Meet Otis, a Somerville-based contender for ‘weirdest dog in the country’

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A snaggletoothed, scraggly bearded pup that "looks like he came out of a drain" is climbing the ranks of a nationwide search.

SOMERVILLE — His legs are a little too long, his beard is noticeably scraggly and often full of crumbs and leaves. His gait is a little crooked, and one of his ears goes sideways while the other points straight down.

Sometimes when he tries to bark all that comes out is a small, wheezy cough and the sound of his rattling teeth. A carpet of light brown hair down his back the consistency of straw sticks up like a mohawk.

“People compare him sometimes to a sewer rat. Like, he looks like he came out of a drain,” said owner Abby West, 26.

His name is Otis, he’s four years old, and his owner believes he could be the weirdest dog in America.

The lanky and snaggletoothed pup, whose breed is a little of this and a little of that, has been climbing the ranks of a “weirdest dog in the country” competition, which is run by a dog DNA-testing company called Embark. The winning dog gets to be featured on a billboard in Times Square. Voting ends on Sunday. As of Friday afternoon, Otis was in first place.

There were signs from the very beginning that Otis was going to be a little weirdo, West said.

When she adopted him from an animal shelter, he was just a puppy of a couple months old. Staff told her they’d never had a rescue that was as “mouthy” as him and that he spent a lot of his time “rolling and flailing his body.”

“From then on, he’s just been strange,” she said. “He just does his own thing.”

Instead of licking your face, for example, he will try to jam his tongue all the way into your mouth. He requires daily anxiety medication to mellow out and is, West said, a little “socially awkward” in group settings with other dogs, preferring to keep his distance.

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