Pushinka

A Cold War gift with a space-age pedigree. Pushinka, whose name means "fluffy" in Russian, was a puppy of Strelka, one of the Soviet dogs that orbited the Earth in 1960 and came home alive. Seated beside Nikita Khrushchev at a 1961 state dinner in Vienna, Jacqueline Kennedy asked about Strelka's puppies, and Khrushchev later sent one, with her own Russian passport. The Secret Service checked her to make sure she was not bugged. Then the thaw went domestic. Pushinka and Caroline's Welsh terrier Charlie had four puppies, which the president jokingly called "pupniks." Few pets sum up their era so neatly: the space race, superpower suspicion and a family dog story, all in one small white mixed breed.