Hello, Jordan! :))) I'd like to add something. There is a free order of sentences structure (we, Russian, are not too strict about this thing). Probably - thanks to the fact that endings play an important role in genders, numbers etc. definition (however hard foreigners learning Russian may criticize our difficult endings, they make foreigners' life also easier! :))). The key is the purpose of an expression in the sentence. For example, they asked you: "У вас есть собака?" - And you can answer: "У меня есть собака!" But if they ask you: "У тебя есть животное?" (Do you have any pet? - you should pay your attention to the last word - "животное"), you can answer: "Собака есть". ("Собака" is the first word in your sentence as the chief one).Or just: "Собака" :) But we provided another version. Let them just ask you: "Есть у тебя собака?" (they accentuate their attention to "есть") You should answer fast: "Есть у меня собака" (you accentuate the presence of a dog). Or: "Есть". But your answer: "У меня есть собака" - is all-purpose amd the most used one :). Russian are not interested in such shades, so anyway - they'll understand that you have a dog after all! :)))

Thank you to unDEFER for correcting my spelling. My original post follows, but I feel others in the thread have answered the question more clearly. As others have indicated, yes - this is a correct sentence. I'll try to describe why it's correct.... The easiest explanation is that у меня есть is a stock phrase for "I have". If you're not happy with that explanation, read on... Technically, a more literal translation of the phrase is: "there is to me" which gives a hint as to why the phrase looks the way it does. Меня is the Genitive form of the word я and literarily means "to me." The choice of the Genitive case makes sense since it is often used to denote possession in other Russian sentences in roughly the same way that English uses the apostrophe s ('s). The thing being possessed in this phrase goes into Nominative (in this example собака) which seems strange because an English speaker would naturally think of the dog as the direct object of the sentence, but in Russian it actually acts as the subject of the sentence - (hence its declination into Nominative.) A similar situation can be seen in the sentence Мне пять лет which means "I am five years old." but which technically translates as "to me there are 5 years." Because the phraseology of some Russian expressions is different than in English, the cases of certain words will sometimes appear odd. Hope this helps, or at least gets you closer to the best answer.

To Jason: "Меня пять лет" is not correct russian sentence. It must be: "Мне пять лет". To Maria: Please don't write not natural russian sentences. We never speak "Собака у меня есть". If anybody ask me "Есть ли у тебя какое-нибудь животное?", I may answer: 1) "Да" or "Да, есть" (if I don't want to make more exact answer) 2) "Да, собака" или "Да, у меня есть собака". Also: "Есть у тебя собака?" - it will more natural if you say: "У тебя есть собака?". And "У меня есть собака" is more natural variant of "Есть у меня собака". To Jordan: I think there is no more exact explanation than Jason and Maria tried to make. I think you just must remember that english phrase "I have" in russian usually tranlslated as "У меня есть". There is here some other similar phrases: "He has" -- "У него есть" "She has" -- "У неё есть" "We have" -- "У нас есть" "They have" -- "У них есть" You can translate "I have a dog" literally as "Я имею собаку" but it will rather funny and unfortunately ambiguous. And yet several sentences: "I have apples" -- "У меня есть яблоки". "I have three dogs" -- "У меня - три собаки" (it is more natural variant of "У меня есть три собаки") "I have many cats" -- "У меня - много кошек" "I haven't a dog" -- "У меня нет собаки" -- Have you a dog? -- No, I have a cat -- У тебя есть собака? -- Нет, у меня -- кошка

It`s correct and don`t pay attention to details....it`s just correct without any stupid comments:))))

yea it's correct