Dogyears : The couch dog

So I tried to make Snoopy a guard dog this month...

That elixir of knowledge, Wikipedia, defines a guard dog as "a dog used to guard against, and watch for, unwanted or unexpected people or animals."

I thought I would start his training with something simple so I set him off with the stray cats that roam around our house premises. As you can see, in the initial forays, he proved to be quite excellent at it and would track down any cat and chase him/her out of the house. But then slowly, I started to see a pattern.

Be gone, vile creature! The bones are for me...
meeee, I tell ya!

The cat and her kitten were returning back and were even more confident this time around. How was that possible when the house had the best anti-cat security measure in Snoopy? The more I looked into it, the more I started to suspect that bribes had been given to him by the cats to look the other way. I mean, literally, look the other way!!
You don't believe me? See the photographic evidence below of him pointing out 'where the cat has run off to' and tell me if you realize why I'm starting to get a little suspicious.

"Roshan! He went that-a-way!"
"Umm... Snoopy? Are you sure?"

So I decided to take a different attitude: I enforced upon him the proud legacy of the beagle breed and how they were once the Queen's guard dogs. That seemed to catch his interest (I wouldn't go so far as to say it raised his ears though... if you know beagles, you know that's not gonna happen.)

To further his knowledge, I gave him the remote control of the TV and told him to watch documentaries from the History Channel while I was away at work. 

I should have turned on the "Child Lock" feature in my television because when I came back, he was glued to the television sit watching a Game of Thrones marathon! Now I have to fight with him for the television remote as well, especially when his show timings clash with my shows like Keeping Up With the Kardashian Honey Boo Boo Chota Bheem news.   

"So wait a minute! If Tyrion did not kill Joffrey, who did?!"

Since he was proving to be a horrible student, I decided to take him to the gym to hone his attacking skills. We procured a life-size rottweiler punching bag to bring out his inner ferocious animals instincts.

Initial tests were very positive as he defeated
the inanimate doll... 3-2.

  Encouraged by this, I decided to let him have his first battle against the beast... the doberman of the house, Victor. It did not go as planned.

MINUTE ONE OF THE BATTLE:
Victor: This is a joke, right?
Snoopy: Wait! The other black dog did not move as much as this!
Victor: Did you just call me "Black"????

MINUTE TWO OF THE BATTLE:
Self-explanatory!

Finally, after working out a compromise between the two where I had to buy Victor larger dog bones so that he would not chew Snoopy, I resigned myself to the fact that this guy would never be a great guard dog.

On the other hand, he did turn out to be a pretty good movie reviewer. He would sit up late every night for watching movies. Of course, being a Britisher at heart, he obviously did not appreciate the silly histrionics of Malayalam cinema and found the movies I enjoyed boring. But then, it did not matter since the family found him adorable even when he slept I mean, come on! Even his style of falling asleep on the couch was more regal than mine!

Wake me up if there is a Woody Allen film!

With all efforts to convert him into a guard dog having failed, I turned in my findings to the seniors of the house certain that they would have him sent to the kennel and I would be top dog of the house again.
That's when 'the news' came in.
Snoopy had won in the recent blogging contest! In fact, He had taken home the highest monetary prize the blog had ever won in nine years. From that point on, all attempts by me to sabotage his place in the family was purely a waste of time.

In the end, the family unanimously decided that I should do night duty at the house, running around and chasing cats to earn my food. This would allow Snoopy to devote his time and energy to write for all contests on Godyears so that the blog would stand an ACTUAL chance of winning contests, apparently.
He gets to lounge on his favourite couch and watch any show he pleases while eating KFC. When he's in a good mood, he even tosses scraps out the door and watches from the window with an evil grin as I and Victor battle for the KFC popcorn.
He found his true calling: the transition from guard dog to couch dog is now complete...

In Dog we Trust.