Snuffles

Snuffles, (who changed his name to Snowball and back again) was Morty's pet dog featured in the episode Lawnmower Dog. Snuffles is a small, fluffy white-haired dog that experiences some trouble with being potty-trained until Rick develops an IQ-enhancing helmet for him at the request of Jerry.

He might've became a Cronenburg, but he had moved to The Dog Dimension before the events of Rick Potion #9.

Biography

Snuffles is a dog who is the house pet of the Smith family. He is first mentioned in the Pilot episode, when Beth tells Morty not to kiss the living room pillow, because the dog sleeps there. He first appears in the episode Lawnmower Dog, where Jerry gets mad at him for peeing on the carpet and then scolds him for it. Rick invents a helmet that would make him intelligent enough to understand what they were telling him to do. Eventually, he becomes smart enough to figure out a lot more things about how the humans have been treating him and modifies his helmet to let him communicate with them. He keeps building and learning more, until eventually, he and many other dogs take over and treat the Smith family as their pets, chaining Jerry, Beth, and Summer up in the backyard. He also reveals that he doesn't like the name "Snuffles" and now plans to go by "Snowball". However, when Morty returns from an adventure with Rick, Snowball decides he cannot hurt the only human who actually loved him, and decides instead to leave Earth to found a planet of intelligent dogs in another dimension.

After this, Snuffles would never be seen again except for his picture on the kitchen wall in a few subsequent episodes.

A flashback to the episode "Lawnmower Dog" was seen in the episode "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind", in a montage of all of Rick's memories.

Another time when he was still in the house is also seen in the episode "Total Rickall", in a montage of all of Rick's memories. Snuffles is seen sitting at the table while Rick "plays cards" with him.

Appearance

Snuffles is a little white dog with black, beady eyes and a little black nose. Snowball also has a blue collar with a circular silver tag on it. It is unknown what breed of dog he is, but it's possible that he is either a Maltese, West Highland Terrier, Bichon Frise, or Shih Tzu.

Personality

Snuffles is a kindhearted and playful, albeit dimwitted, dog. Despite his previous nature, once the IQ-enhancing helmet is placed upon him his personality traits change drastically. He becomes a harsh and cruel dog who soon learns of the humans' mistreatment of the canine race and uses his upgraded intelligence to raise a dog army to take over the world. He shows his kindness by sparing Morty and giving him anything he desires after he conquers the world, and later by giving up his wealth and kingdom to save a dying Morty, albeit in a dream.

Relationships

Morty

Morty is the only member of the family who Snowball declares he can't hurt. This is because Morty is the only member of the family who was actually nice to him. When Snowball was taking over the world and dominating all humans, Rick and Morty entered his dreams to stop him. After waking up from the dream, which involved Morty falling into critical condition, Snowball realized that colonization was not the answer, as dog-kind would not exhibit the cruelty seen from humans, and declared he and his kind would instead to go another dimension and take that over, leaving the Dimension C-137 alone. Snowball leaves after sharing one last tearful hug with Morty.

Jerry

Jerry wasn't too fond of Snowball, back when he lived in the house with him. He was annoyed with the things he did, particularly whenever he'd catch him peeing on the carpet. One time, Jerry rubbed Snowball's face in the urine stained carpet as a way of expressing his anger. When Snowball developed artificial intelligence, he did the same thing back to him and did a lot of other things to him, such as forcing him to pull down his pants and rub his butt all over the carpet and was even attempting to go as far as to fix him, if it wasn't for Morty stopping him.

Appearances

Season 1

• "Pilot" (Mentioned)

• "Lawnmower Dog"
• "Raising Gazorpazorp" (Pictured)
• "Something Ricked this way comes" (Pictured)
• "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind" (Pictured)

Season 2

• "Total Rickall" (Non-Speaking Cameo)
• "Get Schwifty" (Pictured)
• "Big Trouble In Little Sanchez" (Pictured)

Season 3

• "Pickle Rick" (Pictured)
• "Morty's Mind Blowers (Non-Speaking Cameo)
• "The ABC's of Beth (Pictured)

Season 4

• "Never Ricking Morty" (Non-Speaking Cameo)

Other Media

• "The Non-Canonical Adventures"
• "Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality" (Pictured)

Trivia

• Snuffles is based on co-creator Justin Roiland's pet dog named Jerry.
• The title "Lawnmower Dog" is a parody of the movie The Lawnmower Man.
• Snuffles' alias, "Snowball", is possibly a reference to the character "Snowball" in George Orwell's Animal Farm, a pig that believes in revolution and supports the dream of a life without humans.
• The idea came from Justin Roiland's earlier uncompleted animation Dog World, where a family of humans got sucked into a wormhole and now live in a society of smart dogs.
  • In his first appearance, Snuffles is mistakenly called "Ruffles" by Rick. Ruffles is the name of the family's pet in Dog World.
• Morty mentions an idea similar to Dog World near the end of Lawnmower Dog: "Wow, a whole world populated by intelligent dogs -- I wonder what it'll be like?" Rick responds, "I think it would be great, Morty. It could be developed a very satisfying project for people of all ages. I'd watch it, Morty, for at least 11 minutes a pop!"
• Snuffles' mechanical suit seems strongly inspired by the "Battle Pods" from Macross/Robotech.
• Snuffles is a fixed dog. He was seen asking Summer where his testicles were and later got revenge on Jerry for all the things he did to him, which included an attempt to fix him.
• In Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind, a photograph of Snuffles can be seen near the portal.
• In many episodes, Snuffles can be seen pictured on the wall in the dining room.