He has become somewhat of a community mascot since COVID-19 hit.

For months there has been a German Shepherd-type dog roaming the streets around Costco that refused to be caught even by people who are professionally trained to catch dogs like him.

Pictures on the Manteca Neighborhood Watch page over the last few months have been plentiful, as have the tales of do-gooders trying everything from coaxing him to safety to providing him the sustenance he needed to survive.

And while he was captured a few weeks ago by Manteca Animal Control, it appears that the dog is doing quite well while in the custody of the city and is headed to a rescue facility next week where he can roam freely the way that a dog like Kirkland needs to roam.

According to somebody at the Manteca Police Department, simply capturing him – which was done humanely – was just the beginning of the challenges of taking care of an animal like that.

Considering that Kirkland can scale a 7-foot fence easily, it isn’t exactly the type of dog that can end up as somebody’s pet. And when you throw in the fact that he’s completely averse to any type of leash – even the sight of a leash – it makes the job somewhat more difficult for city workers who have been taking care of him.

I was told that to get him outside so that he can roam freely in some capacity, treats are needed to coax him out of the building.

And I must admit that seeing a happy ending to a story like this is what we all needed to 2020.

Typically, when animals like this are skittish, it means that they’ve been abused, or they aren’t good for the types of environments that other dogs are. That makes them hard to adopt and leaves euthanasia as one of the only options available to public officials.

If the city was in the business of taking care of every dog that came through the shelter because it struck a chord in somebody’s heart, there wouldn’t be any room in the city limits for any houses.

So, seeing these pictures shared of the dog and seeing how much work people were putting in to getting him to safety was a little bit heartbreaking as well – I didn’t picture a good end in this entire saga for him, and knew that it would be just another dagger in a year full of them when the dust all settled.

Fortunately, that is not the case anymore.

In nearly six months of being locked down and prevented from doing everything that we normally do, it has been refreshing to know that a dog has been out there roaming the streets against all odds and defying all authority. How he got there remains to be seen, but that dog is a fighter and a scrapper and managed to not only survive largely on his own for months but ended up earning himself a trip to a place where he’ll be able to roam freely for the rest of his days.

For once a dog is taking a trip “out to a farm” and it’s a happy ending.

And in these crazy times, a happy ending is what we all needed to see.

Hot Dogs and Shades to you and yours

As many of you saw on Thursday it was a happy ending for Chris Teicheira and his portable BBQ and colorblind sunglasses.

And it’s a tale that could only happen to him.

Being somebody that had their vehicle broken into not all that long ago and had hundreds of dollars’ worth of everyday items stolen from me, those pangs of anger crept up when I saw that he had been violated like that at his own home. Here’s a guy working from sunup to sundown – and sometimes longer – and he can’t even keep his specially-purchased sunglasses, which allow him to see colors not otherwise available to him, in his own vehicle anymore.

The thought of him and Banshee hot on the tail of the culprit as he books it back into town to disappear was an intriguing image, but also a heartbreaking one – if the guy is willing to drive into oncoming traffic to get away with your shades, there’s not a good chance that you’re going to find them anytime soon.

Until you get that knock on the door.

Part of me wishes I could have been there to see the look on his face when Connor Martin woke him up at 3 a.m. to tell him that the police were at the door and they wanted to speak with him.

The litany of thoughts that went through his mind must have been a bit’s worth of material.

And yet, nobody has asked how the Manteca Police knew where to find him – in his remote home well outside of the city limits.

But these are all elements that make for a great story. And in all my years of doing this, I have yet to find somebody that spin a yarn quite as well as that man can – from the unbelievable to the absurd, he has led a life that fortunately he opens to let other people experience alongside of him.

His approach might not be for everyone, but I think that there’s something magical about the way that he approaches life and can turn even most sour lemons into something that keeps us laughing and smiling as the world burns in every direction.

He calls himself “The Entitlement Kid” but I think we’re all becoming a little bit entitled to hearing him turn tales of mystery and mischievousness into easily-digestible bits that makes the world just a little bit easier to take.

Keep spinnin’ em Mr. Teicheira.

You have a grateful following and speaking for myself I can’t wait to hear what happens next.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.