LEWISTON — For more than a month, Wendell Strout was on the hunt for a dog who had scaled a 6-foot fence to gain freedom.

There were tips and leads and all kinds of breaks in the case but for five weeks, the search went on. Like an old-school gumshoe, the animal control officer just kept working the case.

“I feel like the dog and I are old friends now,” Strout said.

The long episode of freedom ended Thursday for Lucky, a shepherd mix who bolted from the Greater Androscoggin Humane Society last month. In the end, Lucky’s undoing were the many eyes that had been on the lookout.

“People just kept calling and calling with tips,” Strout said.

In previous days, the dog was said to have been living under some bushes on Nancy Street, but by the time Strout got there, Lucky was gone. Same with the next lead and the one after that.

But on Thursday, Strout went to Warren Avenue, between East Avenue and Farwell Street, to check on the latest tip. Sure enough, there were signs that Lucky was in the neighborhood.

Strout set out his traps. Like so many renegades before, Lucky just couldn’t resist the scent of a tasty morsel and that was that. The dog was back in custody.

“When we had him in the cage, he was very friendly. He’d let you go right up and pet him,” Strout said. “When he was on the loose, he didn’t want anything to do with us.”

No one knows exactly what Lucky was up to all those weeks on the run, but according to a shelter official, the dog didn’t seem too upset about being back at the pound.

“Surprisingly,” shelter Operations Manager Zach Black wrote on the Humane Society Facebook page, “he is very happy.”

The Humane Society on Thursday began the process of putting Lucky up for adoption. For Wendell Strout, it’s on to the next case.

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