Strelka is, along with Belka, one of the two main protagonists of the Space Dogs franchise. She is a stray dog who believes herself to be the daughter of a "star dog". As such, when she becomes one of the space cadets, she is eager to become an astronaut to reunite with her father.
In the first movie, she was voiced by Yelena Yakovleva and dubbed in English by Dorothy Elias-Fahn.
Biography[]
Past[]
As a pup, Strelka lived in a Moscow apartment with her mother and their owner. One night, she had a tag put on her neck to prevent her from getting lost. not understanding the item's purpose, Strelka asked her mother what it meant, and she claimed that the tag signified her relation to the "star dog" living in space, supposedly her father. Later, while on a walk in the park, Strelka chased after a shooting star and lost sight of her owner. She thus became a stray dog, searching dumpsters for food and evading dogcatchers. At some point she made friends with a street rat named Lenny.
Space Dogs[]
In 1960, a circus dog Belka wound up crashing into the sandbox Strelka was burying her bone in. The two didn't get along, but had to stick together to survive. Eventually, Strelka and Lenny got caught by the dogcatcher, with Belka following while trying to get them out. All three were taken by train to the Baikonur cosmodrome, where they were placed among the dogs trained to become astronauts. Strelka believed going into space would allow her to see her father, but the commanding officer Kazbek tried to make sure she and Belka failed. Two other stray dogs, Bulya and Mulya, also sabotaged their competitors to make sure they'd go into space, but in the end, Belka and Strelka beat all other cadets by sticking together. They and Lenny were thus sent into space on Sputnik-5. When it was time to return to Earth, however, Strelka took control of the spaceship and attempted to go further into space to meet her father. Kazbek, who had snuck on board Sputnik-5, tried to stop her, but failed, and the spaceship eventually collided with meteors, starting a fire. With Belka taking control, Strelka, Kazbek and Lenny put the fire out, and eventually Sputnik-5 returned to Earth, but not before Strelka "talked" to her father, who she recognized as the Canis Major constellation.
Upon her return, Strelka became a celebrity and was reunited with her mother.
Space Dogs: Adventure to the Moon[]
Years after their trip to space, Belka and Strelka continued to enjoy fame and recognition, though they eventually grew bored of it. Strelka planned to go on a vacation to Yalta, but her bag with bones was abducted by an unknown force and brought to the Moon, along with the phone booth Lenny was in. While searching fro their rat friend, the dogs were apprehended by the KGB and brought to the Plesetsk cosmodrome, whose head suspected Belka's husband Kazbek of being behind the abductions and plotted to eliminate him. To rescue him, Belka and Strelka stole the space rocket and reached the Moon. On the Moon, Belka and Strelka fought the robot that was the real culprit behind the abductions, and reunited with Kazbek, Belka's son Pushok and Lenny. Pushok revealed that the robot's pilot was an alien kid who lost his parents and was trying to send them a distress signal. Sympathizing with the alien, Strelka, her friends and the American chimp astronaut Chip joined efforts to help him. After the alien's parents took him home, all Earth animals returned to their home planet as well.
Space Dogs. Return to Earth[]
After recovering valuable samples from Enceladus, Belka and Strelka made their way to Earth. Due to mistakes made by the former, their commander promoted Strelka to be the team's commander, and issued an order to research an anomaly in the vicinity of Cuba - a freak vortex has been sucking up all water in the Atlantic Ocean. The astronauts ended up crash-landing, and later captured by pirates, but escaped with Lenny's help. They were all, however, sucked by the vortex into the lair of its creators - two aliens from a planet that had lost its own water, which is why they were stealing water from Atlantic Ocean. The dogs convinced one of the aliens, Pumbary, to free them so they could bring them samples from Enceladus in exchange for returning the stolen water. But when they presented the case to Pumbary's partner Croakagy, it was empty, convincing him that the Earthlings were lying. Suddenly, Lenny's girlfriend Maria stole Croakagy's ray gun and accidentally shot the spaceship's control systems. Belka and Strelka managed to make the ship come to surface by convincing the aliens to eject the stolen water back in its place in exchange for one last sample of concentrated water from Enceladus that Maria had stolen, more than enough to save their planet. The aliens escaped before the military could blow up their vessel, but not before letting the Earth animals go. As the dogs failed both their assignments, the commander prepared to punish Strelka, but Belka argued that she shared blame and should be punished equally. As a result, both were reassigned to serve in Cuba, but didn't think of it as a punishment, given the weather was welcoming and the locals hailed them as heroes.
Other media[]
Space Dogs: Family[]
Strelka is a minor character in this TV series. She appears rarely, and it's shown that Belka's children see her as an aunt-like figure and respect her.
Space Dogs: Mysteries of the Cosmos[]
Strelka is one of the main characters, living on the Moon base built as part of a joint Roskosmos/NASA project and exploring the Moon with her friends. She ends up forming a relationship with Pedro, an American poodle astronaut.
Personality[]
Strelka started off highly cynical due to her life as a stray dog hardening her, believing that everyone's for themself, and had no friends other than Lenny. At the same time, though, she was pretty naive, believing her mother's unlikely claim about her father being a cosmic being even as an adult. at first, she didn't get along with Belka, but after helping each other out multiple times, the two became best friends, and Strelka even changed her stance on teamwork.
Trivia[]
- Strelka is very loosely based on the real-life dog of the same name that, alongside Belka, was the first to complete an orbital flight and survive it.