The Ghost Border Collie That Haunts Our Family

Around ten years ago, my older sister walked into our kitchen and saw a black and white border collie dog sitting in the middle of the floor looking at her. She recounts the dog was only there for a couple of seconds and then vanished into thin air.

Growing up in a haunted flat, we all became strangely desensitized when odd things would happen, it still scared us but we stopped making such a big deal about it at it became our normality. What makes this particular experience different to all the rest was the moment she told our Dad what she had seen. His face paled and he went very quiet. He then went onto explain that in the nineteen fifties, his father had seen the exact same breed of dog around the house they lived in and out in the street where it would disappear. Other family members had also seen this dog but it was my Dad's father that saw the dog the most. The last time my Grandfather saw the dog was outside their old house and he chased it away as he said it was an omen of death.

My Dad doesn't know where this "omen of death" connection originated from but he does remember clearly his family talking about seeing this ghost dog. He never told my sister nor me about this dog that haunted his family growing up and was shocked when my sister told him that she had seen the same breed of dog in our kitchen (we have never owned dogs, only cats).

My Grandfather died when my Dad was eight years old and was buried somewhere in Glasgow but my Dad never knew where his grave was. He vaguely remembers his mother telling him before she died there was no headstone or marker of any kind as she couldn't afford one.

Earlier this year, I started to research my family tree and I took it upon myself that I had to find my Grandfather's grave. My Dad always wanted to go visit it but never thought it would happen. After three months of obtaining a copy of his death certificate and contacting various councils, I eventually found the grave. The cemetery he is buried in is very large and only six miles from my Dad's house.

As the grave had no marker, the council had spray painted a row of arrows to the lair and upon seeing the grave for the first time, I felt very sad. Even though I never met my Grandfather, I've always felt connected to him through stories my Dad has told me over the years about him. I knew then I wanted to get a grave marker for him after all these years to give his grave a name. After a month, the grave marker arrived and I went to the cemetery to lay it down on the grave.

I remember thinking how quiet the cemetery was as usually there are people who walk their dogs through it, but didn't think much of it as it had been raining heavily throughout the day and I just put it down to that. Right after I laid the grave marker on the grave, I heard a loud bark and turned to look to my right. There is a line of trees that run a few feet away from the grave and there amongst the trees was a black and white border collie. We looked at one another for a few moments and I noted the dog didn't have a collar. The dog then turned and bolted back into the trees. I didn't think much of it at the time and returned to looking at the grave.

It was only when I was on the bus back to my house, I started to think more and more about what had happened, as if something was niggling in my subconscious that something wasn't right and I suddenly remembered what my sister had seen years earlier. I text my sister right then and there and her immediate reaction was 'that's the same dog'.

Part of me has tried to rationalize it, that perhaps it just a dog that happened to be the same breed and it's all a huge coincidence but the other half of me believes it was a sign. Of what though I do not know but that moment was the first time in 50 years a marker has been placed on my Grandfather's grave and his name finally being seen. I keep thinking perhaps this ghost border collie was connected to my Grandfather somehow, more so than the rest of us and even after he passed way, the border collie still followed him to his grave.