I take a seat on the top step and say softly, “C’mere, baby. Come see me.” She doesn’t budge. I pat the snow on the ground. “Come here. C’mon.” The dog gives me an untrusting side-eye but—beyond that—doesn’t acknowledge my presence, much like I used to do to Nate when he’d come home from “meetings” three hours after they had ended.

I inch my way over through the snow until I’m about a foot away. The Lab is filthy, covered in mud, and its nails are very long. Its rib cage heaves under its dirty coat. I inch a little bit closer, and I can see that the dog’s dewclaw is so long it’s growing into the paw.

“Who did this to you?” I ask, tears springing to my eyes.

I grab my cell to take a photo to send to a friend in Chicago, who heads a rescue organization. “Hi, baby,” I say in a singsong voice. “Over here. Who’s a good girl?”

The dog finally thumps its tail, sadly—once, twice—and then as if that effort has sapped all of its energy, it lays its head down and whimpers quietly.

“You’re so pretty,” I sing again. “Look! Look! Over here! I need a pretty picture of you.” The Lab slowly lifts its head, and when the dog finally turns its full face toward me, I drop my cell. It is blind in its right eye.

I crawl over, no longer afraid, and pet the dog’s back. It sighs the saddest sigh ever.

I then scratch her head and underneath her chin. I lift her pretty face up and stare into her eyes. The left is round, brown and perfect, stereotypically Lab-ish: gentle, innocent but inquisitive, the kind that melts people’s hearts. The right, however, is just a blob, an orb, a gray mass that resembles a marble.

“You poor thing,” I say, my tears plunking on top of the dog’s head. “What happened to you?”

I pick up my cell, hold up the dog’s head, snap a photo and send it to my friend, Julie, at the rescue shelter. The Lab begins to fall asleep as I hold her head. I now notice a deep indentation around the dog’s neck, as if it’s been kept on a tight leash outside for a very long time.

My phone trills, and I read the text from Julie:

Oh, Adie Lou! That poor dog! It’s obv. been abused...probably a puppy mill...was blind at birth, or got injured...they couldn’t sell it so dumped it to die in the winter...happens all the time, I’m sorry to say...does it have tags?

I stop reading and look. No tags.