I just want to say,

As a community, this site rocks.

Actually, Sam was a purebred Chinese Crested Hairless. He was old, but I believe some of the basic "ugliness" is just inherent in the breed.

"Inherent" because people actually bred for those nightmarish qualities. Yeech.

I like him. he remindes me of Jack, the undead monkey in the PotC movies.

I agree with CP on this...."Yeech".

{but thanks for clarifying that it isn't old age, blindness, skin disease, etc. that make him look this way....did I say "Yeech"? Oh, yeah....}

The eyes (and probably other "features" as well) are most likely due to old age - Sam was 15 years old after all.

Here is what a younger, well groomed one looks like:

Okay, I felt a twinge of guilt saying yuck at him for being old...

He {she} who has not aged cast the first stone....

Ah, but notice, you can't see the eyes in that pic, and the dog isn't baring it's teeth.

the ones I see locally need to be groomed to look that good. seems they have a few stray hairs grow across that otherwise bald body. an ungroomed one looks...not so hot

I actually always really liked the tale of Sam - it was very touching and helped a lot of otherwise "un-adoptable" dogs find a home.