Attraction is often a mystery to the unaffected. Take Amy Weeden and her daughter Shelby. Earlier this year, they met and fell in love with an 11-year-old, one-eyed, blind and nearly deaf Chihuahua with a back end shriveled up from lack of use. Her name was Estella. She could barely stand, let alone go outside to potty. She had chronic renal failure. She ate little and only when fed by hand. She would not have lasted long in a shelter; she certainly would not have been easy to find a home for.

In all her years of rescue work, the one dog Carolyn Janak will never forget is Spade, a Giant Schnauzer who’d been kept in a small crate for up to 21 hours a day for much of her young life. When Spade was relinquished to Janak’s Denver, Colo., nonprofit HT-Z Giant Schnauzer Rescue and released into the yard, “she ran like a Greyhound for about 20 minutes … it was the most freedom she had ever had,” recalls Janak, who for two decades has dedicated herself to rescuing (and living with) Giant Schnauzers.