Terrier bolted in November and survived a three-month odyssey after spending nine months of last year on the lam. A wiry terrier named Scrim who became known as New Orleans’s most ungovernable dog after spending nine months of the last year on the lam following two daring escapes has been brought to heel again. News of the end of Scrim’s latest jaunt, a three-month odyssey in which he survived January’s freezing temperatures and a record snowfall, was posted to Facebook on Tuesday by Michelle Cheramie, owner of Zeus’s Place animal rescue.
It was Cheramie’s home he bolted from in November, chewing through a second-floor window screen and leaping 13ft onto a driveway. He was staying with her while he recovered from his earlier six-month escapade, during which he fled from his adoptive family’s yard and lived rough in the city through a hurricane and summer temperatures above 100F. He was captured in October with abrasions, a chunk of ear and several teeth missing, and wounds suspected to be from an air pellet gun.
“We got him!” Cheramie posted Tuesday, for the second time in four months, with a promise to reveal the full story of his latest retrieval “when I can breathe”. For now, Cheramie said, Scrim was in the care of “Dr Joe” from a small animal hospital in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie as his condition was assessed. In a post when the dog scarpered from her house in November, she said it was: “The most unbelievable scenario that I’ve ever had to deal with.”.
The trail quickly went cold when the batteries in Scrim’s GPS collar died within hours of his disappearance. Search parties, including people with nets and tranquilizer darts, scoured the city for him, as they had during his first escape, but came up short. He also seemed immune to baits of locally beloved Popeyes fried chicken and beef tripe. Meanwhile, Scrim built up a huge social media following during his adventures, which attracted the attention of the world’s media, as well as the New Orleans city council that recognized his “resilience” in November at a special ceremony at city hall.
