Baxter Brown was a boxer dog. I didn’t know his name when he arrived on my porch one cold March evening about five years ago, but I had seen him before. He wore an ugly orange collar with the owner’s name and number roughly engraved on a gold plate. I called the owner. “Aw, just beat him with a stick. He’ll come home,” the owner said. “Someone needs to be beaten with a stick,” I said. “But it is not the dog.” I hung up and invited the dog inside, where he belonged. He was shivering and terribly thin, so