When strangers saw him cowering and shivering and skittering, they all assumed he’d had a dramatically abusive past. And by “all,” I mean every single person who saw him. Each one felt the need to make sad faces and say, “Awwww, look at how scared he is. He must be a rescue.” I quickly got to the point where I wanted to say, “Actually, no, he’s a purebred, but I beat him.” Thin.