February 7, 2003 A golden retriever, outfitted with boots, goggles, and a snowsuit, scaled the western hemisphere’s highest peak last week.
The two-year-old Rubia, who had been training to climb 22,834-foot Aconcagua since she was seven months old, conquered the Argentinean peak as part of a study on how rescue dogs function at high altitude.
The dog’s human companions, Spanish climbers Carlos Valverde and Marc Ortega, fed the four-footed climber a special diet and rubbed cream into her paws to prevent injuries.
“The dog would react and recover better than we would,” one of Rubia’s fellow climbers told the BBC.
While animals aren’t usually allowed on the mountain, officials made an exception for Rubia because of her participation in the rescue animal study. The golden retriever was roped to Valverde and Ortega for the entire climb.
Rubia may not have been the first canine climber to reach the summit. Nearly a decade ago, the Argentinean newspaper Clarin reported that a stray dog was accompanied a group of Austrian and German climbers to the top.
Other dogs have soared even higher. In 1957, a Russian mutt named Laika became the first animal to orbit the earth, according to Space Today Online. Aboard Sputnik 2, Laika circled the earth at an altitude of about 2,000 miles. Between 1957 and 1961, at least 13 other dogs headed skywards as part of the Russian space program.
