Category: cat stories

Laika And Felicette: The First Dog And Cat In Space Were Sacrificed For Human Ambition

I’ve been watching Apple TV’s exceptional show, For All Mankind, which dramatizes the space race of the 1960s and beyond in a sort of alternate history where the Soviets, not Americans, first lay boots on the lunar regolith.

That loss lights a fire underneath the behinds of the people at NASA and convinces American politicians that the space race is the ultimate measure of our civilization. In real life, American ingenuity and the creativity fostered by a free society allowed the US to leap ahead and “win” the space race. Space missions were already becoming routine by the time the drama of Apollo 13 briefly rekindled public interest.

Then the Soviet space program faded, the competition turned one-sided, and without an arch-enemy to show up, American politicians pulled back NASA’s funding to a fraction of what it once was, where it remains today. That’s why the rise of the private space industry — Elon Musks’s Space X, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, etc — will almost certainly be our ticket to Mars.

But in For All Mankind, NASA remains the budgetary behemoth and source of prestige it was in the 60s and 70s, leading to the development of a permanent moon base, lunar mining operations and a planned mission to the red planet.

There’s a quiet moment in the second season when a Soviet cosmonaut, visiting the US as part of a peacekeeping mission, shares a drink in a dive bar with an American astronaut.

“Do you like dog?” the cosmonaut asks.

“Dogs?” the astronaut replies. “Of course. Who doesn’t like dogs?”

The Soviet shakes his head.

“No, dog,” he tells her. “Laika.”

Laika was the first dog in space, or more accurately, the first dog the Soviets acknowledged sending into space. (The Soviets didn’t acknowledge their failures, and we can only guess at the number of lost cosmonauts and animals officially denied by the Russians, drifting in space for eternity or disintegrated in atmospheric re-entry.)

Laika
Laika, also nicknamed Muttnick, wanted to please the humans who had taken her in, and didn’t understand that her trip would be one way. (Historical photo)

The moment turns somber as the cosmonaut recalls the Moscow street dog who was selected because she was docile, fearless and could handle the incredible noise and g-forces of a rocket launch.

“I held her in my arms,” the cosmonaut tells his American counterpart, taking a sip of his Jack Daniel’s. “For only one or two minutes on the launchpad.”

Then he leans in and tells her the truth: Laika didn’t triumphantly orbit the Earth for seven days in 1957 as the Soviet Union told the world. She didn’t endure the mission.

She perished, alone and afraid, just hours after launch when her capsule overheated.

The Soviets never designed the Sputnik 2, Laika’s ship, to return to Earth safely. Her death was predetermined.

We laud astronauts and cosmonauts, the brave men and women who willingly strap themselves into tiny capsules attached to cylinders of rocket fuel the size of skyscrapers and depart this Earth via brute force, knowing something could go wrong and their lives could end before they realize what’s happening. We should admire them. Their accomplishments are all the more impressive when you consider the fact that the combined processing power of every computer at NASA’s disposal in the 1960s was but a fraction of what we each hold in our hands these days when we use our smartphones.

Those first astronauts and cosmonauts were extraordinarily brave — but only up to a point.

Unwilling to risk human lives in the early days of space exploration, space programs used dogs, cats and later monkeys and apes, strapping them into confined spaces, wiring their brains with electrodes for telemetry data, poring over the information they gleaned about their heart rates, blood pressure and breathing as they left our home planet.

The sad eyes of a stray dog, separated from everyone she loved, were the first to behold Earth from space. A few years later the eyes of a French street cat took in the same view before humans did.

Felicette
Felicette couldn’t move when she was placed into the capsule that took her to space and back.

Felicette, the tuxedo cat who was launched into space by the French on Oct. 18, 1963, didn’t even have a name until the French recovered her capsule and took her back for examination.

The scientists and engineers in charge of the launch didn’t want to humanize her if she didn’t make it, which was a common practice in space programs. (Ham, the chimpanzee sent into space by NASA in January of 1961, was known as No. 65 until his successful recovery. NASA was worried that a name would make him more sympathetic and lead to bad press if the chimpanzee died during the mission.)

Ham_the_chimp_(cropped)
Ham the chimpanzee was little more than a baby. Credit: NASA archives

Despite Felicette’s endurance and successful return, French scientists repaid her bravery by euthanizing her a month later so they could study her brain and learn more about the effects of spaceflight on mammalian biology.

