The Dumovec pet shelter, located in Zagreb and partially financed by the city, is one of the biggest pet shelters in Croatia. To help with fundraising, they’ve created a 2020 calendar, containing only photos of black dogs from the shelter.
On Black Friday, the new calendar will be presented at the shelter. The idea is to promote the adoption of black dogs and to make such animals more appealing to potential adopters (and also to calendar-buyers!) they’ve been given various accessories to wear by the Croata brand, such as ties, bow-ties, scarves etc.
There is a strange phenomenon that exists known as “black dog syndrome”, which implies that black dogs are less adoptable than their white, brown or multicolour counterparts.
Damir Skok, the director of Zagreb Zoo (the shelter belongs in this organisation) says that it’s an interesting fact, caused by numerous psychological and cultural factors. All those factors lead to black dogs being overlooked in the shelters when people are adopting.
To break the stigma, they’ve had some Croatian celebrities pose with black dogs for photos, and former successful female hammer thrower Ivana Brkljačić adopted a black dog herself. The shelter’s goal is for people to just stop by a black dog, look at the animal carefully, and try to see the animal’s personality. They do that with dogs of other colours, but most still, unfortunately, tend to just walk past the black dogs. Black dogs, just like all the other dogs in the shelter, deserve to be given a chance to have a new life, as their personalities are the same as any that of any other dog.
Some just want to cuddle, some want to run around in the forest all day, some love to swim – and none of that has anything to do with their coat colour!
You can purchase the #BlackDogsMatter calendar on the Dumovec shelter’s website, and on December the 7th, you can come and visit the shelter. A big holiday get-together will be organised on that Saturday so that the dogs in the shelter can feel some of the holiday cheer as well.
