which they stayed and onto the grounds of nearby Cromer Hallâa place Doyle already knew well, having stayed there as the guest of its master, Lord Cromer.
Not surprisingly, the tale provided useful grist for Doyleâs mill. In no time he produced a new Sherlock Holmes novel about a spectral canine that haunts the lives of an illustrious family living in a huge, Gothic home. The family is known to history as the Baskervilles, a name allegedly borrowed from the Cromer familyâs carriage driver. The novelâs four-legged villain got a name change, tooâlike the book itself, he was called the Hound of the Baskervilles.
LAD
THE DOG WHO BECAME
A LITERARY ICON
Today the worldâs most exalted collie is undoubtedly that wonder dog of TV and film, Lassie. But for a couple of decades at the dawn of the twentieth century, the most well-known member of this four-legged Scottish clan was a male, American-born purebred named Lad. His mostly true adventures were made famous by author Albert Payson Terhune, without doubt the greatest writer ever to devote himself almost exclusively to collies.
Terhune was born into a moneyed, privileged New Jersey family. Originally a newspaper journalist, he soon retired to Sunnybank, the familyâs summer estate in Wayne, New Jersey. There he acquired Lad, the first and, by his own estimation, most remarkable of the many collies he would own during his life. Terhune wrote that his friend âhad a heart that did not know the meaning of fear or disloyalty or of meanness. He was immeasurably more than a professionally loyal and heroic collie. He had the elfin sense of fun and the most humanlike reasoning powers I have found in any dog.â
Lad, who was born in 1902, lived for sixteen years before passing away in 1918. One year later, Terhune published a memoir of sortsâa collectionof short stories called
Lad: A Dog
. The book became a bestseller, and remains in print today. Nowadays, with everything concerning collies overshadowed by Lassie, itâs interesting to recall that several generations of children were raised on tales of Lad. A
Peanuts
comic strip once mentioned that the only stories Snoopy wanted read to him were those by Terhune. And in the 1960s TV series
Please Donât Eat the Daisies
, the family sheepdog was facetiously named Ladadog.
Itâs safe to say that Terhuneâs work helped elevate the rough collie from just another dog breed into the very symbol of canine heroism, intelligence, and fortitude. Even prior to Terhuneâs death in 1942, Sunnybank had become a place of pilgrimage for dog lovers from around the world. Today, generations after its ownerâs passing, the estate remains a public monument. Thousands of visitors stop by every year to visit the graves of Terhuneâs beloved collies, including that of Lad. It sits off by itself, located on what was, in life, the dogâs favorite sleeping spot.
OTHER CANINES OF
DISTINCTION
SHARIK: The dog who befriended Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky during his imprisonment; he was described in
Memoirs from the House of the Dead.
TOBY: The pet Rottweiler of artist Sandra Darling (a.k.a. Alexandra Day), he served as the inspiration (and the model) for the âCarlâ series of childrenâs books
.
LAUTH: A Newfoundland owned by
Peter Pan
author J. M. Barrie. He inspired the character of Nana the Newfoundland, who looks after the Darling children
.
PIMPERL: Mozartâs Pomeranian, to whom he dedicated an aria
.
MARTHA: Paul McCartneyâs sheepdog and the inspiration for the song âMartha My Dearâ on the Beatlesâ
White Album.
OLD DRUM
THE DOG WHO WAS MANâS
FIRST BEST FRIEND
In front of the Johnson County courthouse in Warrensburg, Missouri, stands a bronze statue commemorating an all-but-forgotten dog named Old Drum. But though the hound in question isnât exactly a household name, the eulogy delivered to commemorate his demise gave rise to
Not surprisingly, the tale provided useful grist for Doyleâs mill. In no time he produced a new Sherlock Holmes novel about a spectral canine that haunts the lives of an illustrious family living in a huge, Gothic home. The family is known to history as the Baskervilles, a name allegedly borrowed from the Cromer familyâs carriage driver. The novelâs four-legged villain got a name change, tooâlike the book itself, he was called the Hound of the Baskervilles.
LAD
THE DOG WHO BECAME
A LITERARY ICON
Today the worldâs most exalted collie is undoubtedly that wonder dog of TV and film, Lassie. But for a couple of decades at the dawn of the twentieth century, the most well-known member of this four-legged Scottish clan was a male, American-born purebred named Lad. His mostly true adventures were made famous by author Albert Payson Terhune, without doubt the greatest writer ever to devote himself almost exclusively to collies.
Terhune was born into a moneyed, privileged New Jersey family. Originally a newspaper journalist, he soon retired to Sunnybank, the familyâs summer estate in Wayne, New Jersey. There he acquired Lad, the first and, by his own estimation, most remarkable of the many collies he would own during his life. Terhune wrote that his friend âhad a heart that did not know the meaning of fear or disloyalty or of meanness. He was immeasurably more than a professionally loyal and heroic collie. He had the elfin sense of fun and the most humanlike reasoning powers I have found in any dog.â
Lad, who was born in 1902, lived for sixteen years before passing away in 1918. One year later, Terhune published a memoir of sortsâa collectionof short stories called
Lad: A Dog
. The book became a bestseller, and remains in print today. Nowadays, with everything concerning collies overshadowed by Lassie, itâs interesting to recall that several generations of children were raised on tales of Lad. A
Peanuts
comic strip once mentioned that the only stories Snoopy wanted read to him were those by Terhune. And in the 1960s TV series
Please Donât Eat the Daisies
, the family sheepdog was facetiously named Ladadog.
Itâs safe to say that Terhuneâs work helped elevate the rough collie from just another dog breed into the very symbol of canine heroism, intelligence, and fortitude. Even prior to Terhuneâs death in 1942, Sunnybank had become a place of pilgrimage for dog lovers from around the world. Today, generations after its ownerâs passing, the estate remains a public monument. Thousands of visitors stop by every year to visit the graves of Terhuneâs beloved collies, including that of Lad. It sits off by itself, located on what was, in life, the dogâs favorite sleeping spot.
OTHER CANINES OF
DISTINCTION
SHARIK: The dog who befriended Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky during his imprisonment; he was described in
Memoirs from the House of the Dead.
TOBY: The pet Rottweiler of artist Sandra Darling (a.k.a. Alexandra Day), he served as the inspiration (and the model) for the âCarlâ series of childrenâs books
.
LAUTH: A Newfoundland owned by
Peter Pan
author J. M. Barrie. He inspired the character of Nana the Newfoundland, who looks after the Darling children
.
PIMPERL: Mozartâs Pomeranian, to whom he dedicated an aria
.
MARTHA: Paul McCartneyâs sheepdog and the inspiration for the song âMartha My Dearâ on the Beatlesâ
White Album.
OLD DRUM
THE DOG WHO WAS MANâS
FIRST BEST FRIEND
In front of the Johnson County courthouse in Warrensburg, Missouri, stands a bronze statue commemorating an all-but-forgotten dog named Old Drum. But though the hound in question isnât exactly a household name, the eulogy delivered to commemorate his demise gave rise to
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