CLEVELAND — Meet Jack.
Once a stray taken in by City Dogs Cleveland, now the face of Ohio's newest license plate.
Cartoonist Jenny Campbell was asked by the Ohio Pet Fund in 2021 to design a new pet friendly plate -- and it came with one special request.
"They wanted to do a pit bull," Campbell said.
She knew just the pit bull to model for her... Jack!
"Not just because he's a great rescue story," she said. "But because it's a nod to Timy, because she's done so much for animal welfare in Northeastern Ohio."
She's referring to Timy Sullivan, Jack's owner, and someone who's dedicated her life to changing the conversation around pit bulls.
"We came up with the idea of the City Dogs program to change the image of pit bulls," Sullivan said.
It was back in 2014 when Timy and other volunteers, including Campbell, began the City Dogs program at the Cleveland Animal Care and Control.
"Every dog they had was a pit bull," Sullivan said. "The reputation of pit bulls at that time... [they] did not have a very good reputation."
The volunteers began bringing pit bulls to public event, one at a time.
"Our goal with each of these events was to have at least on person walk out of there saying 'I met a really nice pit bull today.'"
And soon, Sullivan met her own nice pit bull.
Jack came back into City Dogs after a failed earlier adoption.
"I really didn't have any intentions of adopting another dog," Sullivan said. "But you know, it was one of those magical things."
This year, magic came in the form of a birthday gift from one of Sullivan's closest friends.
"I kept saying I have the coolest gift for you, but we're just going to have to wait a little bit longer," Campbell said.
Months went by, but soon Campbell was able to tell Sullivan there would be a special pit bull on the newest Ohio license plate.
"I burst into tears and said 'there's going to be a pit bull on the plate, this is the best thing that's ever happened,'" Sullivan said. "And [Jenny] said 'no, that's not the present. It's Jack that's on the plate, that's the present!'"
The 'Jack Plate' is available now on the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles website.
Proceeds to spay and neuter costs for stray animals, just like Jack once was.
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Editor's note: Video in the player above was originally published in an unrelated story on July 6, 2022.