'More elusive than Bigfoot': Scrim the New Orleans runaway dog goes viral over Thanksgiving

Scrim, New Orleans’ iconic runaway dog, had a big Thanksgiving with a spot on the national news, a costume in his honor at the racetrack and a sighting by Tulane University professor Richard Campanella.

While others celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday relaxing in the company of family and friends with a bounty of food and drink, Scrim was alone and probably hungry, scampering furtively through the Crescent City streets.

Everyone in the 504 has an opinion about the runaway dog’s situation. Some ache for him to be rounded up and returned to safety. Others plea for him to be left alone to roam. Now, Scrim’s story has broken into the national media.

Scrim is 'more elusive than Bigfoot'

On the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving, CBS News posted a two-minute video that outlined the legend of Scrim, describing him as “more elusive than Bigfoot.” A tag line beneath the video explains that “Scrim, already twice rescued this year, doesn't seem to know what's good for him. His knack for escaping helping hands and his catch-me-if-you-can elusiveness has led the doggo to go viral.”

Ten days earlier the folks at ABC News’?Good Morning America show also posted a brief Scrim video on their Facebook page. The dramatic clip, which captured the small dog plummeting from a second story window as it fled captivity, was eventually viewed 141,000 times.

Scrim is high-tailing it

At 9:19 Thanksgiving morning, as turkeys baked and giblet gravy simmered across the city, Scrim was spotted by none other than Tulane professor Richard Campanella near the corner of Prytania and St. Mary streets. A few minutes later, Campanella – known for his insightful books on New Orleans geography and history, and a regular contributor to The Times-Picayune and NOLA.com – sighted Scrim “high-tailing it up St. Charles Avenue in the Lower Garden District.”

As the professor poetically put it in a post on X, “Scrim seemed to be either on a mission from God, or possessed by the devil.” Campanella confessed that he was stunned by the sight of the canine celebrity. “I gasped audibly,” he wrote. “Scrim! That was Scrim!” he said. In his excitement, Campanella said he “started talking to strangers on the streetcar, recounting the whole odyssey.”

Later, Campanella commented that Scrim’s wanderings in the urban landscape could be?a doctoral dissertation "waiting to be written."

As the morning progressed, many New Orleanians made their way to the Fair Grounds Race Course, a local Thanksgiving tradition. And many of the railbirds costumed for the event or, at least, created some sort of outrageous hat for the occasion. One such chapeau featured a miniature two-story house with a tiny dog diving from an upper story window.

Scratching the Scrim backstory

Scrim’s history is becoming a New Orleans legend. Several months ago, dog lover Michelle Cheramie, the owner of Zeus’ Rescues pet adoption agency, liberated Scrim from a Terrebonne Parish animal shelter where he was in jeopardy of euthanasia. After a period of re-acclimation to domesticity, Cheramie placed Scrim with adoptive “parents” in Mid-City.

But Scrim immediately escaped. Over the next 177 days the scrappy terrier mutt avoided recapture by Cheramie and her rescue team time after time, becoming a tongue-in-cheek outlaw hero in the process.

Cheramie and her team finally nabbed Scrim on Oct. 23, darting him with a tranquilizer gun. Thereafter, Scrim was briefly hospitalized. An X-ray examination revealed 2 bullets in his flesh and other injuries.

But on Nov. 15, Scrim risked life and limb when he jumped out a window to escaped Cheramie’s home, 13 feet above the ground.

What to do if you see Scrim

Cheramie asks concerned citizens NOT to chase the dog, for fear of forcing him into traffic. Instead, she asks anyone who sees Scrim to text her at (504) 231-7865 with his location and direction of travel.

Cheramie turns these coordinates over to local writer and Scrim recovery team member David Brown, who logs them onto a regularly updated Google map.