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“It didn’t make a difference,” Bowen says. “But you have to try.” The plight of Onyx, and animals like him, isn’t unique to south Louisiana. Homeless dogs and cats with black fur make up the plurality of adoptables in shelters across the country, according to the Humane Society of the United States. The phenomenon is common enough to have its own names: BDS and BCS, for “black dog syndrome” and “black cat syndrome.” Every shelter we spoke to in the New Orleans area is well aware of it. Why the prejudice? There’s no empirical data, but shelter workers cite several factors: • Black animals are harder to photograph effectively, so they don’t look as appealing on Petfinder.com and other adoption websites. • Many shelters have poor or weak lighting in the kennel areas, putting dark-colored animals at a disadvantage. • Superstition: The color black is still associated with bad luck, particularly with cats. • Large black dogs appear more menacing to some people than do dogs with lighter fur. • It’s harder to read a black animal’s expression at first glance.
• People are leery of black fur getting on the furniture. • … Uh … no one really knows. “I quit trying to figure it out,” Bowen says. “If you ask a potential adopter, you won’t get an answer, because they really don’t know why,” says Jessica Harris, volunteer coordinator at the St. Tammany Humane Society, a no-kill shelter in Covington. “They’re very hard-pressed to give you an answer. Certainly there’s no difference temperament-wise [with black animals].” Whatever the reason or reasons, the end result is happy, healthy animals being overlooked, and, sadly, euthanized in greater proportions than the general stray animal population. Jacob Stroman, programs director for the JPAS, is sitting on the floor in the entryway at Jefferson Feed playing with Magic, a mutt with black fur, hoping some potential adopter might notice Magic’s alert eyes, doggy smile and eagerness for belly rubs. Stroman says the shelter currently has five black Labrador retrievers looking for homes. “People pay hundreds of dollars elsewhere for a Lab,” Stroman says. “They’re the most popular dog in America, and when we get them, the
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Julie Bowen, a volunteer with the Friends of the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter, holds Onyx the cat. At the group’s recent “Black and White Ball” adoption event, animals with black or blackand-white fur had lower adoption fees. Despite the incentive, it was Onyx’s cagemate, an orange cat named Russell, that got adopted that day.