Pop culture loves dogs. From Lassie and Underdog to the cute canines on The Dog Whisperer, there will always be a place in our hearts for dogs.

But most people don’t realize just how much of a benefit to the environment dogs are. Yes, they tear up your newly planted flowerbed, but they also leave fresh “fertilizer” on the ground to help them grow again. Right?

And dogs are actually the best landfills in the world for waste because they eat most of the waste that we would otherwise throw away.

Or they become compost machines and bury the waste in the yard, which either decomposes or is never found. Voila, no waste!

Or they just look adorable running through a park and give the planet something worth fighting for.

I’m lucky to have one of those dogs that makes me want to fight for her right to be cute. Her name is Isabella, and even though she snores in her sleep and releases gas when she’s awake, I love her nonetheless.

But you know what: ugly dogs are just as helpful to the environment as cute dogs. Ugly dogs do the same things, smell the same things and “create” the same things…all of the things we love about cute dogs.

I recently read about the this year’s World’s Ugliest Dog contest winner, a three-legged pedigree Chinese Crested named Gus who took home the coveted prize at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Northern California.

He’s so ugly he’s cute!

In a way, he’s even more eco-friendly than the average dog. How?

• He doesn’t have a lot of hair to shed, which can cause allergies
• He doesn’t consume a lot of water when he gets washed
• He doesn’t need toxic flea chemicals put all over his body because there’s no hair for fleas to hide in!

Along with Gus, there are hundreds of other “ugly dogs” that do their share to help out the environment. I looked up the Sonoma-Fair website and here are my 3 favorites:

From left to right: Elwood, Squiggy and Pee Wee Martini.

So you see, you don’t have to be cute to help out the environment.

Dogs like Gus, Elwood, Squiggy and Pee Wee Martini may not get to be on commercials about protecting the environment, but they can certainly be used to scare away the people that want to destroy it.