The Formula of Kindness: Adventures of an Extraordinary Dog

Mikhail Samarsky

Trison, a golden Labrador retriever trained as a guide dog, returns to tell the story of what happened after A Rainbow for a Friend. His former companion Sasha, a boy blinded in the accident that killed his father, has regained his sight. Their separation was painful but necessary: Trison’s training and experience are needed by someone who cannot see. The Labrador accepts this duty with pride. What he does not yet know is that his next adventures will test not only his professional skill but his understanding of kindness, loyalty and the sometimes bewildering nature of human beings.

His first new assignment is to Anna Igorevna Krivosheeva, a blind author living with her husband Konstantin and their daughter Masha. Anna lost her sight after a devastating gas explosion at a friend’s apartment. Her life has nevertheless remained full of books, conversations and work. Guided by Trison, she grows more confident and ventures increasingly far from home. The family welcomes the dog as one of their own. He listens to Anna dictate her stories, enjoys Masha’s affection and exchanges comically exasperated observations with the household cat, Kisulya. Even here, where he is so well loved, his courage is tested: when Kisulya becomes stranded in a tree, Trison helps rescue her and badly injures his leg in the process. Anna’s household offers him warmth and dignity, but it is not a permanent refuge. When she moves abroad, Trison returns to the guide-dog school to await another assignment.

His next companion is Polina Foteevna Ivakhnik, an elderly blind woman whose troubled life could hardly be further removed from Anna’s. Isolated and dependent on alcohol, Polina neglects both herself and the dog entrusted to her. She forgets to feed or groom him properly, sometimes leaves his working harness on through the night, and falls asleep in public places after drinking, forcing him to guard her for hours. Trison becomes dirty, exhausted and ashamed of how he looks, yet he never abandons her. Whatever her failings, she is a blind person who depends on him to find the way home.

Their journeys reveal a society where people with disabilities and their guide dogs must repeatedly fight for ordinary freedoms. Polina stubbornly wins the right to take Trison into a supermarket, but her victory has an ugly underside. She encourages him to eat food from the shelves and, on one occasion, conceals packs of sausage beneath a cloth on his back, falsely telling the staff that the cloth is covering a burn. They are stopped and taken to the police. A policeman who knows Polina responds with sympathy rather than cruelty, urging her to stop drinking and promising to bring her an audio-book player. Trison sees a woman capable of deceit and irresponsibility, but also one whom hardship has left desperately lonely.

That contradiction emerges again when a mother and little girl, claiming to have lost everything in a fire, come begging at the door. Polina, who has barely enough money for herself, offers them what she can. When the mother tries to refuse upon discovering that her benefactor is blind, Polina angrily insists that disability does not take away a person’s right to help another. For Trison, this moment complicates every easy verdict about his difficult companion. A person can mistreat a loyal dog and still possess a genuine impulse toward generosity.

A more immediate danger arrives when a group of homeless boys abduct Trison while Polina sleeps outdoors. They take him to an abandoned building, where some of them contemplate killing and cooking him. The guide dog’s discipline prevents him from attacking the children, even when his own life is at stake. He is saved by Toma, a homeless girl who defends him against the others and resolves to return him to the blind woman. A police patrol stops them on the way. Trison is taken to the station, where he learns that Polina has collapsed and has been hospitalized with a suspected heart attack. He is eventually placed with her sister, Irina, until Polina can come home.

At Irina’s apartment, a boy named Stepa takes Trison on long walks and becomes his friend. An extraordinary chance encounter reunites the Labrador with Sasha, now sighted, and the two boys become friends as well. They agree to visit and care for Trison. Their affection offers relief from the uncertainty of his adult companions. Meanwhile, Trison learns more about Polina’s past: she raised two stepchildren as her own, yet Boris and Lidia have grown indifferent to her suffering and preoccupied with the inheritance they expect to receive. After Polina returns from hospital, Boris increasingly dominates her home, insults the dog and tries to prevent Irina from staying overnight to care for her ailing sister.

Polina’s health deteriorates. During one bitter night she overhears Boris discussing her approaching death and the apartment he hopes to sell. Broken by the ingratitude of the children she raised, she draws Trison close and calls him her son. She admits that she has caused him suffering and asks his forgiveness. For the dog, who has endured so much without complaint, her remorse matters more than her previous cruelty. He licks her hand, hoping to comfort her. Moments later she falls silent and dies beside him. Her final tenderness transforms the reader’s understanding of her: she was neither simply a victim nor simply a tormentor, but a deeply flawed human being still capable of love.

