TV-Series :: Lassie (US) :: Character Guide

Lassie was raised from a puppy by Midwestern farmer Homer Carey. At his death, eleven-year-old Jeff Miller receives Lassie as a bequest but Lassie refuses to leave the Carey farmhouse. Jeff discovers Lassie is guarding a cache of money from the thieving designs of a hired hand. Once the hired hand is brought to justice, Lassie leaves the Carey farmhouse and makes her home on the Miller farm. She has many adventures with Jeff and his friend Porky Brockway.

In the show's fourth season, a runaway called Timmy is discovered hiding in the Miller barn. The Millers take a liking to him and arrange to have him spend the summer on the farm in a foster status. Timmy and Lassie become great friends. When Jeff's grandfather dies, his mother plans a move to the city and the farm is sold to Paul and Ruth Martin who adopt Timmy and Lassie. Timmy and Lassie have many adventures and travel to the Grand Canyon and the Air Force Academy. In the first episode of the eleventh season, the Martin family emigrates to Australia where Paul plans to teach agriculture. Lassie remains in the States due to Australia's strict quarantine regulations and makes her home with a succession of Forest Rangers. She has many adventures in wilderness areas from Alaska to Monument Valley.

In her seventeenth season and her last with CBS, Lassie wandered alone from place to place helping needy humans and animals. No mention of her Ranger friends was mentioned nor were any human leads introduced. For the eighteenth and nineteenth seasons, the show entered syndication with Lassie settling on the Holden Ranch, a home for troubled children. She enjoyed adventures with children similar her years on the farm as well as adventures in the wilderness similar to those of her years with the Rangers.

Although Lassie's portrayers were all male dogs, "she" had several families of puppies through the course of her long television career. She also suffered numerous injuries including gunshot wounds and a concussion and other ills such as blindness. She survived all her various maladies. Lassie received several awards and honors including one from Timmy's Cub Scout troop, and one from the Lone Ranger's Peace Patrol.

Lassie has many unusual talents and abilities such as finding worms that always catch the biggest fish and singing with Uncle Petrie. Countless episodes demonstrate Lassie's very unusual canine ability of understanding complex human vocabulary, speech, emotions, and motives. Lassie is a well rounded dog mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. She is loyal, loving. and devoted to her humans though sometimes jelaous, angry, and stubborn. She is brave, fearless, and playful -- but above all she demonstrates an extraordinary care and concern for her humans.