Terhune’s Fun Loving Collie

Here is one of my favorite collies from Terhune’s Sunnybank Collies.  Gray Dawn was a character who was a happy soul full of life and fun who had a true propensity to turn that fun into trouble in a innocent way.  A big Blue Merle who became a true buddy of Terhune’s.  He especially looked after Terhune after Albert was hit by a car.

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My favorite Gray Dawn stunt of all time is the day when Terhune and his wife were getting ready to go to a wedding.  Terhune was waiting for his wife wearing his Tux standing by the Lake.  Gray Dawn ran up behind him to give him a big hug greeting playfully like he loved to do.  He came from behind Terhune and was so quiet he hit him and knocked him face first into the lake!  Terhune later admitted that as he flew into the water his thoughts consisted of regretting he had saved Gray Dawn when he was a puppy! LOL…..

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In the winter Gray Dawn is in the center of the picture.   Gray Dawn was the son of Bruce who was a gallant collie pal of Terhune’s.  There were two lines at Sunnybank.  Treve’s and Bruce’s.  Born three months after Lad died Gray Dawn lived through the Golden Age and saw all the most famous and well known collies at Sunnybank live and die.  On May 30, 1929 Gray Dawn laid down on the rug to the left of Terhune’s desk and passed into the afterlife and with him passed the golden era of Sunnybank.  A bit of irony is that 9 years to the day of Dawn’s death, his son Sandy laid down in the exact same spot and passed away also…… having collies I can tell you that irony abounds with them as Terhune could tell you.

The only other day to be more ironic for Terhune was the date of June 24th.  On this date in 1922 Treve died, in 1923 Wolf the son of Lad was hit by a train saving a dog on the tracks and died and in 1925 Bobby died of meningitis.  Wow!!!

To the June toll we would humbly add our own Sunnybank descendent who on the 26th died two years ago… Trevor.