In 1943 "Lassie Come Home" debuted starring Elizabeth Taylor and a love affair with collies and the "Lassie Come Home" story was launched. The TV series, began in 1954, continued through 1964 and included several Timmy's and descendents of the original Lassie. The original Lassie's real name was "Pal" and descendents of Pal appeared in all shows/movies/etc. since the original "Lassie Come Home"

That is, until now. In 2005 a remake of "Lassie Come Home" was filmed on the Isle of Mann in the UK. And, guess what, they couldn't get clearance to fly the appropriate Lassie to England. - From the Lassie.net website:

"Ireland, the U.K. and most of Europe have very restrictive animal/pet import laws – that were strengthened further after 9/11 and outbreaks of mad cow disease in recent years. Any animal or pet is subject to a rigorous testing, mandatory quarantine and an extensive paperwork process before they can obtain the proper permission for entry into the country. This can take more than six months. The brief pre-production schedule of this film did not allow sufficient time to obtain pet passports for "Lassie" bloodline dogs. Despite appeals to the U.K. and Irish regulatory authorities, the producers were unable to obtain an expedited quarantine."

Just to keep a little authenticity in the movie, a couple of scenes were shot in the US with a direct descendant of Pal. But there was a huge uproar from the "Lassie" purists over not using a "real" Lassie dog for the movie. It was the tradition. The current "Lassie" descendant is 9th generation and is being bred to insure there will continue to be direct bloodline dogs for movies and/or TV.

My mom, in 1964, bought her first collie. She needed a name to register the new dog and came up with using the first three letters of our last name and added haven ("A place of refuge or rest; a sanctuary") and so, Marhaven Kennels got it's start. It was strictly a small endeavor, there was never more than a couple litters of puppies running around, but she kept it up for about 12-15 years.....at which time she built tanks in the basement and started raising tropical fish.....but that is another blog.


That first puppy was Marhaven Miss Polly (above). She is a tri-color collie. Interesting sidebar - In the original "Lassie Come Home" book, Lassie was a tri-color collie, not the sable and white color we have come to associate with the Lassie character. Here is the scoop why Lassie will always be sable.

"No, the collies will be the same as the Lassie trademark, sable and white, full white collar, four white feet and a white blaze going up the nose. When Eric Knight wrote the original story he did not copyright/trademark the character of "Lassie". When he sold the rights to MGM for the first movie, they cast the dog as a sable and white collie. Later, when Rudd purchased the rights after Lassie had a long line of successful movies as a sable collie, the trademark of "Lassie" was established to always be the sable and white collie"

Mom had some sables, too.

I had left home in 1962 for college and didn't see much of the kennel action, but I do remember one particular dog. His name was Czar and he had a fantastic lineage, was show quality, etc etc....mom actually paid $600 for this dog in the mid 1960's. If you knew mom you would understand the humor of what I am about to tell you about Czar, because my mom never spent a penny on anything she didn't have to.



Czar ended up being the house dog. So much for breeding.....apparently he was somehow related to the same bloodline that Miss Polly was and they made puppies with "bent tails" - which means the last bone in the puppies tail was askew and the tail had a little zag....now, she used Czar with another female with no problem but she felt like she was perpetuating a breeding problem and she stopped using him for stud. All his puppies were sold as pets, unregistered. Czar's second problem was.....she couldn't keep him in the kennel. Our house was under a jet stream and everytime one would fly over Czar would fly over the kennel fence, she was so afraid he'd get hurt she finally gave up and the $600 dog became a pet.

I believe these pretty puppies were Czar and Miss Polly's. Mom actually took the first litter to the vet and had their tails fixed. LOL.






Well, so that's my little tale about how the name Marhaven came about. When I joined my first Clay Aiken fan board I needed a name and it didn't occur to me to be Aiken'sBacon or something cutsie (thank goodness), I remembered my Mom and the Marhaven Kennels and deceided to use that name. I even answer to marhaven now.

If you are interested in collies and/or Lassie I highly recommend the Lassie.net site - You can find it here. Lassie.net

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