Felicette, like Laika and Ham, was never given a choice. Those animals, with their child-like mental capacity, endured their missions out of a desire to please their human caretakers as much as any natural stoicism they may have possessed.

Would we do the same thing today? Will we repeat those experiments as we set our eyes on Mars?

Consider that the moon is a three day trip, and it’s close enough to Earth’s magnetic field to protect living beings from radiation. Mars is at least a seven month trip if the orbital conditions are right, and there will be no protection from radiation aside from what can be built into the craft. Take that trip without adequate protection and you’re guaranteed to get cancer.

It’s easy to say we wouldn’t make animals our test subjects for a Mars journey, and NASA now has decades of data on the effects of space and zero gravity thanks to the International Space Station.

And yet Neuralink, another company owned by Elon Musk, currently uses monkeys to test its brain interface technology, which allows the primates to operate computers with their thoughts. Those monkeys are forced to endure radical surgery to implant microchips in their brains. The teams working on the technology say suffering by those animals will be worth it as people with paralysis are able to do things with their thoughts and regain a measure of independence, increasing their quality of life.

Likewise, it will probably be an animal, or animals, who will be the test subjects on board craft that first venture beyond the Earth’s protective magnetosphere. Scientists and engineers will do their best to create a vessel that shields its occupants from harmful radiation, but they won’t know how successful they’ve been until the test subjects are returned to Earth and their dosimeters have been examined.

Will an astronaut volunteer for that kind of mission, knowing the “reward” could be a drastically shortened life?

To hear Musk and futurists tell it, pushing toward Mars is not just a matter of exploration or aspiration, but is necessary for the survival of our species. Earth becoming uninhabitable, they say, is an eventuality, not an if.

Others point out it’s much easier and wiser to pour our resources into preserving the paradise we do have, and the creatures who live in it, rather than banking on a miserable future existence on Mars where society will have to live underground and gravity, at 0.375 that of Earth, will change the human form in just a few generations.

To put it bluntly, while Musk and futurists look at life on Mars through the rose-colored glasses of science fiction fans, in reality living there is going to thoroughly suck.

If people do live on Mars they’ll never venture outside without a suit, never feel the sun on their skin, never swim in an ocean. They’ll never have another backyard barbecue, watch fireworks light up the sky on the fourth of July, or fall asleep to the gentle rain and crickets of warm summer nights. They’ll never hear birdsong or have the opportunity to see iconic animals like elephants and lions. Every gulp of air will be recycled, every glass of water will have passed through the kidneys of others. There will never be snow. Circadian rhythms will be untethered from the cycle that governed human biology for the 200,000 years our species has existed.

And while there could be a future — if you want to call it that — for people on Mars, there won’t be a future there for the rest of the living creatures on Earth.

As a lifelong fan of science fiction who devours SF novels, counts films like Alien and Bladerunner among my favorites, and is fascinated by shows like For All Mankind, The Peripheral and Star Trek, I understand the appeal of space and the indomitable human spirit that drives us to new frontiers. I just hope we can balance that with respect for the Earth and the animals we share it with. Let’s hope there is never another Laika, Felicette or Ham.

Correction: For All Mankind is the name of the Apple TV series about an alternate history space race. The first reference to the show’s name was incorrect in an earlier version of this story.

felicette-container
A close-up of Felicette’s face. Credit: French government archives
Ham the Space Chimp reaches for his apple reward after his space mission.
Ham the Space Chimp waits for his apple reward. Credit: NASA archives

Little Buddy And Big Buddy: The Buddies

To celebrate my birthday and Bud’s adoptaversary, the little guy commissioned a portrait of us together. As many of you know, cats think of us as big, slow cats, which is reflected in the resulting painting. I present to you “Buddies: Airbrush on canvas”:

thebuddies_tagged

There is a slight inaccuracy, of course: I have gray eyes, not green. If I’m portrayed as a cat, I should probably be an orange tabby as well. And finally, little Buddy should be much more muscular. Perhaps he’s meant to be a kitten in this painting as he was more of a shoulder cat when he was tiny. Other than that, seems pretty accurate!

In truth we don’t really know exactly how cats view us.

We know there’s a parental element, that house cats retain kitten-like qualities for life as they remain in our care. The meow is probably the best example of that, since it mirrors the vocalizations kittens make to their mothers.

We know house cats depend on us physically, psychologically and emotionally. In recent years behavioral scientists have taken studies originally designed for children and modified them for cats, yielding interesting results: House cats who are bonded to their humans behave in ways startlingly similar to humans children.

