The Dogs of San Francisco

Mishka is a 5-month-old husky German shepherd (and supposedly Great Pyrenees??) mix with the nickname (and Instagram page) of ‘little bear,’ @lilbearmishka. They claim that it’s because Mishka means bear, but I think they have it a little backwards: actually there was a bear, the mascot of the Soviet Olympic Games back in the 80s, who was named Mishka, but ‘Mishka’ actually means something like ‘little [female] mousie’ in Russian. ‘Mish’ is mouse, -ka is the feminine diminutive ending. If he were a little boy mouse he’d be Mishok.

Yes, I took Russian in high school. And in college. And this is about the most use I’ve gotten out of it in at least a couple of years. And I can’t believe I remember diminutive endings but not, say, more than 100 words of vocabulary. One of which, apparently, is ‘mouse’.

Anyway I love the name ‘little mousie’ for this dog, so this all works for me.

Mishka lives right near me. I’m looking forward to seeing how big she gets!