So I had to look this one up and it turns out that on Nov 3 1957 the Soviet dog Laika became the first animal in orbit the Earth!

Hi SRE

There have also been Chimps flown in space also! The U.S. put a chimp named, Ham in orbit, and brought safely back in January 1961, from Florida.

We've also flown on the space shuttle smaller monkeys, and Bees!