We’re always proud when a member of the CRC family distinguishes themselves. The following is reprinted with permission from the June 2010 AKC Gazette.

Citizen of the World

Fiction winner’s Collie speaks universal language

Our 2010 fiction-contest winner, Tom Marshall, says he wrote his first-place entry "Everyday Heroes" (see page 30), as a celebration of all those dogs who are just not Lassie.

"I wanted to write a story where, instead of one dog being a spectacular hero, a number of dogs are heroes to their people every day," Marshall says. "I wanted to show the extraordinary within the ordinary relationships with our dogs, that our relationships with our dogs are special enough just as they are."

Ironically, Marshall’s breed of choice is Lassie—the rough Collie. His first Collie, Charlie, was a blue merle, adopted as a senior dog. "Although time with him was brief, Charlie inspired me and kept me company early in my writing career," recalls Marshall, whose novel Stride for Stride was published in 2005.

Today Marshall, who grew up in the Bronx, New York, and his wife Laurita, a playwright, live in Venthône, Switzerland, where Tom teaches marketing at the University of Applied Sciences. Their companion is Brigadoon Argyll Marshall (Briggs), who was adopted from Collie Rescue of the Carolinas in 2004.

In their travels, the Marshalls have discovered that the Collie is as universal a symbol as a Coke or a smile. "Briggs has been to France, Italy, Austria, and Monaco. He is very popular in Monte Carlo, particularly at the Café de Paris, next to the Casino," Marshall says. "He has his own passport, and knows that whatever language people speak, they can all say Lassie."—Mara Bovsun