Childhood recollections of animals by an author from Alma-Ata, the capital of the Kazakh Republic (now Kazakhstan). “Every time my father went hunting he would bring back live baby animals. We fed them, took care of them, and brought them up ourselves. Each of us had our own special pet – one had a lively fox-cub, another a baby donkey and my youngest sister had a guinea-pig.” There are tales of a pair of wolf cubs, a deer, a donkey, a tiger cub, a fox, and a horse.