Speck, an Australian shepherd, is not a good boy. He is defiant and self-destructive, and spends his days playing chicken with the Fed Ex man and rolling in donkey manure, and his nights howling at the moon. Speck has been that way since the moment he appeared behind Rick Bragg's house, a starved and half-dead creature. He arrived in Rick's life at a moment of looming uncertainty. A cancer diagnosis, chemo, kidney failure, and recurring pneumonia had left Rick lethargic and melancholy. Speck helped, and he is helping, still-when he is not peeing on the rose of Sharon. Written with Bragg's inimitable blend of tenderness and sorrow, humor and grit, The Speckled Beauty captures the extraordinary, sustaining devotion between two damaged creatures who need each other to heal.