LASSIE

Photos: 
Above - me in the black & white days of 1966 with my new puppy Lassie.

Left: Me with Lassie and my grandparents' dog Judy, a Battersea rescue.

My First Dog
As a child, I had always loved dogs but I didn’t have one until 1966 when I was 6 years old. My begging and pleading finally paid off and my parents said I could have a puppy. We didn’t know much about dogs and our knowledge of different breeds was very limited. My Aunt said that there were some Border Collie puppies advertised in her local paper.  My Mum said “what’s a Border Collie?” and my Aunt said “I think it’s a sort of sheepdog like Lassie on the telly.”

We went to see the litter of puppies, which didn’t look anything like Lassie on the telly but I fell in love with one anyway, named her Lassie, and we took her home on the bus.

Lassie was a brilliant dog. She was never taken to a training class but she was so intelligent and keen to please, that I’m sure she would have been a great competition dog.

During the day while I was at school (and later at work) and my parents were at work, Lassie was looked after by my grandparents who lived a few doors away.  My grandad would sit out on the front wall with her in the afternoon and when she saw me turn the corner, she would come racing down the road to greet me.

In those days, everyone had their front doors open during the summer, and whenever I was outside with Lassie, she would sneak into someone’s house and beg for a biscuit. She knew where everyone’s biscuit tin was kept and all the neighbours adored her.

Lassie loved a dish of tea, and whenever we had visitors, she knew that we would put the kettle on and make a brew, so would go to the vegetable rack in the kitchen, retrieve her bowl (which was kept at the bottom of the vegetable rack) and parade around with it and wouldn’t settle until we filled the bowl with tea.

In the park, she loved to find an empty drinks can  and I  would throw it for her to fetch.  One day, in the middle of summer, she was running around the park looking for a can, and came across a man sunbathing. Beside him was an unopened can of beer.  Lassie grabbed it and started running around the park with it. Suddenly she put her teeth through it. The resulting explosion of froth came as a bit of a surprise to her and to me. I hadn’t known it was a full can until then! We hastily made our exit from the park before the sunbather woke up and discovered that his beer had been stolen!

Lassie died from parvo virus in the summer of 1979 whilst we were staying at our caravan on the Isle of Sheppey.  It was a very new condition at that time and there was no known treatment for it. In fact, the vet didn’t even know what it was. He treated Lassie for gastro-enteritis and didn’t know why she wasn’t responding to treatment.  Lassie was buried in the field at the caravan site where she loved to play.