Doggie discrimination

An urban legend from long ago states that if a black cat crosses your path, you're in for some bad luck. And according to this Web site, black cats in Egypt were believed to be "demons in disguise."

Having a black cat myself I know this is silly. (Although now that I think about it, Pause is a little monster at times ...)

Interestingly though, many people unconsciously carry this superstition to black dogs and as a result, according to this article on MSNBC, black puppies are often the last ones adopted.

Many animal shelters and rescue clinics have dubbed this doggie discrimination as ""black dog syndrome" and Kim Intino, the director of animal sheltering issues for the Human Society told MSNBC:

I think that every person that has worked in a shelter can attest that in shelters animals with black coats can be somewhat harder to adopt out — or to even get noticed.

The black-cat urban legend is not the only cause of this.

Some say that black dogs older because often even puppies have white or grey hair. However others argue that black dogs are just not as noticeable in animal shelters.

Regardless the cause, this is a pretty random trend. I did a quick Google search to see if any other news site or bloggers had mentioned this before but I didn't find anything. However, I bet in a few days there will be a "save the black-coat puppies" fund.

I feel like I'm doing my part to help these little pooches out by spreading the word on the problem. (Plus I get to include this adorable puppy picture in my post.)

The image above is by Kevin Tostado(cc) and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.