I joked to them that it was Smug's revenge to them for not making an effort to welcome her arrival and ignoring her all the time. :>> As for the bald patches on Smug where my friend half shaved her, I couldn't stand it any longer and bought a hair clipper to do the job properly, gone the fur but there was now no place for the hundreds of the angry bites and scars, she turned into a dalmatian looking dog with dots and blobs all over her, but it was not a pretty sight at all. On many occasions, I would be stopped during our walkies, get told off/ tutted at / frowned on / lectured by passers-by about the condition of my dog and what an useless dog owner I was.
"Bloody hell! If you haven't got a clue how to look after a dog, don't have one! Look at the state of this poor dog, do you not feed / wash her ........" is one of the typical accusations I used to face. 
I explained once or twice initially, but a few times that I just ignored them. I focused on improving Smug's health and appearance.
Within a month Smug's skin was cleared, when I said cleared, I meant she didn't get any new bites or rashes, but it seemed that the scars were to stay, she wasn't scratching frantically anymore. However, the fattening up process wasn't going so smooth. I was so desperate for her to put on weight, for months and months she stayed as a skinny dog as ever! I fed her the most fattening food including boiled cow's livers, eggs, cheese, and chips and crisps for snacks, I also gave her tablets for worms. Every time I took her to the vet to be weighed, he would shook his head, telling me her weight was still nowhere near standards. But it took a completely different turn after I took her to the vet for a desex operation in December, 2004, 5 months after she came to live with us. She just kept balloning, about a month after of her surgery, everyone was commenting on how nice and healthy she looked, even by people who had never met her before. Then, another month later, she finally hit the target weight, and then, about another month passed, I found people telling me that my dog was fat! At first I took it as a compliment as something that I'd achieved with so much efforts, time, money and love, but then I had to admit in the end, it was most probably the desex surgery that caused the rapid weight gain, which I had been warned about before she had it done. Still, it was the answer to my prayer, so I didn't care a bit. But then, another few months, even the vet said that she was now over-weight, and the cow's livers and the cheese had to stop, I felt that I really couldn't win.
That's enough about how I ended up having Smug 4 years ago, and I'm very grateful that it happened. She has changed me in many ways, mostly good, and I would like to think that I saved her life, because, looking back the state she was in, she was clearly badly neglected and treated with great cruelty. I'd like to think that I'm the good thing that comes out of her bad young life.
