You might not know this about Vladimir Putin, but the Russian president sure loves animals.

There are pictures all over the Internet which show him posing with one kind or another, and his Moscow residence is filled with some, too.

The latest addition to his family is a rare alabai pup, bestowed upon him by his Turkmenistan counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, as a belated 65th birthday gift, reports Washington Post.

But the present had a whole lot of meaning behind it.

You see:

An unresolved issue stands between the two nations: Russia was once the main buyer of the former Soviet state’s ample natural gas reserves. Last year, however, a pricing dispute killed the business. Berdymukhammedov now hopes to mend the relationship.

“We have a common friend,” Berdymukhammedov told Putin, according to the New York Times. “This is the world’s unique alabai dog. And today I brought this little alabai with me.”

And with that, the president hoisted the mottled puppy into the air, named “Verny” which means “faithful” in Russian:

How cute was that cuddle?

This isn’t the first time a foreign diplomat or a head of state has given Putin a pup – in fact, it’s the fourth:

The best-known of the pack, Koni, was a black Labrador retriever given to Putin by Sergey Shoigu, a Russian general and minister of defense, in 2000.

“As far as bad moods go,” Putin said once, according to CNN, “of course I have them like any other person, but in those cases I try to consult with my dog Koni — she gives me good advice.”

The dog’s pedigree actually had symbolic weight in relation to Russian history: Koni was bred at a government center where search and rescue animals were trained, and the dog’s lineage also traced back to animals owned by Leonid Brezhnev, the former head of the Soviet Union, Psychology Today reported.

Here’s Koni in on a meeting with Angela Merkel:

In 2010, when Russia signed natural gas accords with Bulgaria, then-prime minister Putin received a Karakachan puppy as a gift from Bulgaria’s government, Reuters reported. A national contest was held across Russia to pick the name. The winner was a 5-year-old boy who proposed “Buffy.”

Putin’s third gift dog arrived in 2012 from the Japanese government. A 3-month-old Akita breed named Yume, the gesture was meant as an official thank-you for Russia’s help after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

The Japanese government was actually planning to present a second Akita to Putin in 2016 when he made a state visit to Japan. Russian officials, however, rejected the idea.

Below, you can see Buffy, right, and Yume at Putin’s countryside residence outside Moscow in 2013:

It won’t be long before someone writes a book on Putin, his dogs, and how they were gifted to amend country’s relations with the Kremlin.

[source:wp]