»The twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer on roofs, horses' backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov, the sledge-driver, is all white like a ghost. He sits on the box without stirring, bent as double as the living body can be bent.«
Thus begins the story of a sledge-driver and his horse. The story referred to in the title is about the dachshund Kashtanka who, having lost his master, discovers the colourful world of the circus. Grisha, a tubby little boy, goes walking out on the boulevard with his nurse for the first time in his life. And when Major-General Buldeeff is suffering from toothache, everyone searches desperately for a »horsey name.«
Chekhov's stories have been referred to as a fin de siècle encyclopaedia of Russian life. They are the illustrated newspaper of his times, based on Chekhov's observations of everything and everyone: the middle classes, officials, the aristocracy – but animals too, and miracle-workers and, last but not least, children.