Animal control officers spent more than an hour Thursday morning trying to catch what they called "a professionally homeless dog" on Interstate 635 near the pedestrian bridge.
One woman tried for about 30 minutes to get the animal to come to her before officers got there, but the playful pooch kept playing hard to get.
She seemed to prance away in an effort to continue the thrill of the chase. Barking and wagging her tail, the dog looked as if she enjoyed every bit of attention she was getting as officers with flashing lights arrived.
Tessa Crow saw all the commotion, exited the freeway and turned back around to pitch in her help.
“If I see a dog on the side of the road I have to help it -- if it’ll let me,” Crow said. “She doesn’t seem to want our help, though.”
The rag-tag team of citizens and law enforcement tried unsuccessfully for an hour to get the animal captured and brought out of harm's way. They finally left.
Not too long later, the Texas Department of Transportation's network of traffic cameras caught some more folks trying to stop and help. Things got dicey as the dog darted in and out of traffic as the second round of rescuers tried to round the animal up.
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Local radio traffic reporters and NBCDFW's gridlock buster Tammy Dombeck followed the dog’s progress Thursday morning. Traffic backed up with on-lookers trying to get a peek at what was going on.
Finally, it seems, the big brown and white dog got bored with all the chaos she was causing and ran into a nearby neighborhood between Marsh Lane and Webb Chapel Road.
“Officers followed the dog into the neighborhood but lost the dog,” Dallas city spokesman Frank Librio said.
“I’m sure she’s been out here for a while,” Crow lamented. “She looks like she’s pretty street smart."
Nearby resident Richard Hunter spent four hours Wednesday trying to rescue the pooch. Operation Kindness, a no-kill shelter, was also out there but unable to capture the pup.
Hunter said Dallas animal control knew about the dog, too.
"As soon as Operation Kindness started describing the dog, they said, 'Oh, yes, the Australian shepherd mix; we know this dog. It’s been out there we think for years living in someone's backyard here and there, living on the access road, living in the back alley and no one been’s able to catch it,'" he said.
NBC DFW's Susy Solis contributed to this report.