When we form bonds with them, they draw comfort from our presence and look to us for behavioral cues to determine how they should respond to situations and objects that are new and potentially frightening. Just like kids, cats look to us, and just like kids, they stay calm if we do.

When you treat a cat well, kitty returns that love, trying to comfort you when you’re sick, refusing to leave your side, alerting you to potential trouble.

Bud is super friendly, but he isn’t the cuddliest cat out there. He doesn’t like being hugged or picked up, but he knows that when he pads up to me while purring and sits on my chest or in my lap, I’m never going to force him to stay or subject him to pets he doesn’t want. That’s why he approaches me often and why he feels so relaxed.

It’s probably also why he often wakes me up, purring like an engine, looking for a chin scratch and affirmation that he is indeed a good boy.

Perhaps the biggest complements are Bud grooming my hair and beard, and sleeping on me.

There’s no greater expression of trust between a feline and human than when a cat falls sleep in your lap. Cats are never more vulnerable than when they’re asleep, and sleeping in your lap means your four legged friend feels safe with you and trusts you completely.

What It’s Like Adopting An Internet Famous Cat, Plus: The Argumentative Cat

Remember the Adam Driver Cat?

The little guy made a big splash for a while back in 2016 when images of his unusual mug went viral and the internet decided he looked like the 39-year-old actor.

In an essay, Emily McCombs describes feeling “something deep in my soul” when she saw photos of the cat she’d name Kylo, in honor of Driver’s best-known role as the conflicted Sith lord in the third Star Wars trilogy. Against all odds, and despite intense interest in the Oriental Shorthair, McCombs was able to adopt Kylo after begging a friend for a ride from Brooklyn to the Monmouth County SPCA in New Jersey.

But it’s what happened after that impacted McCombs and her young son the most. Kylo was gentle with McCombs’ son, had a habit of staring adoringly at her and “wasn’t truly happy if he wasn’t smooshed against my face.” Aside from the shoulder bit, Kylo sounds a lot like Bud:

“Rather than just being a lap cat, Kylo was more likely to perch on my shoulder, or plop down directly on my face,” McCombs wrote. “He preferred positions that made it impossible to do anything but pay attention to to him, and would regularly headbutt my phone when he wanted my undivided attention.”

Actually, he’s more polite than Bud, who has no qualms about slapping my smartphone out of my hands and loves to send it flying if I make the mistake of leaving it unattended on a flat surface. “Stoopid little glowing rectangle!” I imagine him yelling in the meowenese language.

Kylo became part of McCombs’ family, helping her tuck her son in every night after story time, and while McCombs said a few love interests came and went, Kylo endured.

McCombs got to spend seven wonderful years with Kylo before she made the difficult decision to euthanize him after he was diagnosed with kidney failure and his struggle became more desperate. The story’s worth reading for her take on grief, Kylo’s sweet relationship with her son, and her insistence that no amount of internet fame compared to the love Kylo gave the family.

It’s also validation of the way people feel when they lose their four-legged companions, and a reminder that grief doesn’t need to be justified, regardless of whether some people insist “it’s just a cat.” 

The microchip company called to ask her to confirm a change of ownership for her missing cat

A British woman was thrilled when the microchip company contacted her to say her missing cat had been found, but was confused and dismayed when the representative on the line asked her to confirm a change of ownership.

Now she’s trying to get her kitty back, but her efforts have been frustrated by the other person who wants to keep him, as well as data protection laws that prevent the microchip company from identifying the person. 

Beryl Edwards of Shropshire, a rural area bordering Wales, adopted her cat Fred and his brother Geno in 2021. Fred went missing over the summer in 2022, and Edwards said she was initially ecstatic when she was told he’d been found.

“And then out of the blue last week I get an email saying we’ve had a request – somebody wants a transfer of ownership,” Edwards told the BBC. “Can you imagine the range of emotions from, ‘Fred! He’s alive, he’s OK’ to ‘transfer of ownership? What’s this all about?’”

fredgeno

The company, Identibase, told Edwards that while they could not give her the person’s information, they would ask the person to contact Edwards and return the cat. 

Edwards never heard back, and now it’s a criminal matter. 

“We are following up on a number of enquiries and at this stage are treating the matter as a potential theft,” the West Mercia Police said, per the BBC.

It’s not clear if police believe the person who has Fred stole him from Edwards, or whether they found him and want to keep him, but we hope Edwards and Fred are reunited, and Fred gets to live with his bonded littermate Geno again.

