The dog by Vasily Grossman. Short summary

5 seconds

An intelligent dog, who was later nicknamed Mottles, after a homeless but free life, was captured and sent to a research lab.

1 minute

The stray dog often starved as a child and had no permanent home, but was happy. Although the animal was malnourished, it looked well-fed. However, the dog gradually began to grow up, and the world began to seem cruel and cold to him. Only once in a while did good things happen in the animal’s life — a warm night’s sleep, getting a tasty bone, and love.

The dog was very intelligent. It had thoroughly studied the structure of the city in order to survive and could, for example, distinguish between an electric train and a car.

After some time it was caught and sent to the space biology laboratory. The head of the facility, Alexei Georgievich, had a severe temper and conducted cruel experiments on the dog, whom he gave the nickname Mottled. However he soon became attached to the animal and began to pity him.

As a result, Peter was put in a special apparatus and sent into space as an experiment. She returned alive, but she had gone mad.