Snoopy is a fictional character in the long-running comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. He is Charlie Brown's pet beagle. Snoopy began his life in the strip as a fairly conventional dog, but eventually evolved into perhaps the strip's most dynamic character — and among the most recognizable comic characters in the world. The original drawings of Snoopy were "slightly patterned" after Spike, one of Schulz's childhood dogs.
Snoopy, whose fictional birthday has been established as October 4, made his first appearance in the strip of October 4, 1950, two days after the strip premiered. He was first identified by name on November 10. Schulz was originally going to call him "Sniffy", until he discovered that name was used in a different comic strip. He changed it to "Snoopy" after remembering that his late mother Dena Schulz had commented that if their family were ever to acquire a third dog, it should be called Snoopy, an affectionate term in Norwegian.
