Where’s The Fat Beagle

 

Janie wanted a puppy and boy did she get one.

She and her mom came home from church one Sunday to find a box standing in the middle of their garage. When Janie looked down into the box, she found that her dad had gotten the cutest little Beagle puppy she had ever seen. She couldn’t wait to hold him, kiss him, and teach him new tricks.

Hold him? Absolutely! Janie’s mom took so many pictures that she could fill an entire photo album.

Kiss him? She did and, although he got into everything, she didn’t care to touch her lips to that filthy little puppy.

Teach him new tricks?

Yeah, right.

Snooks was what you could call a K-9 comedian because even watching him walk was funny. That’s probably because he was quite fat and this produced a very pronounced waddle. Living in the country, he would run like a galloping gourmet. However, he really didn’t have balance between how much he ate and his degree of physical activity. He would hunt, but sometimes the rabbits could outrun him or he couldn’t fit in small spaces because, let’s face it, that doggie gut was huge.

He also howled when he would hear a train in the distance. He absolutely couldn’t stand trains, but he could handle the noise of large tractors.

Regardless of his awkwardness, Janie loved her dog and so did her aunt who lived nearby. The theory was that his obesity had a lot to do with Janie’s aunt not being able to resist feeding him. She thought his big belly made him the most adorable dog in the world. Factor in how sweet he was and he was the perfect combination of cute and sweet.

But one day Snooks didn’t come to get his treat from Janie’s aunt and he didn’t come when Janie’s mom called him.

This is when Janie took it upon herself to make missing dog posters. Living in the country gave her limited places to put them, but she saw this on TV and it had worked. She was hoping placing posters on the few telephone poles in the area would produce her dog.

No sooner did she get the posters done, he was found in a nearby pig pen. He had gotten in and couldn’t get out, so he had been mingling with the pigs for a few days. He was quite hungry and managed to obtain a broken tail. It was assumed that this non-combative dog may have gotten into a scuffle with a pig and lost.

So off he went to have his tail set and a splint put on.

When he came back with the splint and a new diet plan, it was hard not to giggle at the fact he was going to be this chunky dog with an upright tail for a while.

Did he ever lose weight?

He actually did. He would try very hard to get Janie’s aunt to feed him, but she knew not to. He eventually adjusted to his more controlled diet, which also meant his hunting record improved. Most importantly, he lived to the ripe old age of 17.

And although his hearing diminished with age, he could feel the vibration of a train passing through on the nearby tracks and howl anyway.