A couple of years ago the RSPCA launched a new fundraiser, ‘Poorly Drawn Pets’, in which supporters were invited to submit a photo of their pet, make a donation of $30, and receive a drawing of the pet produced by… a child, a professional artist, one didn’t know. I promptly submitted my best photo of my Labrador Toby and received in return what could only be described as a caricature.
So, I was eager to see what would become of the photo of Snoopy I submitted this year. The result, shown here, surely wasn’t drawn – at least by human hand – but it certainly represents the love generated by my little devil.
Snoopy is a creature of habit. At 7½ months, he still expected me to play with him on my bed for a few minutes before he’d go to sleep on his own. But one night he didn’t go to his bed. Instead, I heard a succession of low growls coming from the entrance hall which adjoins my bedroom. After some time I gave up trying to sleep and went to investigate. Snoopy was scowling at a large cockroach, on its back and thus precluding Snoopy from giving chase. Much to Snoopy’s disgust, I threw his new plaything outside.
Later that night the sound of torrential rain on our roof was disturbing Snoopy, so I lifted him onto my bed to calm him down. There he stayed until morning. I hoped that didn’t become another habit – at least until the nights cooled down enough for me not to mind his snuggling up close to me. ‘Sausage Dog’ doesn’t do him justice; ‘Hot Dog’ is a more accurate description.
Like many youngsters, Snoopy has a short attention span, as I discovered one evening while watching ‘Muster Dogs’ on TV. As soon as a dog appeared on screen Snoopy, who was dozing beside me on the lounge, sat up and watched the program with keen attention… for about five minutes, after which he lost interest. I’ve recently learned, to my extreme surprise, that Dachshunds can make good muster dogs (look at YouTube if you don’t believe me), but I can’t believe that’s Snoopy’s ambition in life, although he wouldn’t hesitate to chase the many kangaroos we see on our walks if he weren’t on a lead.
Snoopy evidently understands me even better than I’d believed. One morning, when as usual he was on my bed while I was drinking my tea and reading, he kept vigorously scratching himself. I didn’t know what was physically irritating him, but the sound and movement were certainly irritating me while I was trying to read. So I told him that, if he didn’t stop, I’d put him off my bed. He immediately took things into his own hands – sorry, paws – jumping off the bed and leaping onto his own, where he promptly went to sleep without a single scratch.
On another morning, my reading was rudely interrupted when Snoopy espied a kangaroo outside my bedroom window. He leapt off my bed, barking furiously, and kept trying to jump through the window, which was fortunately too high for him to reach. Tantalising Snoopy, but presumably oblivious to the impact on my peace, the same kangaroo returned to the area outside my bedroom window on several of the following mornings.
If any reader thinks that I exaggerate Snoopy’s liveliness, please consult my Newcastle friends Bron and Steve, who came for an overnight visit. Apart from the time we were sitting at the dinner table, Snoopy wouldn’t leave them alone, leaping all over them, chewing and licking them – doubtless his way of saying “Where have you been all my life?”. He discovered that he could push open the door to the spare bedroom so, to save them from nocturnal visitations, much to Snoopy’s evident disgust I kept my bedroom door, which he can’t open from the inside, shut all night. The next morning, he wasted no time in compensating for the attentions of which I’d so meanly deprived them overnight.
Despite an unusually wet summer, it wasn’t until late February that it was raining heavily when Snoopy got out of bed in the morning. As usual, he made for the back door, but faced with a wall of water he refused to go further. Have you ever tried to hold a dog under one arm while trying to open an umbrella? It might be easy with one of those umbrellas where you press a button and it opens automatically, but mine wasn’t one of them. Eventually, I overcame the challenge, put Snoopy down in the garden, and held the umbrella over him while he relieved himself.
However, my relief when it stopped raining by the time we were due for our morning walk was short-lived. Almost immediately we could hear garbage trucks emptying bins at the entrance to Jenanter Drive. And Snoopy was severely discomposed by the sound, which got louder as the trucks got closer. He was determined not to let them catch him, and took off at high speed, with me hanging on to the end of his lead, Snoopy frequently looking back to ensure that we were maintaining our distance from those deafening demons. We made it home in record time, with Snoopy as lively as ever and yours truly in need of another shower.
