Laika
The Ruricolist
How right that a dog went first, and that, for a time, she was between us and darkness. All our proud rockets, our brave pioneers, and we entered space as a child might enter a basement, holding onto a dog’s tail. She was a Moscow stray. A stray, and therefore nobody’s dog, or everybody’s—yours and mine, even. A Moscow stray, distant aunt to that remarkable unbreed of hustlers and idlers—Russia’s last aristocrats.
Strays live by the old covenant. Dogs never needed us. The deadliest hunter of the African plains is not the lion but the wild dog, whose kills are efficient, coordinated, and relentless. And they chose to throw in their lot with us. What honor! And what responsibility!
