“My, these humans are a strange-looking bunch.”

For this week’s challenge, I studied up on Soviet space dogs. The pup in this illustration is Strelka. He orbited the Earth in August 1960 with fellow pup, Belka, and an assortment of other animals. While most of the space dog launches ended in tragedy, I was happy to learn that Belka and Strelka returned home safe and sound on this mission.

Now, I don’t know if Belka and Strelka met an alien on their travels—but it’s fun to imagine that they did. (Talk about a barking frenzy!)