There are escape artists, and then there is the elusive dog from New Orleans known as Scrim.
A local pet-adoption service owner rescued the terrier from a dog pound where he faced the possibility of euthanasia – but Scrim then fled the home of a family that adopted him and spent about six months on the run before an elaborate effort to capture him succeeded in October, according to media outlets, including Nola.com.
More than one social media user in the Big Easy joked that Scrim was “for the streets” rather than domesticity – and it now appears that may not have been a mere witticism. On Friday morning, Scrim busted through a second-floor window at the house where he was recovering from injuries incurred during his first escape, jumped about 13ft to the ground and again made a dash for freedom, the home’s owner, Michelle Cheramie, wrote on Saturday on her Zeus’ Rescues Instagram account.
“Trust me when I say that there is nothing negative that you can say to me or about him getting loose again that I haven’t already said to myself in the last 24 hours,” read Cheramie’s post, which contained stunning home security camera video of Scrim plunging to the ground, sprinting through a wrought-iron fence and vanishing from view.
Scrim had run more than two miles (3.2km) when the battery on his GPS collar died, once again leaving Cheramie and those who have helped her look for him with no clue to his precise whereabouts.
Reuniting with Scrim during his first stint on the lam was no small feat.
After Cheramie saved him from the dog pound, a family in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood eventually adopted him. But Scrim quickly escaped and earned a measure of social media stardom as users posted videos from cellphones and security cameras whenever he was spotted jaunting through the streets.
Those searching for him were equipped with traps, nets and tranquilizer guns, but he frustrated their efforts until Cheramie got a call the night of 23 October that Scrim had been sighted.
Cheramie soon posted on social media: “WE GOT HIM!!!!”
Scrim did not emerge from that run unscathed. He was missing a chunk out of his ear and had suffered various abrasions while X-rays revealed two projectiles – possibly small bullets or air rifle pellets – were lodged inside his little body, according to the Associated Press, citing information a veterinarian who examined Scrim told New Orleans media outlets.
He and Cheramie ventured out on 7 November to the chambers of New Orleans’ city council, where civic leaders honored Scrim for displaying “resilience”, as one of the body’s members worded it. The plan was for Scrim to stay at Cheramie’s home to recover from his wounds before he was again put up for adoption.
Scrim turned that plan on its head when, according to what Cheramie told Nola.com, he chewed through the screen of an open second-story window, squeezed through and leapt out.
Cheramie wrote on Instagram that soon her team was distributing flyers and knocking on doors, asking people to keep a lookout for Scrim as a second search for him got under way.
“I am not focusing on his escape but focusing all my mental energy on safely capturing him again,” Cheramie’s post said.
“It took all of us coming together to find him last time. I am asking for your help again.”