Amid the quarrels over the funeral and property, the family fails to inform the guide-dog school of Polina’s death. Trison is almost forgotten. The person who takes him in is Valery Anatolyevich Podoprigora, an elderly night watchman from a neighboring building. He brings the Labrador to the kindergarten where he works. The place is called Raduga — “Rainbow” — a name that unexpectedly recalls Sasha and the promise at the heart of Trison’s first story. No longer guiding a blind person, Trison finds himself keeping watch with Valery and becoming a favorite of the children. Their playfulness delights him, but he feels guilty knowing that someone elsewhere may be waiting for a trained guide dog. Not everyone approves of his presence, either. A little girl named Kristina is terrified of dogs because her mother has taught her that they are dangerous.

In the evenings, a small dog from a nearby parking lot begins visiting the kindergarten fence. She has no owner and not even a proper name; the people around her simply call her “Dog.” Valery names her Maryana. Trison and Maryana form an attachment that gradually becomes something like love. Her fragile life, spent depending on the unpredictable kindness of parking-lot guards, stands in poignant contrast to Trison’s carefully trained existence. He dreams of finding her a home. Their meetings become the brightest part of his days.

The fragile peace is broken by Boris and an accomplice, who discover the monetary value of a trained guide dog. They arrive at the kindergarten intending to take Trison away and sell him. Boris offers Valery a share of the proceeds, treating the Labrador as valuable property rather than a living companion. Valery refuses and drives the men out with an iron crowbar. As they flee, they threaten to return and settle the matter by other means.

Soon afterward Trison notices a tempting piece of meat lying on the kindergarten grounds. His training keeps him from touching food found on the ground. That night he hears a strange sound and discovers Maryana lying in agony. She has eaten the meat, which was poisoned. Valery desperately tries to save her and calls a veterinary emergency service, but help arrives too late. Maryana dies as Trison watches, powerless to comfort her. Valery buries the little dog in a secluded corner of the kindergarten and tells Trison what both of them suspect: the poison was most likely meant for him. The story does not establish the poisoner’s identity, but the earlier threats give the tragedy a terrible implication. Trison survives because of his training; Maryana, who trusted the world a little too much, pays with her life.

Grief is followed by another trial. A parent complains about the presence of a dog at the kindergarten, and Valery is told he must find Trison another place to live. Before he can do so, fire breaks out during the children’s rest period. Adults and children flee the building, but Kristina is missing. A window is blocked by bars and wreckage; Valery uses a truck and cable to tear the bars free, then sends Trison through a narrow opening into the smoke. The Labrador finds the frightened girl hiding inside a locker. When she refuses to move, he grasps her dress and drags her toward the window, where Valery pulls her to safety. Trison escapes moments before flames surge through the opening and collapses from smoke inhalation.

The rescue makes him a television hero. Sasha and Stepa see the report and come to visit. But public gratitude does not bring a simple happy ending. Kristina’s own mother, the woman whose daughter Trison has saved, still demands that he be removed, dismissing his rescue as a mere canine reflex. Trison is outraged by the injustice, yet he knows he would risk his life again — even for someone who despises him. Sasha explains the situation to Valery, who agrees that Trison’s proper place is beside a blind person. The school is contacted and arrangements are made for his return.

The kindergarten is repaired. When the day of departure comes, the children gather to say goodbye, Kristina among them. Valery struggles to conceal his grief. Before getting into the school’s vehicle, Trison walks to the quiet corner where Maryana is buried and silently asks her forgiveness for failing to protect her. Only Valery understands the meaning of this final detour. As the car drives away, a flash of sunlight from the kindergarten sign catches Trison’s eye. He says farewell to Raduga — the Rainbow — and to a chapter of his life that has taught him how much love can cost.

The book ends not with a new assignment or a triumphant reward, but with loss, renewal and an unfinished vocation. Trison is returning to the work for which he was trained, carrying with him the memory of a woman who sought forgiveness, children who learned to love him, an old man who refused to sell a friend, and a small nameless dog who was finally given a name and a place in his heart. The “formula of kindness” is never reduced to a slogan or a calculation. It emerges through choices: remaining loyal when love is difficult, protecting those who cannot protect themselves, refusing to profit from vulnerability, and doing what is right even when the world offers no gratitude in return.