Laika was found as a stray wandering the streets of Moscow.

Soviet scientists chose to use Moscow strays since they assumed that such animals had already learned to endure conditions of extreme cold and hunger.

To get her used to spaceflight, she was kept in smaller and smaller cages. They then put it into a centrifuge that simulated the acceleration of a rocket during takeoff and subjected it to noises that mimicked the interior of a spacecraft

Before the launch, one of the mission scientists took Laika home to play with his children. In a book chronicling the story of Soviet space medicine, Vladimir Yazdovsky wrote, "Laika was quiet and charming ... I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live.