I bought this postcard in a Budapest flea market in the mid 90s. I thought it was Laika (uh, yeah -two dogs on the card; so I thought it was two views; whadda I know).

Somebody corrected me:

The dogs on your postcard are "Belka" and "Strelka" who orbited the earth 18 times aboard Sputnik 5 on August 19, 1960. Both dogs survived and a few months after the flight Strelka gave birth to six healthy puppies. One of the pups, named Pushinka, was sent to President John F. Kennedy as a gift for his children.

The dog Laika was launched into space aboard Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957. She was the very first living creature ever in orbit the earth. In 1957 there was no method to land or recover a spacecraft, thus Laika's flight was one-way only. Shortly after launch the Soviets announced that Laika was not destined to return alive and would die in space. For many years it was said that she died painlessly about a week after blast-off. Finally, in 2002 it was revealed that Laika died of overheating and panic within a few hours of lift-off. On April 14, 1958, Sputnik 2 fell from orbit and burned-up during reentry. Laika was the only animal Russian scientists knowingly sent into space to die.