Meet Quasi Modo, The New World's Ugliest Dog

After a ruff competition for the World's Ugliest Dog title, a 10-year-old so-strange-looking-he's-actually-cute mutt named Quasi Modo has won.

Quasi Modo has a spinal birth defect that made him hunchbacked (just like his namesake Quasimodo, the protagonist in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame). The dog's owners, veterinarian Virginia Sayre and her husband Mike Carroll in Loxahatchee, Florida, adopted him after he was abandoned at an animal shelter.

"My appearance can be a little unsettling to some (I have had grown men jump on top of their cars to get away from me because they thought I was a hyena or Tasmanian devil) but once they get to know me I win them over with my bubbly personality," Quasi Modo's biography stated.

According to Chief Judge Brian Sobel, Quasi Modo was selected because he "epitomized excellence in ugliness."

Last year, Quasi Modo came in second place in the same competition, which is held annually at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, California. Here's a video clip showing Quasi Modo at his home at the G & M Ranch in Loxahatchee Groves, Florida: