Snoopy was a terrible dog – a crazed barker, undisciplined, and spoiled.
They bought him from a pet store for their son’s seventh
birthday. He was a cute puppy – a blond part terrier, part Cocker
Spaniel.
They had a hell of a time housebreaking him. He ruined the new blue
carpet in one bedroom of the house they had just bought. After much
discussion about names they agreed on “Snoopy”.
He loved to be with the kids tearing around the neighborhood playing army
and hide-and-seek chase games. The kids would take off in the late morning
for an afternoon of fun and make Mother promise not to let the dog out.
“OK, I promise,” she would always say, but after about fifteen minutes of his whining mournfully at the front door she would relent and let him out anyway.
He would run down the street on their scent and find them hiding somewhere near
the high school grounds on their mission of the day. They always hated it
when he found them because his jingling dog tags gave their position away to the other players and then they lost the game.
Sometimes he would get out on his own somehow and follow the kids to school
where the girl was a traffic guard. Mother received a frantic call
from the school to come and get the dog who was locked up in the
small traffic room with some terrified kids being held at bay by his nagging
bark.
On Halloween they dressed him up with the rest of the family and went
trick-or-treating. One year when punk rock was “in”, they sprayed the boy’s
hair green, Father’s beard green, and Snoopy’s ears green. They came
back with tons of candy which was emptied into a large basket on the floor.
They sat up eating candy and watching TV for a couple of hours and then went
to bed thinking nothing of it. When they awoke the next morning the whole
basket was emptied of its contents including the wrappers! Snoopy had
cleaned them out.
One evening Mother made Father and herself a couple of cocktails with
pineapple juice, coconut milk, and vodka (Pina Coladas). She set the glasses
down on the coffee table to go answer the phone and when she came back Snoopy
had licked the glasses clean! He spent several hours happily passed out
under the dining room table recovering from his debauchery.
He sat under the dining room table during dinner to catch the bites of food the kids would toss down to him surreptitiously trying to make Mother think that they were eating all their dinner. He was always after a snack.
Even the Ice Cream Man knew about his fondness for sweets. Whenever he drove through, he would toss Snoopy an ice cream bar to get the kids’ attention. Snoopy would announce the coming of the ice cream truck before it even hit their street. He could hear the jingle of the music long before the humans. Mother bought a lot of ice creams for that bunch who hung together on their bikes throughout that summer.
During the 100 year flood on the Russian River, the family had to evacuate
their house due to the rising waters. They loaded up one suitcase, took a sleeping bag, a loaf of bread, some peanut butter, the dog, and a flash light into the canoe. They left the canoe with a group of people who were helping to evacuate those trapped by the rising water on the other side of the bridge and walked into town.
They ended up in the Catholic Church up on the hill over looking the flooded town below. Father helped in the kitchen at the fire hall preparing food for the victims and carrying people and supplies back and forth in the flooded area between the church where people sat waiting for rescue, and the Parish Hall where people and food were
initially processed.
As Father waded across the flooded street, Snoopy followed him
faithfully swimming the waist high impasse each time. Later they were
told that they would be evacuated by an Army helicopter, but they couldn’t take their
pets. They had all held up pretty well until this point, but at the thought of leaving Snoopy behind, they all began sobbing.
Snoopy was left to be cared for by the SPCA who had set up a rescue operation for pets in the flooded area. By this time many animals were all running wild on whatever high ground was left. It was a week or more before the water subsided enough for them to get back in to assess the damage and collect their dog. Snoopy appeared on the TV news several times during the course of that week. Many people offered to adopt him if
his owners didn’t come back for him.
Snoopy lived out his senior years on the river, swimming, barking, and running wild in the forest until one day they found him in the creek drinking copious amounts of muddy water and then vomiting continuously. He kept repeating this process until he collapsed shivering in the boy’s arms.
They wrapped the poor beast up in a blanket and took him to the hospital where it was determined that he should be put down. It was raining again… hard, it’s always a hard rain on the river.
