Dear Baton Rouge,
Pardon the interruption. I know things are busy in the state capital. All that grandstanding and rubber-stamping must be downright exhausting for you.
Goodness knows it is for us.
Be that as it may, I write today with an important legislative concern involving the state’s official dog.
Now, I know that you denizens of Red Stick tend to prefer cats – and specifically big cats. (The purple and gold kind.) Yet I bring to you an issue that gets to the very essence of New Orleans.
As you know, Louisiana’s official dog for the past four-plus decades has been the Catahoula leopard dog (also known as the Catahoula cur, for the alliteratively minded of you).
A striking beast boasting webbed feet, blue eyes and a mottled coat, it is said to be the result of crossbreeding between native canines and Spanish war dogs imported by explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto.
After a sometimes-hairy debate in the state Legislature, the bill enshrining the Catahoula cur as the state doggo was signed into law in 1979 by Gov. Edwin Edwards. With that, Louisiana became the first state in the union to adopt an official pooch.
Given that history, we would never propose supplanting it with another breed. The Catahoula leopard dog is a good boy – and a fitting symbol for the state, to be sure.
But maybe there’s room to add another.
No, I am not talking about artist George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog. Neither am I referring to Gumbo the New Orleans Saints’ St. Bernard mascot, or even that old Rougarou.
I am talking about Scrim, the Houdini Terrier who captured the region’s attention for his refusal to go mainstream.
You likely already know the story, but here is the nutshell recap: Rescued from a shelter and placed with an adoptive human family last April, he soon bolted. Living on the lam week after week, he defied all attempts to recapture him.
No trap could hold him. No fence could contain him. No human could collar the clever son of a literal bitch.
Soon enough, our little tramp became a local folk hero, with breathless reports of Scrim sightings dominating TV newscasts, newspapers and social media.
After a brief flirtation with domesticity in October, he was on the lam again by Thanksgiving. As a clip of now-viral surveillance footage shows, the wily pup reclaimed his liberty by chewing through a screen and flinging himself through an open second-story window.
As of this writing, he is still running – and the city is still rooting him on.
True, runaway dogs are hardly a rarity. So, you might ask, why the city’s fascination with this one?
Well, part of it is because Scrim is an underdog – in the truest sense of the word – and we New Orleanians are culturally predisposed to rooting for underdogs.
There is more to it than that, though. The Catahoula cur, Gumbo the St. Bernard and Rodrigue’s Blue Dog are all fine animals. Any would be a fitting representative for Louisiana.
But, in the end, they are but dogs. Scrim, on the other hand, has become New Orleans’ spirit animal.
He is no longer merely one of us. He is us, in four-legged form. What makes him tick is precisely what makes New Orleanians tick.
The honey badger of hounds, he does what he wants and takes what he wants. Like us, he is single-minded in his pursuit of happiness and unflagging in his determination to live on his terms, damn the torpedoes (and the tranquilizer darts).
Admittedly, his chosen lifestyle is not the healthiest for him from a physical standpoint. But it perhaps makes him happy, and that is not nothing.
In fact, down here it is pretty much everything.
Like countless New Orleanians before him, he obviously values the bliss of an off-leash life – of real, honest-to-goodness freedom – over the purported safety of a well-fenced yard.
“Always for pleasure,” as filmmaker Les Blank would say.
“Do whatcha wanna,” as Kermit Ruffins might add.
In the pantheon of beloved New Orleans characters, Scrim rightfully belongs up there with Ignatius J. Reilly, Richard Simmons and The Special Man – and, to return to my original point, the Catahoula leopard dog.
Granted, there is no telling what may have become of Scrim by the time this correspondence reaches you. He may have been recaptured. He may have vanished into the riverfront fog.
But I can tell you this: Wherever he is, he is happy.
Lucky dog.
Insincerely yours,
New Orleans
Ask Mike Have a question or a thought to share about New Orleans etiquette or tradition? I’d love to hear it. Email it to playbook@myneworleans.com
