Where did South Ashland’s Snoopy go? The tale of a purloined porta-potty pooch in Lexington
Missing: One very noticeable dog who has been a fixture of South Ashland for nine months.
Snoopy, who had been roosting with pal Woodstock on top of a portable toilet along the busy Lexington road through fall and winter, has flown away mysteriously.
Now in his place is a forlorn wooden sign reading: “Snoopy Come Home.”
The sign and the porta-potty are in front of 244 South Ashland Ave., where architect Reese Reinhold lives and works.
Reinhold said in an interview Tuesday that he and his wife, Becky, had the portable toilet placed in front of their home late last summer while they were having some work done.
One of Becky’s running buddies, neighbor Solly Van Meter, “decided we needed to dress up our porta-potty a bit, so he and his wife installed Snoopy, unbeknownst to any of us — just took it upon himself,” Reinhold said.
“The porta-potty is about as much like a Sopwith Camel as Snoopy’s doghouse, but somehow it just begged for Snoopy, in his famous World War I Flying Ace character. Of course, Snoopster has his trusty co-pilot, Woodstock, with him,” Van Meter said in an email Tuesday. “While an attack by the Bloody Red Baron isn’t a huge threat in Chevy Chase, it was comforting knowing we had the brave Snoopy to defend us if necessary.”
The reaction was huge.
“People stopped and would take pictures of it all the time. People walking down the street took selfies with it. This happened almost every day,” Reinhold said.
And there Snoopy and Woodstock flew, on their own private privvy-turned-plane.
Until a little over a week ago.
On the morning of Sunday, March 16, Snoopy and Woodstock were missing. The only thing left was the bungee cords that had strapped him on. And two more bungee cords down the sidewalk toward Chevy Chase.
“Who steals Snoopy? That’s just crazy,” Becky Reinhold said.
She discovered the dognapping when she and Van Meter were returning from a run. “Solly said, ‘Who took Snoopy?’ ... It had to have happened in the middle of the night.”
So Van Meter concocted the sign that reads “Snoopy Come Home” and draped it around the back, where passing cars would see it.
“I guess sometimes we don’t realize the little things that make us smile until they are gone. The ‘Snoopy Come Home’ sign on the porta-potty is a plea to bring the smiles back,” Van Meter said. “Snoopy will be welcomed home, no questions asked.”
Have there been any calls or responses to the sign?
“Not yet,” Reese Reinhold said. “But we’re hoping maybe somebody would have it in their heart to drop Snoopy off where he belongs.”
If that doesn’t happen, might they just get another decoration for the blue outhouse?
“Well, hopefully the porta-potty’s going away soon,” Becky Reinhold said. “But when you’re the wife of the architect and builder, you’re last on the list.”
One more question: Why Snoopy in the first place?
“We always have a Snoopy on our roof at Christmas,” Reese Reinhold said.
So, naturally, their friend Solly said they needed a Snoopy for the portable toilet too.
“That’s another story. My wife hated those plastic yard ornaments, and every time we’d drive around with our daughter she’d comment on them ... So my daughter and I got a lighted Snoopy and put on the roof, but we put it on a timer so it would go off at 5 a.m. when she goes running and go on at 10 p.m. when she goes to bed.”
It was three weeks before she found out, he said.
“One of the neighbors said, ‘I love your Snoopy,’ and she said ‘What Snoopy?’ ... It’s been a fixture now for 20 years,” he said.
This story was originally published March 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
