Cosmonaut Laika :: Photographer Unknown
We had three different dogs during my childhood. One was hit and killed by a car on a bridge, one died from distemper, and fortunately the third died of old age. I remember all of them—Sambo, Samantha and Pandora. Each of them had their own challenges and tragedies. Day-to-day care mostly fell to my mother, and she wasn’t thrilled about it. She grew up in a farming family who relegated their family pets to the barn because they were just fine there, even in winter. They weren't allowed inside the family home, fed organic food, or allowed to tuck themselves into our beds to drool on someone’s pillow.
I was born in 1959—two years after Laika was strapped into Sputnik 2 and launched into space. Laika was a mixed breed stray rescued by scientists. They often captured strays on the streets of Moscow for research. They gave the animals a more stable life, but inevitably they were tested, prodded, and used for questionable purposes. If I’d been alive at the time, I would have been outraged. Even without being an expert on canine physiology, jet propulsion, or the details of her training, I can imagine the horror she must have experienced. They didn’t do test firings. They just spun in her in a machine inside their lab to get her used to what she would experience. Most dogs hide under a bed and tremble from the sound of fireworks down the block. They’re scared as hell and don’t understand what is happening and why. So, being strapped inside a fiery claustrophobic death tube must have been unbearable.
The scientists hadn’t resolved the cooling system so the capsule overheated and stayed at one-hundred-five degrees. After launch, they monitored her vital signs and the capsules environment for only a few hours because she died of extreme heat and stress. After five months and 2,570 earth orbits, her body and the capsule disintegrated in earth’s atmosphere. Fortunately, it did because if her body was still out there orbiting, I wouldn’t get over it.
When we were forced to have our dog euthanized over a year ago, we were able to gather around him, hold him and talk to him. Recently on a podcast about dogs, I listened to an expert describe an abandoned pet who was dying. She said it searched the room with their eyes, looking for someone, looking for its person, for the people it loved when they were needed the most. They weren’t there. Laika must have been searching too.
Songs :: When It Don’t Come Easy by Patty Griffin, Space Oddity by David Bowie, Bless the Weather by John Martyn, and Amelia by Joni Mitchell
© C. Davidson