Black Friday for Shelters.

Clayton, one of our beloved black kitty fosters.

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, is typically called Black Friday for retailers since it is supposedly the day they go from being in the red, or having a loss in their accounting books, to being “in the black” or making a profit. But some animal shelters across the nation, including local ones here in Central Ohio, are giving the term Black Friday a whole new meaning by making this a day to adopt black cats and dogs, which notably are the animals that are least adopted.

For whatever reasons, big black dogs and black cats are most often euthanized in shelters. It may be that some people still harbor superstitions about black animals having ties to witchcraft.

There is a really nice article about this subject on Care2: http://www.care2.com/causes/animal-welfare/blog/black-friday-gets-new-meaning/

And Citizens For Humane Action (CHA) in Westerville, actually has put out a flyer explaining all the benefits of adopting a black cat:

http://www.chaanimalshelter.org/cats/documents/blackcats.pdf

Sadly, on this flyer, CHA quotes a 2002 study in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science that examined adoption rates over nine months in California. This study found that “black cats were about half as likely to be adopted as tabby cats and two-thirds less likely than white cats.”

Here is CHA’s Black Friday Adopt-A-Thon Flyer: http://www.chaanimalshelter.org/documents/BlackFridayFlyerEdit11.10.09.pdf

Citizens For Humane Action is offering discounts on adoption fees from 30-60% based upon how early in the day you Adopt. They are also asking people to “Adopt, not Shop,” which applies not only to taking the time to visit a shelter today and not spend the day at the mall, but also to the idea of adopting a pet rather than purchasing one at a pet store.

Let’s turn things around for black dogs and cats and make Black Friday a day when they flow out of shelters and into their forever homes.