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. (more…)