I can understand why the company would hesitate to provide the other person’s information, even if no law existed. You don’t want people physically confronting each other and potentially taking pets by force in disagreements over ownership. It’s also possible that the person who wants to keep Fred never intended to “trip” the microchip, and Edwards’ information may have been discovered by a veterinarian during a routine exam. But perhaps the unusual case can inform a future change to the law so it’s easier for people to retrieve their pets in cases like this, and for law enforcement to return pets when there’s clear documentation showing one party is indeed the caretaker.

This is not funny

A woman opens her front door to find a distressed cat crying for her help. Instead of taking him in, feeding him, checking on his welfare or even calling a local shelter, the woman proceeds to film herself performatively yelling at the stray and telling him to “get on off my porch!”

The TikTok video went viral this past week and people think it’s hilarious.

File this under “Social Media Is A Sign Of Humanity’s Decline.” Maybe the woman would have been cold-hearted even if she wasn’t hamming it up for an internet audience, but the prospect of clicks and likes almost certainly played a part in the way she dismissively yelled at an animal who was obviously in distress. Even if she didn’t want another pet and couldn’t adopt the cat, it costs nothing to show kindness and make sure he gets to people who will do right by him. 

I won’t link to the woman’s TikTok, but if you want to read Newsweek’s take about how her performance “delighted the internet,” click here. I hope the cat found a more sympathetic person and has either been returned home if he was lost, or found his way into a forever home if he was a stray.

 

Here Are Some Mom Cats Doting On Their Kittens For Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone!

All of us, whether human or animal, took our first steps in this world guided by a mother’s love. We wouldn’t be who and what we are without our moms.

To my mom, our readers who are mothers, and moms-to-be, remember that you are loved and appreciated on this Mother’s Day and every day of the year.

UK’s Elusive ‘Big Cats’ Turn Out To Be Buddy Playing Pranks, Police Say

GLOUCESTERSHIRE, United Kingdom — The alleged phenomena of big cats stalking the forests and outskirts of villages in the UK turned out to be a hoax this week after authorities caught an American feline planting “evidence” near the A40.

The perpetrator, who goes by the names Buddy the Cat, Kinich Bajo, The Buddinese Tiger and several other monikers, was spotted at the edge of the Forest of Dean using a ladder to create claw marks at roughly tiger height, Detective Inspector Alistair Clarke said.

When he realized he’d been made, the gray tabby cat yelled “Oh shit!” then bolted down the ladder and into the forest, Clarke told reporters.

Police called in a K9 unit, which was able to track a trail of crumbs and discarded turkey bones to a clearing where authorities discovered non-toxic black paint, a fog machine and a copy of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1977 docudrama Pumping Iron.

“It’s our belief that the suspect painted himself black, played prerecorded clips of various big cat roars, then posed menacingly amid the fog for the benefit of locals, mostly drunks stumbling out of local pubs,” Clarke said. “Choosing inveterate drunks as his primary witnesses ensured the resulting smartphone camera footage would be grainy, shaky and inconclusive, adding to the legend and mystique of phantom big cats in the countryside.”

Puma pub
Buddy in costume in late 2022, after parading himself in front of a group of heavily intoxicated people leaving a pub. Credit: PITB

Asked by a reporter whether Buddy’s dedication to weightlifting contributed to locals misidentifying him as a big cat, Clarke shook his head.

“We don’t think so, no,” he said. “Despite his apparent obsession with bulking up and the 63 bottles of protein powder we recovered, the suspect remains a tiny little stinker, which is why he carefully revealed himself only to the thoroughly inebriated.”

Buddy the Cat remained in a local lock-up awaiting extradition back to the US. His human told reporters the feline hadn’t said much about his predicament.

“He’s complained loudly about the food and said the British should be thanking him for increasing tourism to southern England, but other than that he’s kept a lid on his thoughts,” Big Buddy said.

Buddy in costume II
Buddy is seen here patrolling the UK countryside after painting himself black, prompting several calls to the police. Credit: PITB

In the meantime, the South Carolina state police forensics division and detectives from several US police departments have been in contact with UK authorities after similarities emerged between the fake big cat sightings and a series of bizarre crop circles in the US.

“We also found turkey bones and crumbs scattered around the crop circles, but at the time our working theory was that we were dealing with aliens who had a taste for turkey,” said one law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Now we believe our cases may be connected to the UK hoax.”

Panther!
“Lads, that’s a panther, innit? A panther, wow!” Credit: PITB