Little, adorable Russian doggie, Laika, was presumed dead after his space exploration in the early 20th Century but recent observations from the Hubble Telescope have detected the 'waggledy-tailed one' coming dangerously close to an extraterrestrial world consisting of horrible, mean, cannibalistic dogs.
Located a little to the right and down from the Dog Star, the planet of BARK_21X is shaped liked like a giant intergalactic kennel. It is orbited by a moon that looks like a Frisbee.
It contains a species of dog that likes nothing more than eating other dogs.
"Laika is in desperate trouble", said a scientist today, "he is so small and adorable I can't see how he can fend off those other bigger space dogs".
To be honest, scientists are surprised Laika has been able to drive a spaceship, let alone live to what would be the equivalent in human terms of 300 years old.
Lassie and that big slobbering St. Bernard out of those incredibly shite Beethoven movies have sent their best wishes and prayers to Laika.
The Littlest Hobo has offered a bone upon Laika's safe return.
So far Laika has used his space-training manual to toss at the other fiends and even used up all his supplies of inflatable cats - which he has used to distract the attention of the other beasts.
"If only we'd listened to Khrushchev and sent a dancing bear into outer space instead!", cursed the scientist, "at least then he'd stand some chance of survival".
