Poor Willow, the missing greyhound that tugged at the heartstrings of people who knew her plight is dead, found lying near railroad tracks in Waupun after a two-week run from domestic life.

Maybe he was having flashbacks of his life as a racing greyhound when he and his pal, Dahlia, decided to bolt through an open gate in their back yard.

I can relate. In a former life I raised collies and showed them, which is a whole 'nother story. If anyone has seen the movie "Best in Show," it's right on in its hilarious depiction of " purebred dog people."

Much of the fruits of my 12-year-long hobby entailed "flushing money that grows from the tree in the back yard" down the toilet.

My last collie was named Pearl, a blue-headed white female who came from Vermont. She was a payback puppy from a male I had sold.

Collies are noble creatures as anyone who loves or read the works of Albert Payson Terhune knows, but Pearl seemed to suffer from a form of dog ADD.

One day someone, let's say a teenage boy related to me, was blowing off Black Cat firecrackers in the back yard firepit, strings of 100 at a time, when Pearl freaked out and vaulted a five-foot chain link fence as if she were Bambi's father bounding over the forest on fire.

She was gone for 11 days, during which time I learned from Sheboygan's Search & Rescue Team that some canines freak-out when they run away, lose their minds and become feral.

Of course, that would apply to Pearl.

She could hear our voices but would run the other way. She was spotted often by neighbors, a white flash disappearing into the tall pines that populate the Northern Kettle Moraine State Forest.

We dumped bags of dog food along the roadways, another trick we learned. One day we got a call that she was sighted and I tore down the road to see her peering out from some brush along the side of the road.

I threw liver out the car window at increments until I was close enough to grab her. The minute I touched her the light bulb went on again and she kind of collapsed in my arms.

Lassie she was not, but "Pearlie Girl" had a good heart and now lives in Minnesota with a registered nurse.