. Isn’t that right, Squeezer?
Natalya rubs Squeezer’s chin and Lomov follows suit in a tryst of competition to see who
can show their own dog more affection and attention.
CHUBUKOV yells from a distance. The words are inaudible but it is surely a command.
Lomov and Natalya abruptly stop showering the dogs with affection and run off towards
the barn door. The pair jostles for order all the way back to the house.
Squeezer: Well, it was nice while it lasted.

THIS PAGE CREATED FROM SCRATCH TO FIX PREVIOUS ART ERROR: NATALYA HATES THE WRONG DOG

Natalya gets up and does a little dance around Squeezer while constantly repeating the
word rubbish.

She strolls over to Squeezer and strokes the matted hair of the dog, resting her
hand upon his back.
Natalya: You’re such a good boy. Much better than this rubbish lying next to you.
Lomov: Watch it! Why do you have to speak so harshly around Guess?
Natalya: What does it matter? He probably can’t hear me anyway. That hound is nothing
more than a pile of rubbish. RUBBISH. RUBBISH RUBBISH.
Natalya gets up and does a little dance around Squeezer while constantly repeating the
word rubbish.

Guess: I loved chasing the geese around the park. That was my favorite thing about youth.
Now I would simply be kicked and shoed away.
Squeezer: Well, could be the fault of the fleas or maybe the stench.
Lomov walks into the barn carrying two dishes of gruel. He plops one down in front of
Guess and the other in front of Squeezer. Squeezer, ever acting the part of a noble, perks
his own head up and sniffs the gruel. It’s a revolting smell but covers the tummy ridden
with malnutrition quite adequately. The struggle will last another day.
Lomov walks over to Guess and scratches behind his ears.
Lomov: Eat up, old man. You’ll need your strength. Father says we may go hunting
tomorrow and I thought you might like to tagalong.
Guess’s ears perk up at the words “tagalong”.
Squeezer: don’t get too excited. Maybe it’s just time to put you out of your misery.
Guess: Not now, you old geezer. Can’t you see that our family really does care? Even in
our fading years they still wish to share moments of their own life with us. That is loyalty.
Squeezer laps up the remnants of his dish as NATALYA STEPANOVNA enters the
barn.

Squeezer: Your name is guess for a reason.
Guess: And what might that reason be, your highness?
Squeezer: Guess?
Guess: What a riot you are in your old age. You’re lucky to have not been subjected to the
slaughterhouse or an oriental market in downtown Moscow.
Squeezer: I am a pedigree!
Guess: Pedigree’s make the best glue.
Squeezer gives up and rests his head down on his paw. He is weary and famished. He
cares not about the argument with Guess. This is a daily routine. The constant belittling
keeps their wits sharp and passes the time. Squeezer simply cares about the dinner
bowl.
Guess: What I wouldn’t give to lie upon Lomov’s crotch right now. Tis a shame we are
housed in this insulting tenement.
Squeezer: NATALYA STEPANOVNA’s crotch is much better and has more of a pleasant
smell. However, I’m with you. This building is not suitable for someone with such pedigree.
My mother would dig up her own grave if she could see me now. Oh, woe is that poor bitch!

A pair of old racing hounds lies in wait, comparable to a catatonic stasis, within a
dilapidated barn on the outskirts of an impoverished Russian village. The dogs are
awaiting a meager portion of daily gruel. In the old days, when the dogs had run races of
glory in the streets of Moscow, the dishes were filled to the brim with luscious meats
overflowing with frothy gravy.
The dogs were useless now. The racing world had left them out to pasture to rot and die.
The buzzards would have to hold off on pecking at their carcass. The dogs were adopted
by an overzealous family. The family argued all day long about who was the better dog;
but both dogs knew that the truth was they were equally lame.
Squeezer: Tis a miserable existence, for sure. At least your family lineage has prepared
you for such destitution.
Squeezer licks the bottom of his paw; providing an air of pretentious around his
character. The paw drops right back down upon the dirt floor. Squeezer keeps his head
up high while chatting with Guess.
Guess: What’s that supposed to mean? You and I ran the same tracks, smelled the same
bitches and urinated on the shoes of the same servants.