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BBD's: Big Black Dogs
Black Dog Trio
A good friend and her family foster dogs for a local rescue group (in MN). They are learning all of the highs and lows of fostering animals: the joy of knowing you were part of an animal finding their "forever home" and the lows of discovering how stupid people can be. The bad side of rescue sometimes manifests as scars (visible and emotional) on an animal and how they were treated to discovering how shallow or frustrating the attitudes of the "average" person can be.
In one case, they can see this in the scars on the body of a chow-mix (named Bear) they are currently trying to find a home for. She is a young dog and loves people and dogs and puppies-- remarkable when you consider that at some point she was apparently used as a "bait dog" for dog fights. Somehow-- miraculously-- she is emotionally unscarred. I honestly don't know how this is possible, but she's living proof of what animals can endure and still love everybody.
They also have a tiny puppy-- one of two that they started fostering in December. Laney (the tiny puppy) is everything you could want in a puppy: boisterous, fearless and a miniature Tazmanian devil of play. She -loves- the chow-mix: it's cute to watch them go at it. Her brother was adopted in a matter days, so my friend had high hopes for Laney-- but she's still there (more on that later).
Appropriately, the third dog of the trio is Char, who is a tripod dog. Char was found in a dumpster with a rear leg so damaged it had to be amputated. As any dog-lover knows, three-legged dogs do just fine. You have to be more diligent about their weight (one less limb to take the load), but they're otherwise happy, hearty animals. For the science fiction geeks amongst us, she moves like a Pierson's Puppeteer. Unfortunately for Char, she's middle'd: active people don't realize how active she can be (hey, she's a *cripple dog*, right?) and people who are attracted to dogs with problems find her exuberance too much for them (they want something that lays by the fire looking at them with eternal gratitude).
I think I know why these dogs are still looking for their forever homes. They all have one trait in common: they are all black dogs. They suffer from Black Dog Syndrome .
At a seminar run for and by animal shelters, I learned about BBD's and BDS. With a fair consistency across the US, black dogs (and especially big, black dogs) are the last to be adopted and the first to be euthanized. Why? There are a number of theories, from superstitions (folklore about evil, black dogs, pookas, demons) to religion (black dogs equated with Satan, devildogs, etc.) to something as simple and heartbreaking as the fact that black dogs take terrible pictures. When all you see in a Petfinder ad is two eyes, teeth and a black blob the tendency is to pass over them-- sometimes subconsciously (you just don't notice them) or sometimes consciously (you can't see what the heck the dog is--long hair or short? fluffy or fat? etc.)
Granted, in California and in large cities this is less the case. Fewer superstitious bias, more open-minded. But Los Angeles (for instance) isn't everywhere. We forget how some places have attitudes about certain things that would horrify even the most liberal or conservative Angeleno.
There are rescues that specialize in black dogs: a simple google search of "black dogs and adoption" brought up some sites that try to address this problem: Black Pearl Dogs is one such site; another is Black Dogs Second Chance .
FYI, if -anyone- is seriously interested in any of the above trio, let me know asap. It doesn't matter where you live: I will get the dog to you if you are in a position to take a rescue on. We'll talk. Other than that, if you do decide to rescue an animal, see if you can fall in love with a black dog or cat (yes, cats have the same problems). Adopt a BBD or a BBC!
A good friend and her family foster dogs for a local rescue group (in MN). They are learning all of the highs and lows of fostering animals: the joy of knowing you were part of an animal finding their "forever home" and the lows of discovering how stupid people can be. The bad side of rescue sometimes manifests as scars (visible and emotional) on an animal and how they were treated to discovering how shallow or frustrating the attitudes of the "average" person can be.
In one case, they can see this in the scars on the body of a chow-mix (named Bear) they are currently trying to find a home for. She is a young dog and loves people and dogs and puppies-- remarkable when you consider that at some point she was apparently used as a "bait dog" for dog fights. Somehow-- miraculously-- she is emotionally unscarred. I honestly don't know how this is possible, but she's living proof of what animals can endure and still love everybody.
They also have a tiny puppy-- one of two that they started fostering in December. Laney (the tiny puppy) is everything you could want in a puppy: boisterous, fearless and a miniature Tazmanian devil of play. She -loves- the chow-mix: it's cute to watch them go at it. Her brother was adopted in a matter days, so my friend had high hopes for Laney-- but she's still there (more on that later).
Appropriately, the third dog of the trio is Char, who is a tripod dog. Char was found in a dumpster with a rear leg so damaged it had to be amputated. As any dog-lover knows, three-legged dogs do just fine. You have to be more diligent about their weight (one less limb to take the load), but they're otherwise happy, hearty animals. For the science fiction geeks amongst us, she moves like a Pierson's Puppeteer. Unfortunately for Char, she's middle'd: active people don't realize how active she can be (hey, she's a *cripple dog*, right?) and people who are attracted to dogs with problems find her exuberance too much for them (they want something that lays by the fire looking at them with eternal gratitude).
I think I know why these dogs are still looking for their forever homes. They all have one trait in common: they are all black dogs. They suffer from Black Dog Syndrome .
At a seminar run for and by animal shelters, I learned about BBD's and BDS. With a fair consistency across the US, black dogs (and especially big, black dogs) are the last to be adopted and the first to be euthanized. Why? There are a number of theories, from superstitions (folklore about evil, black dogs, pookas, demons) to religion (black dogs equated with Satan, devildogs, etc.) to something as simple and heartbreaking as the fact that black dogs take terrible pictures. When all you see in a Petfinder ad is two eyes, teeth and a black blob the tendency is to pass over them-- sometimes subconsciously (you just don't notice them) or sometimes consciously (you can't see what the heck the dog is--long hair or short? fluffy or fat? etc.)
Granted, in California and in large cities this is less the case. Fewer superstitious bias, more open-minded. But Los Angeles (for instance) isn't everywhere. We forget how some places have attitudes about certain things that would horrify even the most liberal or conservative Angeleno.
There are rescues that specialize in black dogs: a simple google search of "black dogs and adoption" brought up some sites that try to address this problem: Black Pearl Dogs is one such site; another is Black Dogs Second Chance .
FYI, if -anyone- is seriously interested in any of the above trio, let me know asap. It doesn't matter where you live: I will get the dog to you if you are in a position to take a rescue on. We'll talk. Other than that, if you do decide to rescue an animal, see if you can fall in love with a black dog or cat (yes, cats have the same problems). Adopt a BBD or a BBC!