the dog test: desperate willingness as the only admission criterion
if the appliers do actually pet the dogs—two hideous white golden retrievers with suppurating scabs and skin afflictions, plus one has Grand Mall epilepsy—it’ll betray a level of desperate willingness that Pat says is just about all she goes by, deciding.
Context
Ennet House's intake epistemology reduced to a single rigged test: an applicant who will pet Pat's suppurating, scab-covered retrievers demonstrates "desperate willingness," and willingness — not sincerity, not articulacy, not any assessable credential — "is just about all she goes by." The scene makes the program's founding wager legible: recovery cannot be predicted or interviewed for, only the raw readiness to do a repellent thing because you're told to, which is the same submission the Steps will later demand.