When Species Meet...

Beagles are good companion animals for hunting rabbits, but Snoopy doesn't have any interests in hunting, rather, he can't resist dancing with rabbits. He loves smaller creatures and takes care of them very well. I was impressed with his love anew, after I visited the Snoopy Museum Tokyo, which opened at the outlet center in Minami-Machida last December. This museum exhibits a lot of original images of the Peanuts, including a series of "Beagle Scouts" as a special exhibition this season. The Beagle Scouts consists of Snoopy as a leader and his troop of small yellow birds, yes, Woodstock and his friends. This exhibition tells you about the wonderful companionship Snoopy has experienced with non-human species as well as human beings. Remembering that the translator Shuntaro Tanikawa said, as a joke, he liked Woodstock the best because the bird spoke no human words, and he didn't have to translate them, I wanted to reevaluate this beagle as the best trans-species mediator we have ever had.