Photography by Jessica Turner

This guy was a runner.

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Laurie Baker lived in a condo backing up to Stevens Park Golf Course, and there was a little black dog around that no one could catch.

Golfers and neighbors would give him bits of hotdogs and whatnot. But he was fast, boy.

“Everybody at the golf course knew him, and one day somebody said, ‘We caught that dog,’” Baker says. “It turns out Angie got him.”

That’s 80-year-old Angie Manriquez of Angie’s Friends fame. The breaker of chains and coaxer of wary street dogs has been rescuing and comforting animals in West Dallas and Oak Cliff for decades. Three of her friends started the namesake nonprofit around her advocacy, and she still spends most of her time serving cat colonies and befriending neglected pets.

“So I went and got him from Angie,” Baker says.

The next morning, Baker was having coffee in her courtyard on the golf course. She looked down, and the dog was on the other side of the fence.

“He looked at me … and then he took off,” she says.

Baker and Manriquez spent another week chasing him all over 18 holes of the golf course.

All the golfers and neighbors knew Ranger was missing, and one day while Baker was walking the course, a neighbor said, “I’m going catch your dog today.”

“How do you know?” Baker asked.

“I just gave him two tranquilizers.”

By the time Baker had walked home for a drink of water — it was the middle of summer — the neighbor called and said he got him.

That was six years ago.

“I had another dog that got hit by a car in 1996, and I wouldn’t get another dog,” Baker says. “Until this one.”

He may have been a golf-course rover, but Ranger is a faithful companion now. 

When Baker sees him outside in the yard and claps for him to come in, he’ll run and leap into her arms. 

He’s still afraid of strangers but will warm up eventually, she says.

Ranger gets only homemade sourdough dog treats since Baker is a home bread-maker, and he’s always making her laugh.

“He’s not the smartest dog, but he’s so funny,” she says. “I always say he gets by on his looks.”

Read more about our Oak Cliff pets here