SANTA BARBARA — Some may call it a tale of beauty and the beast. But Sam, a 14-year-old pedigreed Chinese crested, and a three-time champ in the World's Ugliest Dog Contest, is the dog of Susie Lockheed's dreams.
Lockheed, 53, enjoys massaging Sam's fleshy, thin, potato-chip ears and running her fingers through the small patches of white hair on his head.
She likes kissing Sam's hairless frame, littered with blackheads, brown warts and moles. Even his hindquarters have a large hernia lump.
Then there's his right eye, left a reddish-purple from cataracts, which stands out from the other, which is a milky white.
"I've never had a dog this much in love with me," Lockheed said. "I really baby Sam, and kiss him a lot. He's a toad [that's] going to turn into a prince."
Sam is one of four hairless dogs that love to groggily lounge on the couch in Lockheed's Santa Barbara home, where she operates a beauty salon.
Lockheed grew up in Palos Verdes Estates with household pets and suffered from allergies that would worsen when she was near furry dogs.
She said her life changed when a friend gave her TatorTot, a Chinese crested and Chihuahua mix, for her 40th birthday. "I never had a dog I could cuddle with before," she said.
Later, Lockheed would adopt dogs Tinkerbelle and Sam and would buy PixieNoodle, all hairless dogs. Her friends approve the "cuteness" factor of the other dogs. Sam is a different story.
Though Lockheed had wanted her other dogs, she had to be persuaded to take in the world's ugliest dog. He had already been rejected by an adoption agency, which deemed him too homely for any home they knew. Sam's former owner, who was moving to a place where dogs weren't allowed, was desperate, Lockheed said.
"He didn't look so good then, but he's looking worse now," Lockheed said, adding that in recent years Sam has gone blind and suffered illness. "There's something quite noble about Sam. Even though he's unattractive, he expects to be treated like royalty."
A year after Lockheed took in the dog without a home, she suffered a relapse of thyroid cancer, with which she was first diagnosed as a teenager.
After drinking a radioactive iodine treatment, Lockheed had to stay at home for five days, and her entire room had to be covered in plastic -- even the telephone. Friends had to leave food by her door because of the radiation. But she wasn't alone; Lockheed was able to keep one dog with her, and she picked Sam.
