Snitter

Snitter is one of the two main protagonists alongside Rowf of Richard Adams`s 1977 book *The Plague Dogs*, and its 1982 animated film adaptation.

He is a fox terrier who once had a kind and loving master named Alan Wood until he was sold to a research facility after his master was seemingly killed.

He and Rowf escape the lab and have to survive in the wild with the help of a fox known as The Tod.

He was voiced by the late John Hurt, who also played Hazel from the 1978 film *Watership Down*, and Winston Smith from the 1984 adaptation of George Orwell's *Nineteen Eighty-Four*.

## **Personality:**

Snitter is an optimistic, hopeful and kind dog who cares about masters.

During his life with his master, he lived happily and was very playful, such as chasing cats and running around the neighbourhood.

Whenever he was mistreated by his master's sister, Annie Mossity, he still acted politely towards her, even if she wasn't around, because his master wanted him to act kindly around anyone.

After his master was run over, Annie Mossity sold him to the whitecoats, leaving him to believe that he killed his master.

After his vivisection experiments, he frequently had hallucinations, usually at the sight of his master and suffered from seizures, such as having flies and a mouse in his head as well as having constant raining in one eye.

Whenever Rowf felt doubtful about anything good or having a decent master, Snitter encouraged Rowf to not give up.

His hallucinations do occasionally predict something, such as when he told Rowf that the door of his kennel wasn't a wall anymore.

When he and Rowf meet The Tod, he agreed to make a deal with him in exchange to help them survive in the wilderness and could understand his Geordie accent, even imitating it at times.

Even in spite of The Tod's greedy behaviour, he still relied on him to help them survive and understood his self-serving reasons.

Throughout the story, his chances of finding a master were in vain and he gradually became less optimistic.

After he accidentally killed a local businessman with his rifle, he believed that everything unfortunate comes from his head and the world would end if he was killed.

When he was captured by the Dawsons, he hallucinated at the sight of being at home and refused to come out when Rowf and The Tod warned him, because he was convinced that he would go mad until he caught the smell of the whitecoats and fled the shed with the help of The Tod.

When he and Rowf were being pursued by the military, he went too crazy to realize what was going on and even forgot that they were being pursued.

After The Tod was killed, he rested on the shores of Ravenglass with Rowf with the army chasing them and told him to wake him up when The Tod returns, unaware that The Tod was actually dead.

When the army closed in on them, he imagined an island across the sea and swam out to escape the soldiers with Rowf.

When he began exhausting himself, he confessed that there wasn't any real island and nearly fell into despair until Rowf claimed to see the island and urged him to keep swimming.

## **Biography:**

### **Backstory:**

He was found by a local solicitor named Alan Wood and was adopted by him.

Snitter lived a happy life with his owner as he liked hanging out with Wood's friends and chasing the neighbourhood cats.

However, Wood's sister, Annie Mossity hated him and abused him out of spite.

He lived with his master for three years until his owner was hit by a lorry, while trying to save Snitter from being run over.

The public blamed him for getting him run over and the grey-haired lady friend of Wood locked him in a coal closet until she let him out.

The next day, Ann Moss took Snitter with her and sold him to an experimental facility known as Animal Research Scientific and Experimental ARSE, leading him to believe that he killed his master.

Moss claimed that Snitter had a demonic aggression and the whitecoats performed several vivisection experiments on him by merging his conscious and subconscious mind, causing him to have hallucinations, often at the sight of his master.

### **At The Research Station:**

At the lab, Snitter befriends a black mongrel named Rowf, who was repeatedly drowned for testing endurances as well as other dogs, including a black and white dog named Kiff.

However, the whitecoats take Kiff away and sentence him to death by electrocuting him.

Eventually, when the janitor named Harry Tyson fails to shut Rowf's kennel properly, Snitter notices this and crawls his way to Rowf's cage.

Snitter tells Rowf that the whitecoats don't care about him and Rowf slams against the door in a fit of anger, causing it to open.

Rowf is initially hesitant to escape the facility, but Snitter urges him to move.

They come across an incinerator and Rowf is hesitant to enter, but Snitter enters the incinerator.

Rowf follows him and they rest inside the incinerator as Snitter has a dream about the experience where his master was seemingly killed.

They wake up and Snitter manages to find the exit.

Though Rowf initially refuses to come along, the two dogs manage to escape the incinerator in time before it is ignited, allowing them to roam the countryside of the Lake District.

### **Attempts At Survival:**

The two dogs search for a master to look after them, to no avail.

They come across a shepherd and they try to impress the farmer, but they end up causing the sheep to escape their enclosure and are confronted by the sheep dogs.

