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4.08.2010

Black Dog Syndrome

We have a new foster, Mario, who is a black lab (Click here to see his petfinder page). He's absolutely adorable! He's fairly well behaved too for being in Animal Control for so long (generally the dogs we've had from animal control are a bit nervous, scared and all out nuts because of pent up energy, being in a strange place, etc... but that's for another post!) and he knows how to sit and shake and he's fantastic with Rusty.

However, there's this thing called Black Dog Syndrome where black dogs take longer to get adopted because of stereotypes. You can read more about it from the link above, but I was pondering this issue yesterday and thought about the people that I know with black dogs.

I can count the number of people that I know who own black dogs on two hands. And I'm probably forgetting some people! And the dogs are so dang cute and smart and great.

So my question is, how do his photos look? What sorts of ideas do you have for me to advertise Mario to get him adopted faster? If you're in rescue, what do you do to stop the stereotyping of black dogs?

Do you have a black dog? Was it love at first sight? Did you adopt it?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Patty, thats a great thing your doing to be fostering dogs! Our dog Scooby is a large (80+ lb) black shaggy haired dog which we adopted about 9 years ago. I think it was love at first sight?! Our neighbors here at home have a large black haired dog, sort of adopted.. Our neighbors at the lake adopted two black female labs very similar to Mario. All wonderful dogs.. Pictures look good! Just a thought if you could get him to sit with his paw up like he wanted to shake?? Best wishes on a quick adoption for him... It must be hard to give them up after having them for awhile.. Good luck! Steve & Kathy & Scoobydoo

Sara Joy said...

We have a big black dog, and I don't understand black dog syndrome. I don't doubt that it's true, but I don't understand why people wouldn't want black dogs. I think they're beautiful! I think your photos of Mario are great, he looks adorable. Maybe a close up of his face would help? Sweet doggy eyes always make me fall in love :-)