The tale of Anchovy Jack

I saw him a few weeks ago. I was on my daily walk, through the commercial and residential streets of my neighborhood, up and down hills and stairways, trying to keep my old bones from crumbling.

He dashed by me, right up the middle of busy Taraval Street, miraculously avoiding the cars that he had no idea were death machines. I’d never seen a dog run this fast. He was small but swifter than a greyhound, and he was scared. I could tell by the way he was racing in circles, pivoting, panicking.

I thought I was going to witness the little guy’s death, but he bolted to his left and took off towards the Forest Hill neighborhood.

He was young and looked like a terrier, his fur a sweet reddish-brown. I tried to follow him, but I can’t sprint any more. Besides, a sprint wouldn’t have caught him. He was just that fast. And that unpredictable, and that terrified.

A passing driver pulled over and rolled down his window. I stopped, panting. “I tried to catch him, but I couldn’t,” he told me regretfully. “Something is wrong with his eye, too. The poor thing. I feel so bad for him.”

A woman walked over. “Was that a coyote?” she asked. I knew that he wasn’t, despite his unusual speed. We do have coyotes in our neighborhood; in fact, last year my dog Buster and I were stalked by two of them at once. But this was just a panicky pup.

I continued on my walk, but without focus. All I could think about was that dog. I looked behind every fence, checked every porch, kept my eyes peeled. But he was gone. I was emotional. Why couldn’t I have caught him? What would happen to this confused, lost little creature?

***

A few days later, still obsessing about him, I was scrolling through Sunset District social media and was taken aback. (The Sunset District covers much of the west side of San Francisco, where I’ve lived for most of my nearly 50 years in the city. It’s foggy, heavily residential, full of families and old-timers.)

It turned out that the little dog was becoming famous. His name was Anchovy Jack. He had only one eye. And he was a fugitive on the lam.

Anchovy Jack – only about a year old – had been a street dog until he was picked up by authorities in the East Bay, taken to a medical facility for neutering and removal of an eye, and then adopted by an elderly San Francisco couple. But he proved himself to be agile, wily, and adept at scampering out doors and over fences. Shortly after he was adopted, he hurled himself through a screen window – still in his post-surgical cone – and escaped.

I think he was trying to find someplace familiar.

And he was untouchable. For 18 days he sped through San Francisco’s western neighborhoods as well as the Marina and the Presidio, evading the authorities, concerned citizens, cars, buses, and other hazards of the city. No one could get near him as he zipped through town like the Roadrunner, often in the middle of the street, crazed and frightened.

So many people tried to catch him. All of them failed.

***

One of the many problems with capturing dogs like these is that they trust no one and will not respond to kind words, to bribes, to their own names. Those overtures, in fact, typically scare them off. Eluding capture, the dogs often end up lost forever, or killed.

How was Jack surviving? Maybe he was rummaging through trash. Obviously he was finding water somewhere, and he’d managed to dodge all the traffic and coyotes. San Francisco’s west side has lots of parks where he could bed down for the night. But he was getting thin. He was probably still in pain from his surgeries, and his eye had been taken from him, which must have added to his confusion.

Anchovy Jack was now a populist hero and legend, but his time was running out. San Francisco Animal Care and Control officers, after all those fruitless days, decided to call a woman named Susan Packer, a Bay Area lost pet recovery specialist whose service is called “K9Reunite.” She’s known for being able to find and capture lost pets when all other remedies have failed. And in she came.

Susan requested that concerned people give Anchovy Jack his space so as not to alarm him. She was hoping he could be lulled into a few moments of calm and would stop his incessant running. From what I understand, she would drive up from her Peninsula headquarters and stay overnight on neighborhood streets in her car so she could be available as more sightings came in. She set up cameras and laid out humane traps loaded with food.

And finally, just a few nights ago, our famished Anchovy Jack was prowling around at night and strolled into a Susan Packer trap to get something to eat.

She got him. He was safe.

***

Anchovy Jack is currently staying at a 4-star animal shelter, enjoying recreation, medical attention, and gourmet food. He’s not paying for anything and is on the government dole, but no one minds. The original adoptive elderly couple won’t be able to care for such a spirited escape artist, so an appropriate home is being located for him.

Hang tough, little warrior!

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Due to popular demand, I am including, at the end of each blog post, the latest random diary entries that I’ve been posting on Facebook for “Throwback Thursday.” These are all taken absolutely verbatim from the lengthy diaries I kept between 1970 and 1987.

June 16, 1978 [age 22]:

“I can’t say that I work for a solid eight hours at NASA. When I get a chance, I sit at my desk in front of an open document, pretending I’m reading, but really I’m just daydreaming.”

June 19, 1978 [age 22]:

“I guess I’ll talk about the concert last week. I went with [my neighbor] Ted and had a fantastic time. Bob Seger was excellent; he had some surprisingly beautiful slow songs. But the crowd was something else – that’s the first time I’ve ever felt mortal fear upon entering a concert. It was mostly guys, about 18–20 years old, and the scroungiest-looking crew you’ve ever seen. They were so rowdy that the half-full stadium sounded like it was supporting a full house. Ted had some excellent Colombian, and on the way home we stopped at Denny’s in Milpitas and had dry hamburgers. What a terrific night!”