Black dogs, cats have hard time finding homes

By Sara Greene

LITTLE ROCK — The Heber Springs Humane Society had a hot special for the month of July: Pet adoptions were only $20 but there was one requirement - the dog or cat had to be black.

The reason? Black dogs and cats are harder to adopt out, said Wendy Woods, manager of the Heber Springs Humane Society. This phenomenon even has a name: Black Dog Syndrome.

Woods offered some thoughts on why these animals get overlooked and underloved.

“We have an abundance of black dogs and black cats. It’s a pretty common color, and they just don’t stand out. They are real hard to get a good picture of to put in the paper or online,” Woods said.

The special adoption program worked. Woods said of the more than 50 animals adopted out in July, more than half were black.

“People looking for a dog or a cat usually want one with some color, so the black ones get overlooked. It gave people the chance to look at the animals and see their personality. Adopting a black dog or cat saves their lives. Because there are more black dogs and cats, they are usually the ones who getput down first,” Woods said.

Pet adoptions from the Heber Springs Humane Society usually cost $65 for dogs and puppies and $50 for cats and kittens. The animals have their first shots and worming and are sterilized. If the animal is too young to be spayed or neutered, the adopter gets a certificate for the service at participating local veterinarian offices.

Woods said there are about 150 dogs and cats at the shelter.

In Conway, there is a special black dog at the Humane Society of Faulkner County’s Companions’ Thrift and Gift Gallery, 2219 Washington Ave. Judge is a black Labrador mix. Police rescued him after he was thrown out the window of a moving vehicle. Shirley Jarman is a volunteer and care provider for the Humane Society of Faulkner County.

“People dump black dogs, and typically they are larger dogs, and that means larger litters, eight to 12 puppies. The problem is horrific,” Jarman said.

She said there are rescue groups in the New England region that want these dogs.

“They love black Labradors, the dogs aren’t just chained up, they become a partof the family. There are such stringent spay and neuter laws up there, there aren’t as many puppies to be adopted,” Jarman said. Each Saturday the Humane Society of Faulkner County takes animals to the front of the PetSmart store in the Conway Commons shopping center to give people a chance to see the dogs and hopefully adopt one.

The Humane Society of Faulkner County has no facility for pets. Instead, animals stay with foster families. Jarman said of the 15 dogs being fostered, about eight are dark. There are about 20 kittens of all different colors ready for adoption, too.

Charles Blood has been manager of the Fairfield Bay Animal Protect League Animal Shelter for about nine years.

He said most reputable shelters have a special adoption policy for black cats.

“We will not adopt out black cats for several weeks in October. It’s for the welfare of the animal. People want black cats around Halloween for all sorts of reasons,” Blood said.

He said the shelter has 23 cats, and of those, one is all black and several are tuxedo, which means their coats are black and white. The shelter has 18 dogs. Blood said most of the black dogs the shelter gets are Labrador-mixes.

“We are not a no-kill shelterbecause we can’t afford to be, but we try to keep our animals for as long as possible. We’d rather see that dogs get matched to the right person. Animals pretty much sell themselves,” Blood said. The longest an animal has stayed at the shelter has been about a year and a half.

Blood said being forthcoming about the animal’s personality and habits, such as not housebroken, barking too much or jumping fences, is part of the process, along with screening the adoptive household about their yards, other pets and children.

“A bad match can be traumatizing for the animal and leaves the people with a bad taste in their mouth about adopting pets,” Blood said.

He said the shelter just adopted out a pair of black Labrador mixes.

“Pete has been adopted and his brother, RePete, will be neutered and picked up by the same fellow. They’ll be together,” Blood said.

Blood said he has had experienced firsthand the difficulty of taking photos of black dogs.

“Black dogs are kind of prone to blending in. It’s hard to photograph them. Here if we take picture of them in their white cages, they look like a blob, so you have to take them outside and photograph them in the grass,” Blood said.

At the Van Buren County Animal Shelter, 187 Tester St., in Clinton, shelter worker JoyceJones said there don’t seem to be more black dogs or cats among the 60 animals there.

“We have all colors, but I have noticed the darker colored animals don’t get adopted out as fast,” Jones said.

Of her own dogs, two are black. Jones has a rottweiler, a rottweiler and Labrador mix, along with a pit bull.

“I guess black dogs get a bad rap, just like pits do, but mine is a sweetheart,” Jones said.

The Maumelle Animal Shelter has rooms for eight animals, and Char Akins, treasurer of Maumelle Friends of the Animals, said more than 80 stray dogs and cats from Maumelle are being cared for in foster homes.

“I don’t understand it (Black Dog Syndrome). I don’t know if it is the superstition that black cats are bad luck or not. I had four kittens I bottle fed. They came here after their mother was killed by a car. The tabby and the orange one were adopted right away. The two black ones are still here,” Akins said last week.

Besides the black cats being sheltered in foster homes, many of the dogs the group has listed on Petfinder.com are black, like Ori, the female boxer mix, Roxy, the female Labrador mix and Ozzy, a male Australian shepherd mix.

“I would tell people to look past the color to personality,” Akins said.

River Valley Ozark, Pages 65, 66 on 08/07/2008