Winner of The 2003 ASPCA Henry Bergh Children’s Book AwardIncluded on VOYA’s ninth annual Nonfiction Honor ListSince the first hungry wolf bravely approached an ancient cooking fire and was rewarded with a scrap of meat, our lives and the lives of dogs have been interwoven. Dogs have worked for us as warriors with ammunition strapped to their bodies. Dogs have gone through snow, icy seas, and into the dangerous rubble of collapsed buildings to rescue us. Dogs, with their spectacular ability to detect odors, keep us safe by finding drugs and explosives.

How has Russia's political elite struggled to build a federal system of government out of the rubble of the Soviet empire?