Whenever Laika the dog, AKA, Laika the gravity punching wonder hound, is mentioned it’s often brought up that she was always intended to die, which although true, is very sad. So, to show that Laika also had fun when she was on Earth and make everyone’s day a little more awesome, we wanted to talk about the time Laika went on the radio to say hi.
Now Laika was one of several dogs chosen for the Sputnik 2 mission, however, none of her understudies exploded into space and our hearts, so we’re not going to cheapen Laika’s legacy by mentioning them here. A little known fact is that Laika was primarily chosen for the mission for two reasons, she was a stray and she was a, well, a she.
The latter factor was important as it mean Laika could urinate without lifting her leg, thus could be comfortably contained in a smaller (read: cheaper) craft, while the former was equally as, if not more important because it meant that Laika was already used to punishing Moscow weather, making her far more hardy than a lesser, so dubbed “pussy dog“.
Though Laika’s training was harsh and at some times cruel, her trainers afforded her every luxury they could spare, one engineer even took her to his house to play with his children, one of whom Laika bit, immediately causing them to grow four moustaches. As a final reward, a week before she went to space to piss on dog heaven personally, Laika was given an opportunity to speak to the entire world via radio broadcast.
In perhaps one of the most adorable things ever recorded since someone dropped a microphone into a box of kittens wearing Snuggies, Laika was taken to a radio station, placed in front of a microphone and asked if she had anything to say the millions at home she was about to inspire by being launched into the cosmos. Laika, being awesome, dutifully barked into the microphone in an attempt to tell space that its days of floating around like an asshole were numbered.
