What is Black Pet Syndrome?
You may have heard the term, “Black Pet Syndrome”, which insinuates that black pets are harder to adopt from shelters than dogs with lighter coats. According to the ASPCA, black dogs make up a large part of the pet population, which may lead to the perception that they stick around longer in shelters.
“New pieces of research have found that there is no indication that they are less likely to be adopted,” ASPCA Vice President of Shelter Research. “We just conducted a piece of research looking at various traits that drive people to adopt and color did not play a role at all. It busts this myth completely.”
You may also hear shelter staff and owners say, “black pets are harder to photograph” and “I can never get a good photo of my dog because he or she is so dark”. We agree with this somewhat, but having the right lighting helps a lot. Another reason Black Pet Syndrome is perpetuated is because shelters tend to run specific marketing campaigns aimed at black pets in general.
Why a Photo Gallery?
Feed Pet Purveyor, a pet shop in South Tampa, asked if we wanted to use a space in their store to display our work. The title of the gallery is “Focus on Black Pets – Shedding Light on the Myth of Black Pet Syndrome” and will be up for 8 weeks and then another pet focused artist will utilize the space. We wanted to shed light on black pets because of their tendency to not photograph well, but to also bring attention to adopting shelter pets.
Regarding the design, we’d like to give credit to Pinterest. When asked about the gallery initially, we searched for “creative gallery ideas” and this design stood out.
Host the gallery
Once the 8 weeks are up, we’d love to install this somewhere else in the Tampa Bay Area. If you are interested in hosting it, please email [email protected].
Gallery Showing and Meet the Photographer
Join us at Feed Pet Purveyor on Monday, March 28 from 7-9 PM to see the gallery in person and meet the photographer, Adam Goldberg. You can see full event details on Facebook.