Latest news with #Zeus'sPlace
New York Times
17-02-2025
- General
- New York Times
How a Runaway Dog Became a Hero for New Orleans
He evaded death at a shelter that needed to make room for more dogs. He was shot at — a veterinarian plucked pieces of ammunition from his flesh. He dodged a train, scampered across an interstate highway and survived on cat food left out for strays. He is about 3 years old, weighs 17 pounds and has coarse, cloudy fur. And for several months, he had much of New Orleans looking for him. With each foiled capture or implausible escape, his fame grew and so did his reputation. He became an almost mythical figure, too savvy and swift to contain. His saga has inspired tattoos, murals and Mardi Gras floats. Some have held him up as a renegade, choosing freedom over the comforts of domestic life. Scrim, as someone along the way named him, is also a living, panting embodiment of the spirit of New Orleans: He, like the city, kept on going despite it all. But for the small band of volunteers who bonded over months of searching for him, Scrim is simply a little dog who has been through a lot of trauma in his short life. 'There were one of two things that could happen,' said David W. Brown, a journalist in New Orleans whose free time became consumed by the chase. The odds of a positive outcome, Mr. Brown said, grew more faint each day that Scrim stayed on the loose. In November 2023, an overcrowded shelter in a nearby parish sent Michelle Cheramie a list of dogs it planned to euthanize. On that list was Scrim, who looked like a West Highland white terrier mix. Nearly 20 years ago, in the brutal months after Hurricane Katrina, a passion for animals led Ms. Cheramie to start Zeus's Place, named after her own beloved dog. Her plan was to provide grooming, boarding and day care that would help support a rescue operation. By the time Ms. Cheramie took in Scrim, Zeus's Place was helping stem a crisis of a different sort: Dogs that had been adopted during the pandemic were flooding back into packed shelters. Scrim arrived frozen by fear, carrying the baggage of his old life. All she knew was that he had been battered and neglected. He stayed with volunteers for a while, recovering. Last April, someone wanted to adopt him and brought him home for the trial week that Zeus's requires. On the first night, he bolted. Hours turned to days of searching for Scrim; days became months. Fliers were posted and appeals were made on social media. Scrim was purportedly spotted all over, some calls more credible than others. A group of volunteers coalesced around Ms. Cheramie. Mr. Brown got looped in after reporting a sighting that turned out not to be Scrim. Bonnie Goodson started riding her bike around her neighborhood at night to look for him. Tammy Murray and Barbara Burger were easily recruited. 'You bring me out one time,' said Ms. Burger, a court reporter and an acquaintance of Ms. Cheramie, 'and I'm on a mission.' The team worked the grid of streets in the Mid-City neighborhood like patrol officers, Mr. Brown said. They crawled under countless houses. They hurried to check out reports of dead dogs, hoping they were not Scrim. He kept running, always just beyond their grasp. Ms. Cheramie set up a target in her backyard made from a tracing of a dog they rescued that looked just like Scrim. She practiced and practiced with a tranquilizer gun. On Oct. 23, a tipster reported spotting him around a lot where a limousine company parks its vehicles. Ms. Cheramie got there, positioned the dart gun and fired. 'Perfect shot,' she said. He ran for seven minutes before he started wobbling in circles. Ms. Cheramie and Ms. Goodson swooped in. 'You're safe,' Ms. Cheramie told him. He had broken teeth. A chunk of his ear was gone. He had been shot with a pellet gun. After leaving the animal hospital, he went to what was supposed to be his new home, settling in over a few weeks. When his new caretaker needed to go away, Ms. Cheramie temporarily took him in. On Nov. 15, while she was out, Scrim went upstairs to her daughter's bedroom, where her cats lounge on beds facing the sunlight. The window was open but screened. He chewed and clawed through the mesh. He jumped onto the roof of her front porch, and then he was gone. The leap only intensified the legend. This time, Scrim covered a lot more territory. He passed by the Superdome. He was spotted hanging around the giraffes at Audubon Zoo. He somehow made it all the way to Harahan, a far-flung suburb. A crowdsourced map online filled with sightings. A polarizing school of thought emerged: Maybe the dog didn't need to be caught. He wanted to be free, so let him be free. For some, Scrim had come to represent a romantic notion of shaking loose from the leash of life, choosing one's own path 'He isn't just a cute dog and a funny story,' said Coco Darrow, who designed a Mardi Gras display known as a house float that portrayed Scrim as a saint on a prayer candle. For the search team, Scrim's second escape meant more tips to check out and more crawling under houses. He snubbed the traps they set with beef and Popeyes fried chicken. They became convinced that he had figured out how to use New Orleans's one-way streets to his advantage: If he ran against traffic, it would be harder for pursuers in cars to reach him. Ms. Burger brought out her son's old motorized scooter one night and chased him for at least two miles. But it goes only 15 miles per hour, and Scrim got away. The long nights in random corners of the city reminded them that Scrim was not the only creature lost in New Orleans. The team rescued dozens of other dogs and cats. They checked in and offered help, too, to distressed people living on the streets. 'It opened my eyes,' Ms. Burger said. The longer the search went on, the more the prospect of finding him alive seemed like a miracle. He was loose during the eruption of fireworks on New Year's Eve, and attention turned away from Scrim after a deadly attack on Bourbon Street the next day enveloped the city in grief and fear. He also was on his own during the commotion that came with hosting the Super Bowl and a blizzard that shut down the city, dumping more snow than New Orleans had seen in decades. On Tuesday, Ms. Cheramie got a text message with a photo. Scrim was squeezed into a trap that had been set for feral cats. Two days later, there he was, chilling in a little bed at Ms. Cheramie's house. He was perfectly calm, even as people cycled through to bear witness. He was like a newborn baby everyone wanted to see and hold. He accepted the scratches, toys and some of the treats visitors brought. Ms. Cheramie's dog, 90 pounds of curiosity and cuddles named Scooby-Doo, sulked like an attention-starved big brother. The traps had been dismantled. Ms. Cheramie was looking forward to disconnecting the second cellphone she had carried for responding to tips. When the search team assembled at her house on Thursday night, it was to eat pizza and share stories. Ms. Cheramie still obsessively checked her doors, windows and gates. Ms. Burger said she would like to believe Scrim was ready for a different life. Maybe he was. But he might also be plotting, waiting for that perfect opportunity to run.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Yahoo
Scrim the runaway dog captured – again – after latest escape in New Orleans
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 on to 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 on 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. A series of memes appeared as users discussed his prospects, and possible sightings in various New Orleans neighborhoods, on a dedicated subreddit in his name. Cheramie promised Scrim would face a more secure environment when he is discharged from the animal hospital and told before he was captured that she plans to replace his tracking collar with an Apple AirTag.
The Guardian
11-02-2025
- The Guardian
Scrim the runaway dog captured – again – after latest escape in New Orleans
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. A series of memes appeared as users discussed his prospects, and possible sightings in various New Orleans neighborhoods, on a dedicated subreddit in his name. Cheramie promised Scrim will face a more secure environment when he is discharged from the animal hospital and told before he was captured that she plans to replace his tracking collar with an Apple AirTag.
