Since I was very young, I loved the character “Snoopy”. I always loved dogs as well. I decided early in life that “someday I would get a beagle and name him Snoopy.”

Years passed and I got married to the love of my life and we were married and had a home and a dog and wanted another dog so we called our vet and he referred us to a rescue ranch. We talked to a lady there and she went down the list of dogs she had and she mentioned that she had a beagle named “Snoopy”. He was approximately 4 years old and was found a stray and she took him in. Beagles are known for becoming strays simply because they love to sniff out rabbits and chase them – then next thing they know, they don’t know where they are or how they got there.

Snoopy was unbelievably thin. We had him checked out by a vet and was told he was fine – just hungry from being on his own for too long. He had a huge mass under his belly which they claimed was a “fatty tumor” and it was no big deal.

Well, if you could see the look Snoopy gave us, it wouldn’t have mattered what it was, we were his new family!!

We took him home and we lucked out that he was potty trained and went to the door – the only problem being he was very grouchy and also very protective around his food. Obviously from many nights of going without food. He had become so aggressive with his food and other things – that we even considered taking him back to the ranch. We were scared he was capable of biting a neighbor kid or our other dog.

We chose not to. We stuck it out and showed him love and gave him reassurance that he was not going to starve if we got near his food dish. It took a lot of practice but before long, his showing of teeth became licks and kisses.

We had grown very attached to Snoopy when we were told that Snoopy’s fatty tumor may be more serious. However we were broke and didn’t have the money to foot out the 600 dollar surgery – our vet claimed “Oh he will be okay for another year or so, you just want this taken care of before he gets old.”

I didn’t like that answer. I told my husband, “I want this fixed.” He had become not just a “dog” to us, he was a member of our family. So we found a vet who was willing to take payments. Snoopy had his surgery. When they got inside they found that it was not a fatty tumor but a hernia that was endangering his life. They told us we did the right thing not waiting or it would have cut off circulation and eventually kill him. This is the second time we “rescued” Snoopy. That night was the longest night of our marriage with that dog crying all night long, I slept on the floor and held him all night long. The only bright spot that kept us knowing our pup was still fighting was the fact that we lived on a second story of an apartment building and had bought him puppy pads to do his duty on. He would not have that!! He was much too dignified and proud. Our pup went outside and wouldn’t have it any other way. A few weeks later, he was back to his old self and bouncing around like nothing ever happened.

Years went by and we grew even closer to Snoopy. We moved out of state for my health and the economy – and became blessed with our first pregnancy. This was during the holiday season, and our worse nightmare happened. Christmas Eve, 2009, we lost our baby. Snoopy was by my side the entire time. As if he knew that we were all missing a part of our family that we would never meet.

It was a long miscarriage – lasted 72 days when finally the bleeding had stopped and we took Snoopy out for the day and we just finally breathed and relaxed and tried to have one fun day and we came home with a note on the door of a threat of eviction if we did not keep our dog quiet. Well, I was miserable. This was in direct light of a retaliation of us complaining about some noise – and the neighbor felt it was his duty to falsely claim our dog was barking at “all hours of the day”. Now, I was going through a 72 day miscarriage and was home all the time – there is absolutely no way on earth I could have tolerated our dog barking all those hours of the day. This was noted by the landlord but I was still very upset and vented to some friends who took advantage of our weakened state.

Our “friends” had promised us a career, shelter, vehicle and we would only have to relocate to California for all of this great stuff. Needless to say with the loss of the baby, the threat of losing our beagle, we were not in the right frame of mind and accepted this “too good to be true” offer.

We made the trip out there and found out they had lied about everything and when we wanted to leave, they turned angry and vicious and quite frankly we feared that I could start bleeding again or end up with heart trouble as I had been in the ER for it just a couple of weeks earlier. Our “friends” had thrown our things and slammed doors and screamed and were becoming quite violent. We called our family and needed to go for our own safety, but we had a problem. We couldn’t take Snoopy. Our car broke down in Nevada and was donated to a charity – we had no way to take Snoopy.

We begged our friend who had told us to get out of his “four letter word” house, to take care of Snoopy for a few days until we can get him home to us.

Our family sent us tickets to take a bus back to Missouri. I cried and cried and my heart was so broken – I had lost my baby, my puppy, and all of my memoribilia such as wedding photos and my grandfather’s tools… everything. Car too. We had been through so much. In this process, the “friends” said they were not going to send Snoopy. They needed 900 dollars to send Snoopy. Not including the stuff they had of ours. I threatened to sue them. Then they wouldn’t talk to me. They would only talk to my mother.

My mother was unable to get them to release our things to us nor our dog. They promised they were sending our things but never did. We went on our own hunt – because only one thing mattered to me that we got out of their house and into ours. SNOOPY!

We called and called places and each day that went by, my heart broke. I trusted these “friends” and I was never so betrayed. The only thing I can say for them is they fed our dog. We found a nice Texas man who ran a company traveling small pets and we paid him 475 dollars (yes, that was it.) to bring our baby home! He was so nice and in just a little over a week he got our Snoopy home.

Snoopy acted very different at first. He had been gone a month! They just wouldn’t release him. We even had a rescue agent try to pick him up and they wouldn’t release him. He had a scar on his nose. I hugged him and he was scared of getting on the couch and we have always let him on the couch. It took only two days for our baby to bounce back and this was the 3rd time we rescued Snoopy.

We learned two very valuable lessons with our Snoopy. Never make decisions while you are emotional. And that dogs are your number one fan and they are very capable of love under any circumstance. All you need to do is show them and they will love you forever and ever, no distance or time can change that love.

We never did receive our things. We were told to sue them for our things, but we don’t have money for that. What really matters is not the stuff. It is that we got our Snoopy home and we are again a family and we won’t ever take that for granted again.

Ed and Connie from CO