Black Dogs Research Articles

Putting (Big) Black Dog Syndrome to the Test: Evidence from a Large Metropolitan Shelter

ABSTRACTMost support for Black Dog Syndrome or Big Black Dog Syndrome is anecdotal or theoretical. Yet some animal shelters/organizations have implemented strategies to address what they believe are lower rates of adoption and/or higher rates of euthanasia for “Big Black Dogs.” This study examines the persistent anecdotes and theories on humans’ preferences and aversions to dogs of various shades, using hierarchical multinomial logistic regression to predict outcomes for an analytic sample of 7,440 dogs from 2010–2011 in an urban, public animal shelter serving Louisville, Kentucky, USA. The relationship between coat shade and dog outcomes was not straightforward; while no relationship existed at the bivariate level, after controls were added, entirely black dogs showed somewhat lower odds of adoption—and higher euthanasia risk—than those characterized as secondarily black or sans black. Breed category, breed size, and purebred status were stronger predictors of dog outcomes than coat shade. Big Black Dog Syndrome was not supported by these data; smaller dogs were more likely to be euthanized if they were partly or wholly black. These findings may offer nuances to adoption strategies employed by shelters/organizations, help make better use of resources, and, perhaps, improve the likelihood of homing or rehoming shelter animals.

No Dog Left Behind: A Hedonic Pricing Model for Animal Shelters

Companion animal overpopulation is a growing problem in the United States. In addition to strays, an average of 324,500 nonhuman animals are relinquished to shelters yearly by their caregivers due to family disruption (divorce, death), foreclosure, economic problems, or minor behavioral issues. As a result, estimates of animals in shelters range from 3 million to 8 million, and due to overcrowding, euthanasia is common. This analysis seeks to determine the appropriate pricing mechanisms to clear animal shelters of dogs in the manner most desirable—that is, through adoption. Based on a survey of Michigan residents, it is clear there are a number of correlations between the traits of dogs and the individuals who care for them. Hedonic pricing models indicate that animal shelters need to proactively vary their pricing systems to discount particular traits, specifically for mixed-breed, older, and black dogs. Premiums can be charged for puppies, purebred dogs, and those who have received specific services such as microchipping.

Textuality of History and Historicity of Text: New Historical Analysis of Ian McEwan’s Black Dogs

<p>This article intends to investigate Ian McEwan’s <em>Black Dogs</em> from the perspective of New Historicism, focusing on the textuality of history and the historicity of text. Research shows that the textuality of history is embodied in the application of omniscient focalization and free indirect discourse presentation, while the historicity of text, crystallized in the influence of the historical background and the writer’s own life experience on the novel and the reader’s response to the novel. This paper concludes that the novel reflects on history through the unique reconstruction of the historical events.</p>

Confronting the Dogs of War: Violence and Caregiving in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs and David Grossman's To the End of the Land

Confronting the Dogs of War: Violence and Caregiving in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs and David Grossman's To the End of the Land

The lies of liberalism in Ian McEwan's novels

The paper locates moments of exposure of ideological lies of liberalism on a corpus of three novels by Ian McEwan (Cement Garden, Black Dogs and Saturday). In spite of Ian McEwan's reputation as a liberal intellectual, the paper demonstrates that the novels which are often read as homage to liberalism can in fact be interpreted as a critique of liberalism. In McEwan's novels one can find moments of fierce critique of the nuclear family as the ideological bedrock of liberalism. Moreover, the novels also establish close links between liberalism and fascism and point to the existence of what Eco called 'ur- fascism' in Western Civilization. Also, the paper sheds some light on the paradoxical feeling of a chronic lack of freedom in liberal societies and ends by giving examples of McEwan's pessimistic attitude towards the future of the liberal society or the modern Western civilization encumbered by the historical baggage of fascism as well as the structural inability to overcome it within the bounds of liberal ideology.

