When I lived in a Connecticut suburb, from time to time I’d get an urgent call from my neighbor, Chris. “Have you seen Bagel?”, Chris would ask breathlessly on the phone.
Bagel was the Smith’s beagle and, like all beagles, had a nose for adventure. If anyone left a door open in the Smith house, Bagel was out and off. Usually Bagel turned up in someone’s yard, and a simple telephone call would bring the cute, but oh so naughty, little fellow back home.
I was at the top of Chris’ “find Bagel” list. We had a cairn terrier, who would bark to signal that Bagel was on the loose — again. If Elsie was in our enclosed yard, Bagel’s first stop would be to check in with Elsie. Maybe he was hoping that Elsie, somehow, could join him in an adventure. Didn’t he realize that terriers also had minds of their own, in addition to a nose for adventure, and that’s why we had an enclosed yard?
Both Bagel and Elsie lived to old age. Other than luck, probably their longevity was due to their charming, willful personalities (escaping confines were just forays — they wanted, like Lassie, to come home, eventually) and stubbornness. Once beagles and terriers get a scent of adventure up their nostrils, they don’t give in. Maybe that’s why beagles are one of America’s most beloved breeds. Unless, of course, it’s because of Snoopy.
Perhaps before Dr. Anthony Fauci spent millions of taxpayer funds from NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) torturing beagle puppies, he’d ignored that Charles Schultz often transformed his charismatic, renegade beagle into to an ace World War I fighter pilot intent on taking out the Red Baron. With his deadly doghouse cum-Sopwith Camel, Snoopy is now being called again to take out an evil human.
Dr. Fauci may never be fired or resign for his role in funding the Wuhan Institute experiments with coronaviruses. But what has become known as #Beaglegate, may very well be responsible for the virologist being finally shot down by beagle-lovers and animal lovers writ large.
With the news on Oct. 27 about a letter written by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and signed by nine other nonpartisan congressmen and congresswomen to Dr. Fauci and the NIAID about an invoice for slitting the puppies’ vocal cords, (cordectomy), to prevent them from barking or crying while being tortured, beagle owners let out a nationwide howl.
A watchdog group, White Coat Waste Project, had already obtained documents in January 2021, that Dr. Fauci had approved a $378,800 grant to a Tunisian lab in 2018 and 2019 for an experiment in which 44 healthy, beagle puppies were bitten to death by infected flies. When The Beagle Freedom Project sent a letter demanding that Dr. Fauci and the agency stop funding the “cruel” tests on all puppies, more animal rights organizations joined the pack.
PETA has called for Dr. Fauchi’s resignation.
Beagle babies worldwide can thank Snoopy that this puppy purgatory has now been exposed.
Calla Jones Corner
The author lives in Montecito
