I have a new hero. Her name was Strelka, which means Little Arrow in Russian. She was one of the first two living creatures in space, along with her partner Belka. On August 19, 1960, she rode Sputnik-5 for a day in space.

Her mate, Pushok, never made it into space. They did have six puppies, though, and one of them, Pushinka, or Fluffy, was given to Caroline Kennedy by Nikita Khrushchev. Pushinka had to go through security to see if she was a spy dog or not. A Cold War romance occurred between the Russian puppy born of space explorers and a Kennedy dog named Charlie, producing four puppies.

Strelka is stuffed today and travels the world. She saw more and did more as a dog than most people. Today I read her story and it made me cry. Cry because she saw space and had to come back to Earth, but did more, for a time, than man did. Her puppiy, taken away, off to a foreign land, the land of the enemy she battle against in the space race. It seemed like a hard life for a dog. I would have loved to have petted her and told her she was a good dog.