A stray dog named Sharik is scalded by a cook and sits injured in a Moscow doorway, convinced he will die.

Professor Philipovich lures the injured Sharik with a sausage and brings him back to his large Moscow apartment.

The new House Management Committee arrives and demands Philipovich surrender rooms in his seven-room apartment to new tenants.

Philipovich calls a government minister and threatens to leave Russia unless he is allowed to keep his full apartment.

Philipovich and Bormenthal sedate Sharik and transplant the pituitary gland and testicles of a fresh corpse into him.

Sharik's fur falls out, he grows to nearly human size, walks on his hind legs, and begins to speak.

Philipovich declares that the experiment has moved beyond rejuvenation and resulted in the total humanization of the dog.

Sharikov demands identity papers and chooses the name Poligraph Poligraphovich Sharikov, based on a date from a calendar.

Sharikov chases a cat into the bathroom, locks himself inside, and accidentally floods the entire apartment with running water.

Philipovich learns Sharikov has been reading Engels given by Shvonder and orders the housemaid to burn the book.

Sharikov steals money and returns home drunk with two men who steal Philipovich's hat and walking stick.

Sharikov disappears overnight and returns to announce he has taken a job killing cats for animal control.

Sharikov brings home a fiancée; Philipovich reveals his true origins to the horrified woman and pays her to leave.

Sharikov pulls a revolver on Bormenthal; Bormenthal sedates him, and the two doctors work through the night reversing the surgery.

Police arrive with Shvonder to arrest the doctors for murder; Philipovich produces the living dog Sharik as proof no crime occurred.

Heart of a Dog follows stray dog Sharik from his scalded, desperate life on the streets of Moscow to his transformation into a human through a daring surgical experiment. Professor Philipovich lures him in with sausage, takes him home, and eventually transplants the organs of a dead petty criminal into the dog's body. The resulting creature, Sharikov, causes mounting chaos in the household — flooding the apartment, stealing, drinking, and defying every authority. Philipovich's attempts to control Sharikov escalate into a full confrontation that ends with Sharikov threatening Bormenthal at gunpoint. The doctors reverse the operation overnight, transforming Sharikov back into a dog. When police arrive to arrest them for murder, Philipovich calmly produces his living dog as proof that no crime has been committed.

The headline story of a dog transformed into a man and back again.

A passing woman on the street calls the injured dog Sharik before disappearing into the snowstorm.

Doorman Fyodor tells Philipovich about new tenants and a House Committee working to subdivide apartments in the building.

Sharik panics in the examination room, bites Bormenthal while trying to escape, and is sedated by Philipovich.

Sharik wakes with his burns treated and overhears Philipovich tell Zina that kindness works better than pain or threats.

Philipovich sees a patient whose rejuvenation surgery made him dangerously virile and who accidentally dyed his hair green.

Philipovich sees a male patient who confesses his surgically enhanced desire has led him to abuse a fourteen-year-old girl.

Philipovich dines lavishly with Bormenthal and declares that national ruin starts in people's heads, not from external forces.

Philipovich puts a collar on Sharik, and the dog basks in the respect the collar earns him from police and doormen.

Bormenthal arrives with an evil-smelling trunk, and Sharik is dragged by his collar into the consulting room before being sedated.

Bormenthal records in his case notes that Sharik's tail falls off and his vocabulary improves at a rapid pace.

Shvonder publishes a blind item in a newspaper suggesting Sharikov is Philipovich's illegitimate son.

Sharikov receives his identity papers and immediately demands that Bormenthal vacate his room and hand it over to him.

Bormenthal takes Sharikov to the circus for the evening while Philipovich stays home alone in his study.

Cook Darya drags Sharikov into the hallway after he tries to sneak into her bed; Bormenthal beats him.

One police officer faints when Bormenthal brings the restored dog Sharik before the investigators at the apartment.

This pool follows the secondary moments that shape the world inside Professor Philipovich's apartment and the slow unraveling of order within it. It begins on the Moscow street with Sharik's first anonymous encounter with a stranger and his nervous arrival at the professor's building, and traces his early life there through the panic of his examination and the comfort of his recovery. The grotesque parade of rejuvenation patients — a green-haired man, a woman seeking monkey ovaries — reveals the dubious nature of Philipovich's practice before the experiment even begins. As Sharikov evolves from recovering patient into an insolent young man, escalating household confrontations over papers, rooms, and Darya's bedroom illustrate the chaos he brings. The pool closes with the darkly comic final image of a police officer fainting at the sight of the restored dog, punctuating the absurdity of the whole affair.

The quieter moments and household confrontations that fill out the story.

Sharik tries to read the sign on Philipovich's door and decides the man is too refined to be a proletarian.

Philipovich agrees to implant monkey ovaries into a fifty-one-year-old woman patient who wants to pursue a much younger man.

After Philipovich defeats the House Committee, Sharik rises on his hind legs and performs an act of reverence toward the professor.

Philipovich tells Bormenthal to monitor a dying patient carefully because he wants the corpse as fresh as possible for surgery.

Sharik attacks and tears apart the stuffed owl in Philipovich's study, sending mothball-scented stuffing across the room.

Bormenthal records in his case notes that Sharik has begun using language in response to his environment rather than at random.

Bormenthal concludes in his final case note that Sharik has completely transformed into a full human being.

Philipovich furiously forbids Sharikov from calling him Pop and demands he use his formal professional name at all times.

Sharikov refuses to register for the military draft and demands a medical exemption, openly defying Shvonder's instructions.

Sharikov declares he must be a worker because he is not a capitalist and aligns himself with Shvonder against Philipovich.

Alone in his study, Philipovich examines Sharikov's pituitary gland in a jar and quietly resolves, saying yes, by God, he will.

Bormenthal embraces a lonely Philipovich and suggests they simply kill Sharikov outright to end the crisis.

Philipovich laments that his experiment produced a revolting specimen rather than the elevated New Man he had envisioned, blaming the organ donor.

The Housing Committee sends Philipovich a note accusing him of being a Menshevik, based on Sharikov's formal denunciation.

Sharik sleeps peacefully on the rug while Philipovich fishes a brain from a jar in his study, implying he will experiment again.

This pool traces the pivotal moments of insight, resolve, and confrontation that give the novella its satirical force. It opens with Sharik's private observations — his instinctive suspicion of the owl and his reverence for a man who stands up to authority — before a crucial dinner conversation reveals that Philipovich has been waiting for a specific kind of corpse. As Bormenthal's case notes chart each milestone of Sharik's transformation, the full horror of what has been created comes into focus. The middle sections follow Sharikov's developing political consciousness: his defiance of draft registration, his self-identification as a worker, and Philipovich's quiet, menacing resolution while alone with a jar. The pool closes with Philipovich's despairing speech about Spinoza and failed ambition, Sharikov's act of denunciation, and the haunting final image of the professor reaching into a brain jar — intent on beginning again.