Empire of the Dog

06/26/2025

This sounds like a nice place to live.

06/21/2025

NONE OF THIS IS A SURPRISE TO ME! I’ve seen or heard it all!

06/19/2025

I’m going to definitely use a bandana to make a new fashionable treat bag!

06/14/2025

Yay! Good news!

Happy birthday Valerie 🥳

A dachshund that went missing for over 500 days on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island celebrated its (third) birthday with her owners in Albury, New South Wales - the dog's first birthday at home since its return.

Valerie, the dachshund, vanished for 529 days before being recovered by rescue volunteers in April this year. The search involved over 1,000 volunteer hours with roughly 5,000 kilometres being travelled. It received notable attention on social media.

“Valerie has spent almost half her life missing, so to be able to celebrate this birthday with her at home is everything to us!” owner Georgia Gardner said.

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06/10/2025

Sad though really. Was that necessary?

This year marks 67 years since Laika was launched into space. And, as every autumn, I feel it is my duty to remember this story. Not out of nostalgia or scientific curiosity — but out of a deep sense of guilt and reverence. Because Laika was not just an experiment. She was life. She was presence. She was innocence given over to the unknown. Her real name was Kudrjavka, which in Russian means “curly.” But she became known as Laika, “the barker,” or “Little Barker.” She was a mongrel, half Husky, half Terrier, captured on the cold streets of Moscow. She was only three years old and was chosen because she was calm, docile, and had survived the rigors of life on the streets — as if that made her more suitable to die alone in space. On November 3, 1957, at 2 a.m., Laika was launched aboard Sputnik 2. The satellite was equipped with food, water, a cooling system, and padded walls. But there was no plan to return. From the beginning, that trip was a death sentence disguised as scientific advancement.

It is said that she survived for seven hours, but other sources say up to four days. Alone. In silence. Without understanding why she was taken. Just floating inside a metal capsule, while the Earth spun below her — ever further away.

She circled the planet 2,570 times. Then, on April 14, 1958, the capsule reentered the atmosphere and disintegrated. Carried away by the heat. By gravity. By oblivion.

Laika did not ask to be our heroine.

She did not choose to represent science, the space race or human progress.

She was just a stray dog, with eyes that sought affection — and a body that was used as a tool.

And that, brother, is why I return to this story every year. Because it forces us to remember that not all progress is innocent, and that many of our achievements were written with the pain of those who could not say “no”.

Laika, we have not forgotten you. And as long as there is someone who tells your story truthfully, your memory will live on not as an experiment, but as a testimony of what we must never repeat again.

06/01/2025

05/24/2025

Chihuahuas are having their moment.

05/15/2025

We’re lucky to have a creature that wants ALL OF OUT ATTENTION on them all the time. Lol. Everything in this video is so relatable!!

05/15/2025

I would love to dedicate a whole room for this!! People could rent time for their dogs! Lol!

05/04/2025

Hahaha. Concealed carry for the pups now.

05/04/2025

Frisbee Tidbits!

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07/07/2024

Tricky, tricky, dog tricks here. So often we are trying to train our dogs to ignore their nose and not be so sniffy in the life that we share with them, but that is a tragedy because it’s such a wonderful gift that they have. Here’s a way to let your dog use their nose for Good instead of EVIL! XOXO Love YOU!

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