By Don Richeson
Eagle Editor

Published: April 24, 2008

Lassie, the longtime “greeter dog” at Yoder’s Country Market in Pratts that went missing in January was found — but died a few days later. A woman who runs a rescue dog operation and who is a friend of the Yoders found Lassie tied to a gate outside her Rappahannock County home on April 1 – April Fools Day – Michael Yoder said, declining to name the woman.

The cocker spaniel-golden retriever mix appeared that she had been well fed and well groomed during her nearly three-month absence. Yoder said he didn’t know where she had been and who might have taken her or why.

He said her anonymous return on April Fools Day could signal that she had been taken as some sort of prank. Alternately, he said she disappeared on a snowy night and a misguided passerby might have thought letting her loose from were she was tethered behind the store was “rescuing” her.

After the woman who found the approximate 12-year-old dog tied to her gate returned it to Yoder’s, a veterinarian who subsequently examined Lassie discovered that she had terminal cancer, Yoder said.

“One hind leg had swelled up badly and she was lethargic,” he said. He said she died that week.

Yoder buried her behind the store and put up a hand-made wooden headstone to mark her grave.

“She couldn’t have been a better dog for the store to have, she was so gentle with children,” said Yoder, who noted that the store’s canine mascot was sometimes described as the most famous dog in Madison County. Lassie had originally just shown up at the store as an approximate 2-year-old stray about 10 years ago.

Referring to a Bible verse, Yoder concluded, “… the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away …”