Determination and endurance are major themes in Lassie Come-Home. Twelve-yearold Joe Carraclough and his collie, Lassie, are the main characters, and undergo a metamorphosis as the result of Lassie's journey. Joe is a "sturdy, pleasant-faced boy" with brown eyes, who dotes on his collie and aspires to be as "fine a dog-man as his father." The family's identity is tied to dogs and place as Mrs. Carraclough notes to Joe, "Tha wouldn't be a Carraclough—nor a Yorkshireman—if tha didn't know more about tykes [dogs] than breaking eggs with a stick." Joe represents optimism, confidence, and hope. He longs for a miracle to return Lassie to him.

Joe, intuitive like his collie, senses something is wrong when Lassie is not waiting for him at school one day as she routinely does. Joe is devastated by the sale of Lassie to the...