Moving Pictures

33

Laddie is the Discworld counterpart to our world’s famous movie collie, Lassie.

In the movie Son of Lassie the protagonist was in fact called Laddie, but was played by Pal, the dog who had previously played Lassie in the original movie Lassie Come Home. Interestingly enough, Pal had a real-life son who was called Laddie, but this Laddie was only used for stunt and distance shots since he wasn’t as pretty as his brother, who eventually got to play Lassie in the CBS TV show, and who was the only dog ever in the role to actually be called Lassie, or rather, Lassie Jr.

Lassie was always played by a male dog, mainly because a bitch tends to go into heat, during which time she becomes unphotogenic because of severe shedding. It also gets bothersome to have to deal with the constant disruptions on the set caused by various male dogs in the area wanting to, um, propose to her.

Finally, two odd little coincidences. First, the Lassie dogs often had small dogs as companions. Second, Pal/Lassie’s trainer was a man by the name of Rudd Weatherwax…