He's fun to draw, and his design is one of the best in Pokemon imo (i do prefer humanoid characters, so that may be part of the reason).
Even thought i've never managed to get one in any of the games i played, he showed up a lot in the Pokemon series i watched growing up. I can't remember which one it was, but even then i used to think "this dog is very cool :0" every time he was on screen. And of course, the battles were EPIC in terms of art and animation.
I had this great realisation that Sneasel sounds mad close to ‚weasel‘ and whoops I went deep into the Japanese folklore of the Kamaitachi, which are lightning fast blade wielding weasels who cut your legs in cold climates.
There‘s a great 16 min youtube podcast that explains the folklore far better. Go show them some love!