SNIFF

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Once upon the time Sniff was a young and cheerful dog, but those happy days were more or less passed, when I was born and entered the household. Ever since then he is hating the sight of a pup. Not before they are half-grown he can somewhat restrain his aversion and reluctantly tolerate them.
He was only one year when Toke was born. With him he would sometimes agree to play, but already at that age he was starting to get gruff, sitting on the floor looking sulky because of the wild little puppy´s natural behavior. My mistress and Löken have told me so - as you know I was not yet born.
Sniff himself will never admit he has even been young at all.
When I was born he was two and a half years old and already acting like an "elderly man".
Part of the reason was probably a malfunction on his thyroid gland, but above all I believe he was jealous. He had enjoyed himself so immensely being the only dog, claiming his owner´s full attention. Besides I was a very tiresome pup. Poor Sniff, it was no fun for him.

When I was two years old they bought Rama - which hardly made things better for him.
She and I became good friends - since she gave up the bad habit of using me as a mattress - but she and Sniff never got on very well. It might have been the result of his interest in her behind. Anyone is entitled to feel a bit irritated due to the constant presence of a desirous, little wet beagle-nose under one´s tail.

RAMA AND EDDA

When Rama had grown up she was taken to mate with a stud (she wasn´t happy about it - I remember her claiming it was a rape) and afterwards she got four puppies. At birth their coats were striped, but later they turned wrinkled and grey, with eyes as blue as the summer sky.
At first we found them repulsive, but as they grew bigger and bigger I came to enjoy playing with them, showing them who was in command (namely I).
Finally they got too heavy and wild, but then our mistress was also fed up with them, so by that time she decided to sell them and let them move to new masters and mistresses.
To us it was a relief when they went - but I believe our mistress missed them a bit and thought the house was empty without them.
Next time when Rama had puppies, their father was a silver-coloured container in the animal hospital. Rama is quite frigid - she hates every male, except me - but I wonder if not the container and the vet were more disgusting. No dog with a healthy common sense enjoys to visit the vet, if it´s not absolutely necessairy - and Rama is as frightened as I to be left in the animal hospital and locked up in a stinking crate.
(Yes, I know I am probably the one to blame for that. I have told her about the man we once met there, who was staring at me suspiciously, saying: "Such as those we use for EXPERIMENTS")

However, Rama got pregnant again. This time she gave birth to a litter of only three, one of them a fiery little bitch which our mistress decided to keep for herself.
Right from the start Sniff and I considered they had kind of a family likeness. I mean, not Rama and the puppy - which would have been perfectly normal - but our MISTRESS and puppy Edda.
There was something about their noses...the same peaked and somewhat grey-pink-ish growth in the face - in other words, very much different from us beagles who are equipped with PROPER noses.
And then, of course, their temper. Edda is also angry - which I´ve become aware of many times, by being painfully pinched.

Now there was already four of us - except for our two-legged owners - in our little cottage in Gladökvarn, south of Stockholm. Sniff thought it was deadly boring. He grew even grumpier and less active than before, keeping more and more to himself in some corner where he lied sulking. From his wiew everything was as bad as can be, but the future would still turn out to be worse...
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