Lassie was your typical mongrel. Growing up in the 80’s that was your standard breed of dog. She was my Nan and Grandad's dog when I was a small child. When I was little I used to call my grandparents Nanny and Grandad Lassie. But due to a decline in my grandparents' health she came to live with us.
She was probably the same size as Westie but a bit more stocky and shorter legs, black with strands of blonde and grey. Cute little thing she was. She always had a cup of tea in the morning. Always. My fondest memory of her though was the way she would actually smile when she was excited. To others she probably looked like she was going to take a nip at you. Not Lassie, not a bone in her body.
My most memorable moment of Lassie will always be the day she was found and by me by some strange hand of fate. Somehow she had managed to escape our back garden. Dad had been sorting some fencing and somehow she was small enough to escape. We spent hours, days and what may have even weeks trying to find her.
You have to remember this was around the late 80’s. We didn't have the internet and social media. We called around the local vets, Birmingham dogs home and the police. No joy, it was as if she had just vanished into thin air. We slowly came to terms with the fact she was never coming back.
Until one day. I had been asked to go to the shop by my Mom. So armed with my shopping list and money tightly folded inside off I went. I always used to go the same way to the shop, but that day I didn't and I can't explain why to this day. Wandering along the street and turning the corner, a total world of my own.
Ahead of me was the hill and at the other end of the hill, in the distance I could see a man and a small dog on a lead and it was the same colour as Lassie. But it was too far for me to see clearly and then as we got closer. I could see. It was her! I squealed her name and she flew. The lead came straight out of this man's hand and she ran like the clappers. I'm getting goosebumps just writing this. Oh the joy, the tears.
The gentleman explained that she had been with him all along. He found her wandering around a good distance from our house and he took her in. She had been living it up by all accounts. The cheek of her.
We headed straight back home. Now by this point I have been gone a long time. My Mom knew how long it should take to get to and from the shop. Dawdling there and back was never an option. By the time I get home, my Mom is stewing with worry about where I am. I walk in and she is just about to unleash the wrath of god on me for being so long and then she sees Lassie in my arms. Safe to say there were tears from us all.
Lassie lived a good life till the very end and sadly passed the rainbow bridge in my teens. She was a good age too. She had to be at least a good 15 years old. She had lived with 3 generations of our family in those years. That's something I will always find beautiful. Lassie was not just any old dog, most of all she is the name sake of my grandparents and she was my first ever introduction to having a dog in my life.
She left paw prints on my heart and now some nearly 35 years later I own a business making bandanas and bows for dogs.