Snoopy

Snoopy is a funny, imaginative, good-natured and genuinely happy dog. A running gag within the strip is that he does a "happy dance", which annoys Lucy because she believes that nobody can ever be that happy. However, Snoopy just thinks Lucy is jealous because she is not capable of being as happy as he is. The only thing that truly upsets him is a lack of supper. Snoopy, being a dog, has a strong hatred of cats, often making rude remarks to the cat next door (who usually attacks him and destroys his doghouse) and in one series of strips writes stories for a magazine which just points out that cats are stupider than, and inferior to, dogs. However, Snoopy has on occasions tried to be nice to the cat next door, but their relationship always remains antagonistic. Snoopy loves root beer, cookies, pizza, and ice cream, hates coconut candy and listening to balloons being squeezed, gets claustrophobia, which keeps him out of tall weeds and even his own doghouse, and is deathly afraid of icicles dangling over his doghouse. One of his hobbies is reading Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace at the rate of "a word a day". Snoopy also has the uncanny ability to play fetch with soap bubbles and can hear someone eating marshmallows or cookies at a distance, or even peeling a banana. He claims to hear chocolate chip cookies calling him. Snoopy is also capable of disappearing, like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, as shown in one '60s arc and the strip from February 03, 1992, "Grins are easy. Noses are hard. Ears are almost impossible." Snoopy also loves sleeping and being lazy - a trait which often annoys Frieda. Snoopy often lies on top of his doghouse and sleeps, sometimes all day long. In the strip from October 07, 1955, Charlie Brown refers to him as a "hunting dog", because he always hunts for the easy way out of life. In later strips, when not indulging in his fantasy life, Snoopy's main human contact is with Rerun van Pelt.