When we were looking for our first dog we lived in a house with no garden. We knew we could provide a five star home regardless (very active lifestyle, home a lot of the time, 100 yards from endless rolling hills and footpaths, just no bloody garden and couldn't afford a house with one) but the garden thing precluded a puppy as house training would be a nightmare, plus I wanted a dog that I could be active with straight away, not waiting 12+ months for a pup to mature. So we looked at rescues - nope, no enclosed garden, no dog.
Soooo, we did the one thing that you absolutely should not do and started scouring the local paper, freeads etc. looking for a medium sized, active breed, young adult dog. I was thinking collie, springer, GSD but OH wasn't keen. After some months of searching he pointed out an advert for two Siberian husky bitches - one older, KC registered, very attractive wolf grey with blue eyes (£500!!) and one six month old, short coat, black/grey/white, brown eyes, not nearly so pretty and in the very gangly ugly stage, unregistered, £100.
We brought the cheaper one home. 
It was a disaster from day one. She crapped and pissed all over the house, had such severe separation anxiety that she trashed the house if we left for even 30 seconds, endless things were destroyed, bins strewn everywhere, cupboards raided and contents tipped out, water bowls scattered. She HOWLED. She pulled so hard on walks that she aggravated a very old back injury, one that hadn't given me trouble in years, and so walking her frequently left me in tears.
She had been locked in her previous owner's back garden and very seldom walked so she'd no socialisation - she'd scream, turn backflips and lunge to get to other dogs because she found them so overwhelmingly exciting, then piss them off with her overexuberance. She was an embarassment to be seen in public with. I was thrown in the deep end with the whole 'can't let them off the lead' thing and the fact that they are basically untrainable. On more than one occasion in those first weeks and months my hand hovered over the phone to call her old owner and send her back.
Years later she is my pride and joy, my very best friend and my go-anywhere, do-anything wonder dog. :) It wasn't easy but she taught me a great deal in the process. She is a superstar lead dog in harness, competes regularly and with success, is coming up to competition standard in agility (very unlikely for the breed!) and her basic manners and obedience are exemplary. I don't know what I'd do without her.
Boy Wolf came from the Siberian Husky Welfare Association once we'd decided that Girl Wolf had reached an acceptable standard of behaviour and it was time to find her a companion and start building up my racing team. Unlike every other rescue we'd tried they were unfazed by our lack of garden, they just wanted proof that we were experienced with the breed and able to provide a sufficient amount of exercise/stimulation. When the home checker came we went for a walk with our dogs and chatted husky for hours. 
One of their foster carers called me the day after our successful home check and said she'd got a dog that fitted our requirements (fairly young, male, able to live with a playful bitch) but that he was 'a bit funny looking'. He turned out to be a piebald, mostly white with uneven grey spots, a ridiculously tightly curled tail and what I can only describe as a 'derp' expression. We took Girl Wolf to visit him and brought him home the same day. He expressed his gratitude by shitting copiously in the boot of the car on the way home. 
That was his only misstep - from that day on it was as if he'd always been with us. He's fugly, sheds like no dog I've ever known, has turned out to have weird medical ishoos (dysfunctional bladder, house dust mite allergy, pollen allergy) and is deeply, deeply stupid but he is my special snowflake. Unlike the bitch he is a snuggly cuddlebug and is most often to be found curled up on my feet. He makes up for his stupidity by pulling like a demon in harness and I have high hopes for his first full racing season this year.