Snitter explains that they are trying to look for a new master and he and Rowf leave as the owner calls for his dogs.

They arrive at a secluded area surrounded by rocks and Rowf deduces that they should convert to being wild animals in order to survive.

They eventually meet a fox in an abandoned mine and Rowf orders him to stay away from them.

The fox offers a deal to help them survive in the wild and Snitter convinces Rowf that they should listen to him.

Rowf reluctantly agrees and the fox introduces himself as The Tod.

Snitter disposes of his bandage and they begin killing sheep and other livestock until Rowf kills a sheep in a conspicuous manner.

The Tod confronts Rowf and leaves, since the farmers will now hunt them down.

When the farmers raid The Tod's area, The Tod returns and helps them escape before the farmers could find them.

Later, Snitter comes across a Jewish businessman named David Ephraim Pierce Chetwynd in the film.

The man calls Snitter over and he jumps to his arms, but accidentally steps on the trigger of his rifle, fatally shooting the man in the face.

Snitter is forced to flee and the police hunt the dogs down as they blame them for the murder of the man.

Rowf searches for Snitter and eventually finds him two days later.

Snitter explains about the incident and blames himself as he believes that his head is responsible for causing every unfortunate event.

When the two dogs begin scavenging dustbins near a shop, the owners drive Rowf away and lock Snitter in the shed as they report him to the police.

Rowf informs the Tod and they head over to the shed as the police arrive.

The Tod convinces Snitter to come out of the shed, but he refuses as he hallucinates at the sight of his master and is convinced that he will become mad again if he leaves.

Rowf manages to pull the netting off the hole on the door and the Tod helps Snitter escape the shed before the police and the whitecoats could catch him.

### **The Plague Rumours And Operation Gelert:**

The two dogs and the Tod arrive at a local farm and the Tod feasts on a nest of chicken eggs by himself.

Rowf drives him away for his selfish behaviour and they head into the farm to kill chickens, despite Snitter informing him about the Tod's warnings not to go in there.

They break into a chicken coop and manage to kill one of the hens.

However, the farmers come out and prepare to shoot them, but the wife stops her husband and lets them go.

Meanwhile, an unscrupulous journalist named Digby Driver Lynn Driver in the film blackmails one of the whitecoats working at the research station, who is researching bubonic plague for germ warfare and publishes headlines about the two dogs carrying the plague, causing mass hysteria among the public.

The two dogs discover the snowy weather and they wander aimlessly across the Lake District.

They raid a bank clerk's groceries in his car and come across the sheep dogs, who doesn't recognize them.

The starving dogs walk across Dow Crag and are unaware that they are being pursued by the same bank clerk a bounty hunter hired by the whitecoats in the film.

The hunter tries to get a shot at the dogs, but he ends up falling to his death and the dogs scavenge his corpse.

The hunter's mutilated corpse is eventually found and the situation escalates to a national level, as the Secretary of State has deployed a battalion of the Parachute Regiment to hunt down the dogs.

The Tod comes up with a plan to distract the hunters while Snitter and Rowf make a run for the train, but he ends up getting killed.

Fortunately, the fox's distraction was long enough for the two dogs to make it to the Irish sea.

As they make it to Ravenglass, they are chased by an RAF helicopter until they reach the shoreline.

As the military closes in on the dogs, Snitter claims to see an island and starts to swim and Rowf reluctantly follows.

The soldiers fire two shots at them, but they seemingly miss.

The two dogs manage to lose sight of the military as they enter a fog.

Snitter begins to tire and loses hope as he thinks that there isn't any island.

However, Rowf claims to see the island and urges Snitter to keep moving as they disappear behind the mist.

### **Fate:**

In the book, they were eventually rescued by two naturalists named Peter Scott and Ronald Lockley and hauled onto their boat.

The naturalists nurture the dogs to health and Snitter admits that he made the island up.

However, Rowf told him that it wasn't made up, because the humans rescued them and they are finally free from their suffering against the whitecoats.

They finally make it to shore, where they are finally reunited with their master, Alan Wood.

The Secretary of State and his senior civil servant arrive to have the dogs shot, but Digby Driver threatens to give them a bad reputation and they flee as Rowf chases them away.

Mr Wood and the two dogs then head for home as Digby Driver and Major Rose help them on the way.

In the film, it is implied that they drowned and found peace in death as they are finally put out of their misery and their suffering has finally ended.

This scenario was the original ending of the book until the readers requested the author to alter his ending.

An island is shown, presumably as a metaphor for the afterlife.

**Quotes:**

* *"I can't come out".*
* *"If I do, I'll go mad again".*