At WrestleMania XV, Snow lost a WWF Hardcore Championship triple threat match involving Hardcore Holly and Billy Gunn. During the summer of 1999, at the conclusion of a storyline where Head was impaled with a spike by Prince Albert, Snow replaced Head with a chihuahua named Pepper, who he claimed talked to him. A variety of segments were broadcast showing Snow's interactions with the dog, including bringing Pepper to the ring to either "participate" in matches or be held by the broadcast team. This led to a storyline where Big Boss Man kidnapped Pepper. Boss Man agreed to return the dog if Snow defeated him in a match for the Hardcore title; however, after losing the match he reneged and kept the dog. Later, in a segment on "SmackDown", Boss Man invited Snow to his hotel room to discuss the situation, before serving Snow dinner which was then revealed to be Pepper. (In a 2008 interview, Snow said that this angle had been based on a story of Mr. Fuji having done something similar with his partner Professor Tanaka's dog.) The feud culminated at a "Kennel from Hell" match at Unforgiven, which consisted of a regular cage which was surrounded by a Hell in a Cell structure, with "a trained pack of wild dogs" in between the two, and the objective was to escape both cages without being attacked by the dogs. Al Snow won the match.