In November of 2023¹, a terrier mix was found wandering around in a trailer park in Houma, Louisiana, about 60 miles southwest of New Orleans. He was sent to the local animal shelter and was close to being euthanized when he was taken in by Zeus’s Rescues, a dog rescue in New Orleans. They named him Scrim.

As best as his rescuers could tell, Scrim’s previous home life was…neglectful at best. He was nervous, not particularly well-socialized, and the roaming was not an isolated incident². But after a few months, Scrim was deemed an adoptable boy, and was placed with his forever family in April of 2024.

Forever lasted roughly two days. Scrim managed to find the one spot in the dog-proof fence that wasn’t actually dog-proof and dug his way out. As Doug McCash, a writer for the Times-Picayune put it, ‘He did not give domesticity a chance.’ With the idea of a skittish dog on the loose in an unfamiliar city, Zeus’ Rescues and his adoptive family launched a citywide pup-hunt, blanketing the city with flyers, launching a social media campaign, and doing everything they could to catch Scrim. When he refused to be taken in by the traps baited with Popeye’s³, he became a local topic of conversation. When he evaded the capture nets, he became a celebrity. When he was shot with a tranquilizer dart and ran it off, he became a hero.

When he was finally caught, 177 days later, having lost some teeth, a toenail, and part of his ear, and having acquired a couple of healed-over bullet wounds? He became a fucking legend⁴.

Michelle Cheramie, the owner of Zeus’s Rescues decided to take him into her house while he recuperated after his stint at the vet’s. He was the subject of local and national media coverage, there were stickers, there were songs. He was even honored with a special commendation by the city council!

And that’s the story of Scrim. Let’s all get to commenting, right?

Except.

In November of last year, about a month after he was found the second time, Cheramie left a bedroom window open in her house. A second-floor, screened bedroom window. This was not a deterrent.

(FAIR WARNING: Scrim walks away from this! However, Scrim misses the grass and it is not a sound that makes you feel good.)

And Scrim was off again. This time, Cheramie was able to recruit a small army of volunteers and gridded the neighborhood, fielding tips and videos left and right from people spotting him on the street and catching him on their phones and doorbell cams.

She was hoping to have him back by Thanksgiving. Then Christmas. New Year’s?⁵ Before the tracker on his collar ran out, they clocked him running up to 20 miles an hour and covering up to 13 miles a day. He was still on the run when, a few weeks ago, the city of New Orleans received 10 inches of snow. That actually was the week I was originally planning on writing about Scrim, but with the Louisiana Ice Age, I feared the worst. I was scared I’d be writing about Scrim as a martyr.

BUT NAY, FRIENDS! Scrim cares not for your ‘acts of God’! ⁶ A couple of nights after the snow, Scrim was spotted on a Nest Cam and spotted a few more times in the subsequent weeks.

And that, y’all, is the story of Scrim.

Or, at least, it was the original draft of this header. But Scrim, crafty little shit⁷ that he is, had one more trick to play. This past Tuesday, after another three months on the run, Scrim finally let himself get caught⁸, just in time for the Barkus parade.⁹ Beyond some intestinal parasites, he’s in pretty good shape, and once he’s back to full health, he has a home lined up with plenty of outdoor space and plenty of dog friends.

And that, kids, is the story of Scrim. Scrappy. Resilient. Ungovernable. May Scrim’s tale guide us in an increasingly hostile world.

Let’s be fucking legends.

1. So, like, 9, 10 years ago. ↩︎
2. As would soon become clear. ↩︎
3. Natch. ↩︎
4. Oh, and he survived a hurricane somewhere in there too. ↩︎
5. Uncatchable. Like the folks who fill potholes in New Orleans, except there’s actual documentation that Scrim exists. ↩︎
6. The hurricane bit really should have been a clue. ↩︎
7. Complimentary. ↩︎
8. In a cat trap, presumably just to be contrary. ↩︎
9. Of which he will be Grand Marshal. He won’t actually be a the parade, though, as he’s not really a lover of crowds. ↩︎