02/07/2024
Black Dog, RVA’s legendary King of Strays, died 15 years ago today.
He was struck and killed by an unknown vehicle after mysteriously roaming Richmond’s tony West End for some 20 years or more.
Perhaps no other story (or series of stories) I wrote during my career at the Times-Dispatch resonated with so many people.
He had his own sizeable bank account (used to help fellow creatures), signature T-shirts, an animal control senior officer who lovingly played Wiley E. Coyote to Black Dog’s Roadrunner, legions of fans of all ages and a legit rep as a crime-fighter and protector of children.
Traps, drugs, even a direct hit with a tranquilizer
gun meant nothing to him.
Many, including myself, felt a sort of spiritual kinship with the untamed Rasputin, who was heard to speak aloud only once but communicated so clearly to those of us who hunger to live life on our own terms, indomitable, with a little magic, romance and, yes, mystery!
Here is the first story of Black Dog for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, published 22 years ago, and the famous photo by P. Kevin Morley.
BTW, since Black Dog’s death all these years ago (I can testify: I handled his body and sort of officiated at his well-attended funeral), I have occasionally received messages from those who are certain he eluded death as surely as he escaped the dogcatcher’s clutches, saying they have just seen the King of Strays, still wandering the West End.
Such is the legend of Black Dog.
RT-D June 16, 2002
The legend of Black Dog has grown so large over the years, he's no longer just the King of Strays in a matted coat of black.
"It's a crazy thing," marvels Alvin Jones, Richmond's senior animal control officer and the latest dogcatcher stymied by the West End Drifter.
Black Dog's many admirers see him as a benevolent spirit, a living good omen of sorts who watches over some of the city's most stylish neighborhoods, from Windsor Farms to Grove Avenue and beyond.
"He's sort of the Protector," said Sarah Murray of the 4300 block of Stuart Avenue.
Even some of the few who want him gone can understand why so many want him to stay.
"There's something noble about this independent spirit," said Julie Weissend, who called animal control about this dreadlocked chow a year ago, with the usual frustrating result.
When it comes to Black Dog, "things have really gotten abstract," Weissend adds. "People have really been emotional."
For perhaps as long as 10 years, Black Dog has warmed West End hearts with his seemingly supernatural intelligence and inscrutable aloofness. He brings a touch of the wild to these otherwise well-tamed neighborhoods of manicured lawns and playing children.
No one is sure where he came from, although there are plenty of legends. For example, "a Chinese woman dropped him off," Murray said. "Or there's a story that someone threw him out on Westham Parkway."
He's seen hanging around Mary Munford Elementary School. Or waiting for the green light at Grove and Hamilton. Scanning for a break in traffic on Cary for his jaunts into Windsor Farms. Following mothers pushing their young children in strollers. Walking shadowlike behind youngsters at play.
There was the alarming time when he was seen being hit by a car on Cary Street. He hobbled into some bushes, ignoring those who tried to lure him out so they could take him to the vet.
"For a week he sat in the bushes, licking his wounds," Murray said. "He's been fine ever since."
Kelly Berling, one of the few to have heard Black Dog speak, recalls coming home late one night after her nursing shift and seeing a man crouched down between cars across the street on Stuart Avenue.
Black Dog appeared suddenly out of the shadows and barked. The crouching man "took off running," Berling said.
The importance of being kind to Black Dog is such that when Nick and Deborah Orsi sold their home on Dover Road in Windsor Farms, the buyers had to agree to feed Black Dog.
"That was part of the deal," said Nick Orsi.
He said he and his wife tried for three years to make Black Dog their own.
"He just wouldn't cooperate," Deborah Orsi said. They even built him his own dog house, but he preferred sleeping in the bushes or on mulch piles, even on the coldest, snowbound days, which he seems to prefer.
"He's got so many home bases," said Virginia Bailey, a woman on Stuart Avenue who is among untold numbers of West Enders who save their choice bones for Black Dog. "Here he is now, bless his heart," she said as he drifted into view.
* * *
Black Dog treats humans as if they were fire, getting close enough for warmth - even occasionally licking the feet of children - but never allowing himself to be touched.
Nick Orsi said you could feed him scraps out of your hand, "but only if you held it behind your back, and if you're real patient."
Once he cornered Black Dog in his fenced-in backyard and tried to catch him. "He looked at me and climbed over the fence like he was pussycat. I've never seen anything like it."
Richmond animal control officers have nabbed 4,500 stray dogs in the past year-and-a-half, but not Black Dog.
"This guy is an artist," Jones said. "We've been trying everything," from coyote traps to drugged goodies.
"Methods we normally use haven't worked. The dog knows us when we arrive on the scene. He looks up, `Oh, here's animal control. Let me leave.' He's real funny. He'll run about a half a block and stop and turn and look and see if you're still following. I believe he has spent his whole life on the lam."
Jones said he doesn't call him Black Dog. "I just call him, `That Dog Again.' "
It's turning in to a "Road Runner" saga, with animal control playing the hapless role of Wile E. Coyote, complete with Acme-like traps that only seem to catch neighborhood cats.
All of which has made this outlaw teddy bear with a tangled lion's mane even more precious to the Friends of Black Dog, as they call themselves.
"He's tough stuff," Sarah Murray said proudly.
Ten-year-old Edward Custer has posted a "Save Black Dog" poster on the front door of his Stuart Avenue home and has raised $7 to help the scruffy wanderer who "protects us pretty much."
Edward's mom, Laura Custer, said her son brainstorms up in his room, hatching "elaborate plans on how to evade animal control."
Jones said Black Dog is the slipperiest stray in town because of all of his human accomplices. He's so well-fed, it's impossible to tempt him with baited traps or drugged food.
* * *
So, armed with an ordinance that says anyone who feeds a stray three times or more is responsible for it, Jones issued Sarah Murray a summons for "failing to control a dog that is a nuisance."
He said he started with Murray because Black Dog frequently snoozes on her porch. But he's considering issuing the same summons to anyone else feeding him regularly, even if it means arresting half of the West End.
Even Murray and the other FOBD understand that he must be caught so, at the least, he can get his rabies shots. Last week she spiked some treats for Black Dog with some sedatives given to her by Jones. Black Dog ate the food, but somehow spit out the pills.
"It's a matter of doing something for the dog," said Julie Weissend, noting he could be hit by a car or felled by a preventable illness.
"It's also a matter of the unpredictability of it," she adds.
Chows are known for being one-owner dogs. They're also known for occasionally being unpredictable.
"If we were all adults, that would be fine," Weissend said. "But on just one block of Hanover, there are 33 children. I think we need to do what is good for the community, and hopefully, what is good for Black Dog."
* * *
There are those who watch Black Dog following their strollers and children and see a shaggy question mark instead of a protective spirit.
That's why Jones is preparing to fire upon Black Dog with a tranquilizer gun if his next Acme-like animal trap fails.
"We'll continue until we bring him in," vowed Jones, a nice guy who can see both sides of the Black Dog saga.
The plan is to catch him, clean him up, give him his shots and perhaps turn him over to a chow rescue group or an interested family in Powhatan County.
Jones admits it might be determined that Black Dog isn't a candidate for adoption - that he's too old to learn a new trick. In that case, he would be destroyed.
But if you look into Black Dog's eyes and watch the way he moves, you can sense an almost otherworldly quality about him.
You get the distinct impression you could catch him, parachute him into Afghanistan, and he'd be back within a week.
Killing him might not even work.
Such is the legend of Black Dog.
