#People write think pieces on CB's depression all the time online so

[supersunshine10]

Something Interesting About Snoopy

I've been thinking about Snoopy, and I’ve thought about something interesting about him.

In the first year or two of the Peanuts comic strip, Snoopy was actually a fairly normal dog at first. But around 1954 onward his character changed to him performing fantasies and not wanting to just be a normal dog, albeit they started off as Snoopy pretending to be other animals or other people only, until later evolving into more crazy ones like pretending to be a WW1 Flying Ace, Joe Cool, FlashBeagle, etc.

But what’s really interesting in some of these 50s strips, is that there are multiple strips I’ve seen that show Snoopy actually hating to be a dog.

Even though later on Snoopy can be proud to be a dog, there are actually multiple strips where he used to be really sad/self-loathing of being a dog and even wishes he wasn’t one (There was even one where he thought “If I was a human being I wouldn’t even own a dog!”).

Now think about how later on the strip reveals that Snoopy used to have a previous owner named Lila. Lila and Snoopy really loved each other, he was so heartbroken when she had to leave. It was too much for him to see Lila again when she came to visit, he raced as fast as he could to the hospital to see her, and he burst to tears in Snoopy Come Home.

But if you think about it, when Snoopy was with Lila, he acted completely like a normal dog with her? Aside from playing instruments in a band as a puppy, when he was with Lila he acted completely like a normal dog, even happily playing normal dog games such as playing fetch (While Snoopy later on almost always refuses to play fetch with anyone).

In fact Snoopy only started to refuse to do things like a normal dog like doing dog commands incorrectly, walking on two feet all the time, sleeping on top of his doghouse instead of in it, etc., was right after CB adopted him.

And I know it was different in the strip, but in the the special Snoopy’s Reunion it was stated that Lila had to give up Snoopy back to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm because no dogs were allowed in her apartment.

It’s possible that Snoopy was so heart broken being left by Lila, along with other things (Other strips show Snoopy struggling/hating the fact that he had to be separated from his family in the first place, getting kicked out of places that have no dogs allowed too, and more stuff like that), so he could have internalized hating to be just a dog, and so that's how he started to become the dog that refuse to be an ordinary beagle we all know and love.