Lassie Season 7, Episode 17: Apron Strings

1

Blacktail

Jerry, the lame boy who adopted Lassie's son Blacktail, and his dog visit the farm, when the Martins find out Jerry can walk without his brace, but is afraid to try.

2

The Wallaby

Something's raided the family strawberry patch, but the large mysterious tracks puzzle everyone until Timmy catches a glimpse of the animal, describing it as a ""giant rabbit."" In reality it's a wallaby named Pancho--who poses a danger to Lassie!

3

Cully's New Pet

Cully tells Timmy no animal is all bad, so Timmy befriends a skunk, but no one, not even Lassie, will come near his new friend.

4

The Rescue

Timmy is trapped on a ledge while chasing a strayed ewe that has just given birth and Ruth desperately tries to get the attention of a nearby helicopter pilot reseeding the hills.

5

Feathered Menace

Ruth agrees to babysit Betty Wilder's infant twins, but the young mother arrives early and reluctantly leaves Timmy and Lassie to care for the babies until Ruth returns from an errand. Timmy thinks it will be a cinch--until a marauding hawk chases a frightened pigeon into the bedroom where the babies are sleeping.

6

The Gentle Tiger

Timmy learns a lesson in obedience when he takes a job as water boy at a traveling carnival. He disregards an order, inadvertently allowing a tiger to escape from its cage.

7

The Renegade

Timmy finds out that Bob Alder's dog Butch is going blind from cataracts and that Bob's father wants to have him put to sleep, so Ruth hires Bob to help with gathering corn to help pay for Butch's surgery. But Butch wanders away from the field where they are working.

8

The Blind Dog

A blind dog is trapped in a skip-loader and in danger of being buried alive. Lassie risks her life to save the handicapped pup and Timmy helps the dog's owner find work to pay for a sight-restoring operation for his pet.

9

The Swallows of Los Pinos

Timmy and Ruth try to prove that a little chapel should not be sleighted for demolition because a flock of swallows return there every year on the same day, but they may not arrive after a hawk attacks the scout swallow.

10

Sea Serpent

Mistaking a fin print on the beach left by a diver for the tracks of a sea monster, Timmy and Culley Wilson let their imaginations get the better of them. They launch an attack on the would-be sea creature endangering the life of the diver.

11

Visiting Colt

Timmy cares for a young colt during a neighbor's vacation, and doesn't realize until Lassie has twice saved the horse's life that he has neglected his oldest and best friend.

12

Little Cabbage

Movie star Mimi Marlowe has car trouble near the Martin farm and is forced to leave her baby, a pet poodle, in Timmy and Lassie's care. Excitement ensues, as Lassie must save the poodle, which in turn rescues Timmy from a precarious situation.

13

The Big Race

Timmy is punished for neglecting his farm chores when he joins Willie Brewster to build a vehicle for a go-cart race.

14

Bows and Arrows

Timmy and Bob build their own bows and arrows to go ""hunting"" like the two bow hunters they met, but when Bob uses one of the hunter's arrows, he hits an unexpected target.

15

The Christmas Story

The Martin's new neighbors turn out to be living in an abandoned shack with little food. Efforts to help are rebuffed by the father, but when the sheriff becomes involved, Timmy and Lassie find the father a job and the family enjoys a happy Christmas.

16

The White-Faced Bull

A neighbor's prize bull strays onto the Martin farm and tries to attack Timmy. When the bull is later poisoned, the neighbor accuses Paul of the deed. Detectives Timmy and Lassie launch an investigation to find the real culprit.

17

Apron Strings

When Timmy and Lassie bring home a litter of starving orphaned puppies, rescued from a maurading bobcat, the family tries to save them although one has already died of starvation. Inadvertantly, the pups teach Timmy, who's been relying on Paul to help him with arithmetic homework, about self-sufficiency.

18

The Wild Horse

Timmy observes what he believes is a wild horse which becomes a menace to the local farms but persuades Paul to convince the local farmers to spare the life of the horse which is later learned to be an escaped thoroughbred.

