What I recall from conversation with my father and know from Boyd's Russian Years is that Box I, a dachshund (or possibly a dackeI) was a present from Chekhov to VDN, and the progenitor of other Nabokov dogs including Box II, who, by now "venerable", accompanied Vladimir and Véra on a two-week visit to Czechoslovakia in 1925, where Vladimir took Véra to meet his parents. You will find other mentions in S, M. Sorry to be succinct, but I am seriously at war with time.

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