Imagine this: you’ve decided to adopt a new puppy. You’re an animal lover, so you don’t want to go to a breeder or pet shop or anything, but straight to the humane society to pick up a dog, and thus save it from the chance of being put down. Economical, no? You approach the humane society volunteer at the front desk and, in a fit of bold, compassionate naivete, tell her that you want to look at the saddest, most hopeless cases, the dogs that nobody else wants and have little chance of leaving the wire mesh of their cages before the ends of their unmourned lives.

The worker’s eyes light up quickly, and she jumps up from her seat eagerly - a little too eagerly, you reflect later - and announces that they have “just the dog for you.” She hurries into the backroom, perhaps to get the transaction overwith before you’ve had a change of heart, and emerges with a tiny thing wrapped several times in a dirty, smudged towel. From deep within the folds of the towel, you hear a muffled noise that sounds more like a horse’s whinny, perhaps, or the bray of a donkey. You barely hear the woman as she explains that the dog in question is blind and has a few “other issues” that might make him a little difficult to manage, but that with time and love, these issues can be overcome. Your suspicions spring to alertness at this mention of issues, and you stop the woman midsentence - “Show me the dog.”

The worker does not appear offended at the look of aghast horror on your face, as she’s surely seen this expression several times during her service at the shelter. “I know he’s a little daunting to look at,” she says, in profound understatement, “so, if you’re still interested in your offer - and he is one of our most challenging cases, and has little hope of being adopted into a loving and caring family, as you may imagine - you can take him for 48 hours and see if you’re up to it.”

You look skeptically at the animal, who alerts every primal instinct within you to run out to your truck, grab the shovel in the back, and put the thing out of its obvious misery. Yet the woman’s words plant the seed - “challenge” - within your mind, and you may be a little offended by her questioning of your ability to look past physical appearances and give love to this thing, surely the humblest of God’s creatures. And as you stand there, he pokes his pitiful little head out of the towel and gazes forward with his milky blind eyes - and briefly, you see the dogness inside him. Not the monster that you initially saw, nor the hellspawn that will scare schoolchildren and neighbors later on when you take him out for walkie, the grim spectre that will drive the man you now love to pack his bags and leave. There is a dog inside that unlovable husk of scars, warts and teeth. And then you realize that this dog, this humble beast, will be more of a companion to you than the fluffiest pampered show poodle, the most well-trained Lassie, the cutest clueless Shih Tzu. This dog alone is capable of the purest loyalty.

So R.I.P., ugly dog. Until the day you rise again to haunt the dreams of terrified children.