How The Meet Your Match Program Can Combat Big Black Dog Syndrome

By Amanda Leonard

In this final installment of the Big Black Dog Syndrome blog series, the ASPCA’s Meet Your Match program will be discussed as it relates to helping re-home black dogs and cats.

The biggest problem thwarting black dog and cat adoptions is a lack of interest in their website photograph (potential adopters are not drawn to the animal), and that potential adopters walk right by black animals in the kennel because they blend into the background. The use of the Meet Your Match program to guide potential adopters toward an animal that suits their lifestyle and personality, also has the ability to get potential adopters to stop and meet the black dogs and cats available for adoption – thereby increasing the chances that those black dogs and cats will be adopted.

In my article, The Plight of Big Black Dogs in American Animal Shelters: Color-Based Canine Discrimination, based on a year of field work at a shelter in Washington, DC, I describe Big Black Dog Syndrome, its causes, and techniques that shelters can use to mitigate its effects. Therein, I assert that the adopters who came into the shelter with a definite type of pet in mind (a tough, strong, and energetic hiking partner for example) were more likely to adopt a large black dog because they were focused on personality over appearance. One the other hand, potential adopters who were just looking for a generalized pet were less likely to take a chance on a big, black dog.

Other posts in this blog series:

Shadows in the Shelter: Tactics to Re-Home Black Dogs and Cats During Halloween

Why Color Matters: How Color Symbolism and Social Memory Impact Big Black Dog Syndrome

As mentioned in more detail in my article on Big Black Dog Syndrome, the main difference with adopters who were looking for a pet to fill a specific niche, was that those adopters often made the conscious decision to go kennel by kennel (while consulting with shelter staff) to learn about each dog’s personality and attributes. Because they were invested in finding the right animal, they inadvertently skirted their way around Big Black Dog Syndrome. Adopters who were looking for specific attributes and personality traits, when presented with a black dog or cat who fit their needs, looked past the physical and environmental factors, the unknown background of the animal, and the negative symbolism of the color black in Western society that causes Big Black Dog Syndrome. Those adopters didn’t care that the dog or cat was black because they had already stopped and gotten to know the animal by virtue of it fitting the specific attributes they were interested in.

Because the majority of potential adopters are not like those discussed above, general education about Big Black Dog Syndrome and awareness of the importance of personality over appearance is the key to breaking the chain that creates and reinforces Big Black Dog Syndrome in animal shelters in the United States. The ASPCA’s Meet Your Match program is an excellent tool with which accomplish this education, as well as to get potential adopters not to walk right by a black dog or cat because they blend into the dark kennel background, and instead, stop and take notice of the animal.

The Meet Your Match program evaluates an animal’s behavior and temperament and matches them to an adopter’s lifestyle, with the goal of pairing compatible adopters and pets. Potential adopters are then assigned a color (green, orange, or purple) depending on their lifestyle, interests, and personality. The color assignment helps the potential adopter match themselves to dogs (or cats) of the same Meet Your Match color assignment. The Meet Your Match program not only works to pair compatible adopters to pets, but for black dogs and cats, it has an added advantage. In the often gray environment of the kennel, suddenly these black dogs and cats become purple, green, or orange. An adopter, knowing that they should be looking for an orange dog for example, will stop at every kennel with an orange Meet Your Match sign.

And getting potential adopters to stop and notice the animal is crucial in circumventing Big Black Dog Syndrome. All too often potential adopters walk right by black dogs and cats in the kennel because they blend into the background. The use of the Meet Your Match program to get potential adopters to stop and meet the black dogs and cats available for adoption is the key to increasing the chances that those black dogs and cats will be adopted. The Meet Your Match program then, may not only help the black dogs and cats at your shelter, but may also benefit all the other animals in the shelter as well by pairing (along with aid from the shelter staff and adoptions team) compatible adopters with pets.

So along with colorful kennel signage, website spotlights on Big Black Dog Syndrome, better photography, extra training for black dogs, not kenneling black dogs or cats next to one another, special black dog and cat events, etc. The Meet Your Match program may be an additional weapon in the arsenal shelters can wield when combating the negative effects Big Black Dog Syndrome has on the adoption rates of black dogs and cats.

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Amanda Leonard attended graduate school at The George Washington University in Washington, DC where she recently received her Master’s degree in Anthropology. Her research on black dogs has been published in the Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, a scholarly journal out of the University of California at Berkeley.