Who Knew This About Snoopy?
I guess I’ve never wondered where Snoopy was born. So when Becky Wash from Retro from Scratch sent me a photo showing Charlie Brown writing to ‘Daisy Hill Puppy Farm’ to send Snoopy back it was a surprise.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Becky creates attractive new notebooks from old books and came across this in the book she was working on. It shocked us both. Not only was Snoopy born in a puppy farm, apparently, but he was heading back there, for some discipline. How very grim. Knowing what puppy farms are like.
The book was published in 1968. Would the story, or a version of it, be written today? A lot has changed in the past fifty four years. Puppy breeding has exploded into a lucrative, global industry. With both legal and criminal elements making a lot of money from puppy buyers the world over. Buyers who either don’t know, or don’t care about the origins of their puppies. And who either don’t think, don’t know, or don’t care about the parent dogs. But who with their actions, whether wilfully or naively sustain a nasty, exploitative business.
Would Charlie Brown today know that puppy farms are no place to be buying Snoopy from, let alone sending him back when he disappointed? I like to think so and that a different book about Snoopy’s start in life would be written. But then I’m a realist. It’s just as likely that Charlie Brown would be like millions of people today and either not know or not care that puppy farming is no laughing matter.
How much has the world really changed from the days when Snoopy coming from a puppy farm seemed perfectly acceptable? I suggest not as much as we might like to think.
Becky is a fundraising mentor for Schnauzerfest and regularly comes up with creative ways to help the charity.
