A one-eyed, three-legged, hairless pooch that won the title of World’s Ugliest Dog this summer has recently died.
Gus, a nine-year-old Chinese crested dog, lost his battle with cancer last week, after winning the annual contest in June at the Sonoma-Marin Fair, California.
His owner Jeanenne Teed from Gulfport, Florida, rescued him eight-years-ago, just after her divorce, when she discovered he was being kept in a crate in someone’s garage. She said: “He was the most hideous thing I had ever seen.”
That night he curled against her on her ex-husband’s side of the bed, and she could not give him away.
Since being crowned with the superlative title he has become a celebrity, appearing on many US talk shows.
Jeanenne put the $1,600 prize money towards chemotherapy for the dog, and also put up her October mortgage to pay for it, but it did not save him.
One leg had been amputated because of a skin tumour and he lost an eye in a catfight.
Since June he has lost half his body weight and the cancer in his back leg twisted his spine. The vet announced that he only had a few days to live.
Jeanenne took a blanket-wrapped Gus to the beach where they had celebrated winning the competition, and just a few days later, she held him in her arms as he died.
She has now planted a butterfly bush with golden flowers on his grave in her garden.
“Something beautiful,” she said, “to grow out of all that ugly.”
