Albert Payson Terhune – Dog Breeder / Author

Before there was Lassie, there was Lad

Terhune was known to many grade-schoolers for his novels about Collies, such as “Lad” and others. He wrote about his collie, Lad in an issue of Red Book (January 1915) titled “His Mate”. His novel “Lad: A Dog” (1919) was published before “Lassie” (first published in 1940) and there was a movie “Lad: A Dog” (1962).

Terhune’s books are fast-reads, his words take you back to his time – his stories often unfold with a surprising realism for books often considered as recommended reading for children.

I am honored to say that Terhune was my distant cousin.

He was my mother’s 6th cousin to be exact. My mother would tell me about visiting his beautiful Sunnybank estate and playing with the collies there while her mother visited with their cousin. When I was a teenager, she drove me to see the Sunnybank property, the house gone and Terhune long deceased (he died in 1942). Her vivid memories helped me imagine what it was like to have visited there so many years ago, while the collies stil roamed around the place.

It is perhaps because of this that I have always felt a connection with Terhune, his famous collies and Sunnybank (known to Terhune as “The Place”). I’d imagine what it must have been like to live and write there… a beautiful home with a large veranda, a gazebo overlooking Pompton Lake – collies running in the yard. Just lovely –and a writer’s dream home.

Today, the Sunnybank Estate is now a memorial park saved in part thanks to the efforts of Terhune fans. See some of the current pictures of The Place … there’s a picture of the monument the Fund erected at Champion Rock, too. There is also  information on this  site regarding the line of Sunnybank Collies.

Links about Sunnybank – Photos – Archives and More:

http://www.waynetownship.com/his-sun.htm

http://www.sunnybankcollies.us/index.htm

http://marianallen.wordpress.com/books-i-love/lad-a-dog/

http://www.sunnybankcollies.us/offers.htm

http://www.waynepubliclibrary.org/terhune.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Payson_Terhune

Videos of Sunnybank, Terhune and his Collies

Movie Trailer of Lad: A Dog

Rare home movie video of the Terhunes and their Collies