A Spectacular Reformation of Their Old Ways

A Spectacular Reformation of Their Old Ways Miriam Bird Greenberg (bio) They’ve gone down to Honey Grove, are living in an abandoned house. One of them’s strung up a wire spliced into the electric line, and the lights flicker all night like heat lightning, like angels playing a trick. They have a few plates, drink from mason jar mugs, it’s not for long, they know, but this is downright civilized: breakfast at a table with a bedsheet for tablecloth, a spectacular reformation of their old ways. On the falling-in porch with moth-shadows swimming on their faces they wonder aloud what happened to the old white man at the Salvation Army lunch up in Idaho who could speak to space aliens. He stayed on Blackfoot land, but spent the week in town begging day-old pastries from bakeries to dole out to the dentists who’d pro bonoed his gold teeth inlaid with rubies. He’d told them, Why didn’t they settle down, get jobs at Walmart, start a family? Here’s as nice a place as any, he’d said, handing them a sheaf of newspaper clippings, documents of his fame and fortune. They’d hung around the library all day chasing off patrons with their unlaced shoes souring the air, slept in a doorway and dreamt [End Page 63] of sparkling cities. The flickering heavens reeled one innumerable self after another past their closed eyes, but lo, they never learn. At dawn again they were cadging coffee, then kicking moss on the shoulder of the highway with their thumbs out; but—Oh, Spain. They had a book with pictures of Sevilla, the Alhambra, the Canary Islands—it was stamped pocatello public library, and soon they’d lay eyes on those sparkling shores, birds yellow as the sunlight one of them said dreamily—but no, said the other, it was dogs, loping black dogs the Spaniards had meant, and they howled their consternation like men all night at the invaders. [End Page 64] Miriam Bird Greenberg The recipient of an NEA Literature Fellowship, MIRIAM BIRD GREENBERG is currently working on an ethnographically derived poetry project about economic migrants living in Hong Kong. Her book In the Volcano’s Mouth won the 2015 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize and has just been published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.* Copyright © 2016 University of North Carolina Wilmington

A mutation in the Warburg syndrome gene, RAB3GAP1, causes a similar syndrome with polyneuropathy and neuronal vacuolation in Black Russian Terrier dogs

An autosomal recessive disease of Black Russian Terriers was previously described as a juvenile-onset, laryngeal paralysis and polyneuropathy similar to Charcot Marie Tooth disease in humans. We found that in addition to an axonal neuropathy, affected dogs exhibit microphthalmia, cataracts, and miotic pupils. On histopathology, affected dogs exhibit a spongiform encephalopathy characterized by accumulations of abnormal, membrane-bound vacuoles of various sizes in neuronal cell bodies, axons and adrenal cells. DNA from an individual dog with this polyneuropathy with ocular abnormalities and neuronal vacuolation (POANV) was used to generate a whole genome sequence which contained a homozygous RAB3GAP1:c.743delC mutation that was absent from 73 control canine whole genome sequences. An additional 12 Black Russian Terriers with POANV were RAB3GAP1:c.743delC homozygotes. DNA samples from 249 Black Russian Terriers with no known signs of POANV were either heterozygotes or homozygous for the reference allele. Mutations in human RAB3GAP1 cause Warburg micro syndrome (WARBM), a severe developmental disorder characterized by abnormalities of the eye, genitals and nervous system including a predominantly axonal peripheral neuropathy. RAB3GAP1 encodes the catalytic subunit of a GTPase activator protein and guanine exchange factor for Rab3 and Rab18 respectively. Rab proteins are involved in membrane trafficking in the endoplasmic reticulum, axonal transport, autophagy and synaptic transmission. The neuronal vacuolation and membranous inclusions and vacuoles in axons seen in this canine disorder likely reflect alterations of these processes. Thus, this canine disease could serve as a model for WARBM and provide insight into its pathogenesis and treatment.

