Waiting for Mrok

We drove out to the ACD kennel. An hour away from the city, the noise. A village, forest, fields, animals, and quiet. Somewhere in that stillness, a small ACD was born – one that would soon change our lives.

We took this seriously. For the past 15 years, we've lived with three cats. Everything has its place: travel, routine, work. And now, that balance was about to shift.

When we decided to grow our family, Mrok’s mother wasn’t even pregnant. If you rewind further, the idea of a dog had appeared and disappeared for years. We try to be responsible, and a dog... it stretches that word significantly.

Maybe five years earlier, a friend asked me what dog I’d choose for myself. "ACD," I replied. "That’s the only one. But I don’t have time for a dog like that. So I’ll stick with my Russian Blues." ACD? What kind of breed is that? I said, "It’s the dog I’ve always dreamed of. But I probably won’t ever have one." That last bit I kept to myself.

When I was not quite 10, I was fascinated by wild animals. Falcons, wolves, foxes. I wandered wide open meadows, hoping to spot a motionless hare. I wanted a wolf. I didn’t understand then that a wolf isn’t something you "have." Still, I knew wolves were proud and free. They roamed, hunted, and stayed wild. I raised anything that moved and that my parents didn’t immediately tell me to take back outside.

Somewhere around then, I read about the Australian dingo in an adventure book. It was the late 1970s. I went looking for more in our five-volume illustrated encyclopedia and the local library. The dingo: wild, silent, nocturnal. Tough, enduring, roaming Australia. I liked it instantly. It had "dog" in the name, which made it feel closer than a wolf.

Eventually, I managed to get an address for Dr. Corbett, who was studying dingoes at the time. I was ten and wrote him a long letter – the kind only a ten-year-old could write – about how I dreamed of a dingo. Of course, it was in Polish, printed in large letters so it would be easier to read. I never got a reply.

A few years later, I saw Mad Max: Road Warrior. There was a dog in it. Named Dog. Not like the ones from Polish films, or the ones I knew from around the neighborhood. Still no internet, but I knew which libraries had dog books. I found a short note about a crossbreed between a dingo and working dogs. Australian Cattle Dog. I didn’t know English. Didn’t know what it meant. But I thought, "That’s my dog."

Forty-four years later, I enrolled in puppy preschool. A place where people go with their dogs to learn the basics of living together. I was the first person ever to show up without a dog. There was some confusion. But I was too focused on catching up for lost time to care. One polite woman told me there was no point attending without a dog, but I could at least read the materials. I read them all. We watched every video that seemed useful. At that point, we didn’t even know how to choose someone to help us learn how to live with a dog. But we kept preparing.

The kennel where Mrok was born was recommended to us by Magda, who’s looked after our cats for years when we travel. She has two ACDs. We started calling the breeder long before Bocca, Mrok’s mother, was pregnant.

We found out about the puppies’ birth while we were on an avalanche rescue training :) .

We visited the kennel a few more times before Mrok came home. At birth, ACD pups are almost completely white. We didn’t know how to choose just one.

At first, we thought it would be a female. We talked a lot with a behaviorist who knows our cats. They needed to be part of the plan. In the end, those conversations led us to choose a male. We visited again. This time, the decision came easier. Sort of.

We picked two: The firstborn, with a black patch around his left eye. And the last, the biggest in the litter, with a patch on his right. Around then, we knew: he would be named Mrok.

We drove home after dark. Little Mrok slept quietly on Monika’s lap. We glanced at each other, wondering what came next.

We knew that Mrok would need time to adjust – and so would the cats. He stayed in one room, separated by a glass wall, so they could watch each other.

We live on the first floor, and a small puppy needs frequent bathroom trips. Every two or three hours. Mrok under the arm, down the stairs, out to the patch of grass in front of the building. We introduced the command “siku siku” — a playful Polish phrase for peeing — and it stuck. On later trips, he would pee on command right after getting out of the car.

At the time, the constant trips downstairs were exhausting. It was early March 2024. Warm, but still March. The idea of grass on the balcony turned out to be a winner. We bought a large rabbit tray (0,5x1.4m), then I drove out to a turf farm and brought home a small roll of grass. I went back every week for more for months. Totally worth it.

Looking back, that time – from the decision to bring Mrok into our lives to the start of daily training with the cats – feels distant. So much has happened since.

And yet... it was just last year.

Time has sped up. A lot. Every day feels like a chapter. A lesson. For all of us. Including Dali, Zoe, and Tru – our three cats, who will appear again in a future post: Dog Meets Cats.