Ghost Dog: The Wild Hound of Prospect Park
And Ghost Dog has done just that: Taken court at Prospect Park. In his four years there, he survived healthily and happily under cover of the Sophoras, the Osage Oranges, and the Pignut Hickorys, fed by the kindness of strangers.
It was perhaps his happiness, an unbridled pleasure in his surroundings, which allowed him to live freely for as long as he did. “We first heard about him four years ago,” Sean Casey of the Brooklyn-based Sean Casey Animal Rescue told me. “We tried to capture him using ropes, but he was too smart. We could never get close enough.” Robert Ipcar of FIDO in the Park, an activist organization for off-leash hours in the park, describes Ghost Dog’s retreats as that of someone “well-versed in Tai Chi, in that he does a mirror image withdrawal as fast as he is approached.”
Casey considered using traditional traps for feral dogs to capture Ghost Dog but realized they weren’t feasible. The park is too heavily trafficked to risk setting a trap that could accidentally injure a person or animal. There was also the risk that Ghost Dog would be caught and that he, or someone trying to free him, would be injured in the process. Casey and park-goers familiar with the large mastiff got the sense that the dog was happier in the park, roaming freely, playing with other dogs, begging for food, living an adventure—the dream?—most dogs aren’t privy to. Casey spoke to park officials and collectively, they decided that as long as Ghost Dog wasn’t bothering anyone and no complaints were filed, he would be allowed to call the park home.
“He had a very specific routine,” Casey notes. “He’s an incredibly smart dog, and he knew exactly how to get fed by a lot of different people.” Casey’s group might know his routines best; a member of the group slept in the park in order to monitor Ghost Dog’s activities.