You’ll recall that some people have problems mentally separating African-Americans from apes, and that that link can lead to some negative things for blacks, like imprisonment, slander and being killed. Now, black dogs have become entangled in a similar though more peculiar web, in which prejudice, color and the animal kingdom all coincide.

To the uninitiated, the idea seems so strange — doggie discrimination? But among those in animal rescue circles, the phenomenon is commonplace enough to have earned its own name: “black dog syndrome.”

“There’s not a lot of that type of statistics on many aspects of sheltering,” says Kim Intino, the director of animal sheltering issues for the Humane Society of the United States. “But I think that every person that has worked in a shelter can attest that in shelters animals with black coats can be somewhat harder to adopt out — or to even get noticed.”

No, this article isn’t biting satire – we checked – but it could be. Take, for instance, what happens at some kennels when black dogs go unnoticed for too long: “they tie pink ribbons around the necks of the girls, and fasten big bow ties around the necks of the boys.” Doggie bling! “In our kennels, the black dogs are all decked out,” says the head of the Los Angeles SPCA. Who knew kennels had so much in common with rap videos?

Other Swiftian passages include:

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