"The word's out that Vladimir is having me tailed." (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

"Moral lesson for the day, my dears -- sometimes dreams die hard!" (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

"Hmmm. Maybe Polly Perky is right -- a good male IS hard to find. And mistress of a vicious dictator might not be the worst career move I could make at the moment." (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

"Looks like I've bitten off more than I can chew. I can't afford another mistress! The Russian stock market just crashed. My bowsers are all in the pooper scoopervitch!" (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

"Why would I want to murder my philandering husband? He's the virtual top dog of Siberia, and I could wind up a beagle-tsarina." (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

"Or your bones could wind up in Yekaterinburg?" (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

There's something few of Vladimir the Siberian's numerous sexual conquests know about him...." (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

"He has a wife." (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

"She's a beautiful lemon-colored beagle named Sophie Unitesco, whose forebears were raised by the Russian Royal Family." (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

"So that's why he got involved with me? I reminded him of his wife? Anyway, how can dogs have forebears? Wouldn't they have to be foremutts or forehounds? We're not bears! Drat! He only loved me because I'm a beagle." (Photo by J.M. Hilton)

That certainly will not be the case with me, but unless this Sophie's personality matches her coloration, she just might prove a titillating ally. Utterly." (Cartoon by A.G. Oscard)