Big, Black Dogs Face Stigma

Associated Press ^ | Ap;ril 10, 2008 | EMILY ZEUGNER

[mad_as_he$$]

Mad Dog and Mad Dogett - 85 and 55 pounds respectively. They are the nicest dogs around unless you piss me off.

Mad Dog and Mad Dogett

[caseinpoint]

My mom is morbidly afraid of large dogs of whatever color. As a child she lived in a rural area troubled by rabid dogs. She will be 79 this year so it goes back a bit. At any rate, the kids in the neighborhood had to walk to school in a tightly-knit group with little kids on the inside and older kids on the outside armed with sticks. My mom happened to be one of the older kids. We had small dogs in my growing-up years but mom was deathly afraid to go near a large dog. Frozen evaluation, sure, but I can see where she got her phobia.

[libstripper]

The dog in your picture’s foreground perfectly illustrates one of the problems with black dogs mentioned in the article—it’s impossible to make out the details of his face. My solution to this for people who are photographing dogs for adoption is to over expose the black dogs by about 1/2 f stop. That should be easy with a digital camera because you get immediate results and can, without cost, delete any pictures that don’t come out right.

[mad_as_he$$]

I do not disagree, but understand the context of that picture. It was a hunting trip on a cloudy day and immediately after Mrs. Mad snapped that Mad Dog got onto a lion scent and took off he$$ bent for election.

[MediaMole]

Those aren’t dogs... they’re hyenas.

As for the guy in Oakland. I’ll lay you odds, he had a big spike collar on his dog and uses a heavy chain as a leash. People probably cross the street when they see him with or without his puppy.