By: Nina He

Do you know that there is a ugliest dog contest every year? And do you know who won it this year? A dog named Scooter! He is a seven-year-old Chinese Crested dog.

Scooter doesn’t have any hair except for a bit of thick, messy white fur on his face like a lion’s mane. His nose is big, black and wet. The rest of his body is bald like a sphynx cat and Scooter regularly has his tongue hanging out of his mouth!

Linda Elmquist adopted Scooter on June 23rd, during the contest.

However, unlike other dogs, Scooter has a problem. His back legs face forwards, which makes it impossible for him to walk on those legs. Luckily, Scooter learned to walk only on his front legs and can go up and down stairs and also jump on things like couches and chairs.

But walking only on front legs is tiring, so a special invention was made for him. The invention was like a wheelchair, but undersized to fit Scooter. Now he can go wherever he wants without getting tired at all!

Believe it or not, though, there was a time when Scooter wouldn’t have made it to the contest at all.

Since Scooter was born with deformed hind legs, he was about to be euthanized. Luckily, a volunteer from Saving Animals from Euthanasia (SAFE) took him home and saved him.

Dogs are all different. They each have their own shapes and sizes, and are all unique in their own way. Let’s all try our best to respect that.