19

The Mad Dog

While Paul is away, Ruth and Timmy care for a stray dog that Timmy names Duke. But after being involved in a fight, Duke suddenly shows all the signs of rabies.

20

The Trip

When the Martins travel by train to Chicago for an agricultural exhibition, as well as to visit Ruth's mother and family, Lassie is taken along, but her crate falls off the baggage car enroute and Tom and Jess, two friendly truckers, try to help her get back where she belongs.

21

Shadrack

Cully plays host to his old regiment's Army mule, but he and Timmy must save the animal from being destroyed when it suddenly goes mad and begins rampaging all over the countryside.

22

The Patriot

After finding out the local Army base needs dogs to guard their missiles, Timmy adopts Homer, a German Shepherd from the dog pound to give to the Army, but the dog has become so cowed from abuse that the family wonders if he can ever be trained.

23

The Eagle

Timmy and Lassie watch in horror as a man raids a golden eagle's nest and destroys her only egg, so Timmy gives the bereaved bird a goose egg to raise.

24

Cracker Jack

Enroute to the city to relocate after a drought, a backwoods family stops at the Martins after Timmy plays a trick on them. But when their son Billy Joe finds out his parents plan to give away his beloved dog Mitchell, he swears Timmy to secrecy after returning to the Martins', then he and the dog head for the woods--where deer season has just begun.

25

Cully's Hound Dog

When Paul offers to farm the land Cully has allowed to lie fallow, the old man thinks Paul means he should retire. But after Timmy gives him a pep talk, Cully decides to fight back by hitching horse to plow and farming his land again.

26

The Fire Watchers

Ruth is on volunteer tower duty during a dry spell and must take action when a forest fire starts due to a careless smoker. Meanwhile Lassie helps Ranger Wade start a backfire after he's injured in the path of the fire in a fall from his horse.

27

Senor Coyote

Timmy befriends José, a new Spanish boy in school (the other boys keep calling him "Josie"), but doesn't know what to do when José's pet coyote Taquita is accused of killing Mr. Ransom's chickens.

28

Bessie

When Ruth thinks their cow is going dry, she makes the difficult decision to sell Bessie to the slaughterhousea and purchase a new cow. What they don't realize is that a neighbor's boy has been stealing some of her milk.

29

The Pigeon

Lassie and Caesar, an Army homing pigeon that Timmy nurses back to health, get so attached to each other that when he is returned to the Army, she refuses to eat, and Caesar frees himself to return to his collie friend. So Timmy decides to see if the Army will let him buy the bird.

30

Long Chase

When carnival performer Mr. Conte's trained dog Terry is injured, Lassie substitutes for her--so well that he wants to buy her. When Timmy won't sell, the man steals her.

31

The Ostrich

Timmy and Lassie make the acquaintance of Captain Gene Holter, a man who makes his living racing his two ostriches Romeo and Juliet against horses at county fairs. But when Ruth finds out Juliet, defending a egg she just laid, chased Timmy, she forbids the boy to return to the fairgrounds.

32

Fools Gold

Lassie brings home a gold miner's pack burro, and Timmy and Culley get gold fever. The burro leads them to a mine, but their digging causes the roof to collapse, trapping them. Lassie and the fireman must rescue them before the mine fills with gas.

33

The Greyhound

Timmy bets Lassie's new jeweled collar that she can beat a friend's new greyhound, Pat, in a race, and is chagrined when the collie loses.

34

Rodeo

Timmy bets Lassie's new jeweled collar that she can beat a friend's new greyhound, Pat, in a race, and is chagrined when the collie loses.

35

The Search

While playing on her own, Lassie brings home the talking doll belonging to a lost city child, who is trapped in a concrete irrigation ditch that's slowly filling with water.

36

Timmy and the Martians

Timmy erroneously believes that his operation of a machine he and his friends have made to contact Martians has caused an army plane to crash but the army believes that Lassie's behavior at the time of crash is a clue to accident.