The Peanuts Gang and dogs

Linus comments to Charlie Brown:  “You know what you and Snoopy should do? You should go to an obedience school.”

Snoopy’s cartoon bubble:  “Why should we go to obedience school? He already does everything I want him to.”

~ Charles M. Schulz

I never miss the Peanuts comic strip in the newspaper. Its creator, Charles M. Schulz, died in 2000 but newspapers continue to run old strips……and I continue to read them faithfully.

The characters are wonderful. Charlie Brown is the perennial loser who tangles with kite-eating trees and comments, “I only dread one day at a time.” And who can resist loud-mouthed, selfish, crabby Lucy and her brother Linus, the sweet natured kid who is never without his blanket and believes in the Great Pumpkin?

My favorite character is Snoopy. He’s great whether he’s dancing “The Beagle,” imitating a fierce vulture or playing the World War I flying ace. And how can you not love a dog that lost everything when his dog house burned….but then resolutely replaced his ruined Van Gogh with a Wyeth?

While Charlie Brown can’t win on the baseball diamond or with the little red-haired girl, he has always been Snoopy’s devoted owner.

Several strips featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang hang on the bulletin board of our kennel office.

A couple of my favorites:

— A simple one with no talking or cartoon bubbles features Charlie Brown holding an umbrella over Snoopy and his dog dish while Snoopy eats.

— Snoopy is barking during the night in the first frame. Lucy comments, “Listen! Do you think Snoopy sees a burglar?” Charlie Brown replies, “No, that isn’t his ‘Burglar Bark.’ That’s his ‘barking just for the sake of barking’ bark.”

— In a longer Sunday strip, Charlie Brown says, “It’s kind of cold tonight…it shouldn’t be so cold this time of year…I wonder if Snoopy is warm enough…I think I’ll take my sleeping bag out to him…”

Charlie Brown then takes his sleeping bag into the back yard for Snoopy and comments, “I can sleep well myself now, knowing he’s warm.”

The final frame shows Snoopy tucked into an enormous sleeping that hangs off the roof of his dog house and flows onto the ground.