Investigating the role of coat colour, age, sex, and breed on outcomes for dogs at two animal shelters in the United States

AbstractThe popular press frequently reports that coat colour bias negatively impacts shelter adoption rates for black domestic dogs. This phenomenon, commonly called ‘black dog syndrome’ (BDS), reportedly increases the likelihood of euthanasia for black dogs and negatively affects the length of black dogs’ time to adoption. While organisations may focus on BDS and ways to promote black dogs, it is possible that the influences of other important factors, such as sex, age and breed, may be overlooked. To evaluate the veracity of BDS and examine the impact of various phenotypic traits on shelter outcomes, we analysed four years of intake and outcome data from two animal shelters in the Pacific Northwestern United States. Results indicated that the average length of availability for adoption (LOA) for black dogs was not significantly longer than that for other coloured dogs, nor was the rate of euthanasia of black dogs significantly higher than average. On the other hand, age and breed group were consistent predictors of shelter outcomes across the two shelters. Older dogs tended to have longer LOA and to be euthanised at rates higher than expected. Bully breeds had significantly longer LOA in both shelters and, compared to other breeds, were euthanised at higher than expected rates. The methods implemented in this study could be utilised by other shelters to inform intake and marketing strategies.

Should stress management be part of the clinical care provided to chronically ill dogs?

As a consequence of their physical and/or psychological effects, on-going diseases may have the potential to induce chronic stress in dogs. Chronic stress may contribute to disease progression and negatively affect welfare. By investigating whether on-going illnesses cause chronic stress in dogs and exploring the relationship between hair cortisol and potential disease-dependent and disease-independent stressors, this research aimed to determine if stress management should be integrated into veterinary care. Hair samples were collected from 33 dogs to assess cortisol levels (ill n = 16, 12 nonblack and 4 black; healthy n = 17, 12 nonblack and 5 black) using a commercially available biochemical assay. In addition, a questionnaire was distributed to the owners of these dogs to gather information on pet care, chronic stress behaviors and disease characteristics. The hair cortisol levels of black and nonblack dogs did not differ significantly (U = 89, df = 31, P = 0.442). Data were therefore pooled for further analysis. Significant differences were not found in the hair cortisol levels of chronically ill compared to healthy dogs (t = −0.655, df = 30, P = 0.517), or the number of dogs with chronic stress behaviors in each group (χ2 = 0.667, df = 1, P = 0.414). Ill dogs with disease signs or lifestyle restrictions did not have significantly different hair cortisol levels to those without them (signs: t = 0.321, df = 14, P = 0.753; lifestyle restrictions: t = 0.154, df = 14, P = 0.880). Hair cortisol was not significantly related to the number of veterinary visits (rs = −0.152, df = 31, P = 0.397). However, it was significantly correlated with the length of time regularly left alone in healthy and chronically ill dogs (rs = 0.417, df = 31, P = 0.016). In addition, the hair cortisol levels of healthy dogs were significantly correlated with time regularly left alone in single dog (rs = 0.726, df = 7, P = 0.027) but not multidog households (rs = 0.528, df = 6, P = 0.179). Further research with a larger sample size is required to confirm our findings. Nonetheless, as chronic stress may be detrimental to the health of dogs, lifestyle factors, such as the social environment and time regularly left alone, should be taken into consideration when planning canine veterinary care.

How to Know whether a Dog is Dangerous: Myth, Superstition and its Influence on the Human-dog Relationship

The relationship between humans and dogs is complex and ambivalent. The dog was the first animal that Homo sapiens domesticated. This means that the human-dog relationship has lasted longer than any other human-animal relationships. Despite all this, mythological, symbolic and folkloristic traditions often depict dogs in a negative light and as a dangerous and threatening force from the underworld. Due to the belief that seeing an unknown dog can lead to misfortune, accident or even death, people were often afraid of dogs.People had to invent certain rules that could help them determine which dog was dangerous and which was not. Those rules had to change over time based on the fact that human-dog relationship is culturally and historically defined. The author analyses stories from in the Glasovi (Voices) collection to show that, in the last few centuries in the territory of modern Slovenia, black dogs where most feared by humans. In contrast, nowadays the most feared dogs are those of the Pit Bull and some other breeds. Nevertheless, the folk superstitions and prejudice toward black dogs is still present in modern Western societies. In the English language “black dog” symbolizes depression. And some are still reluctant to adopt large black dogs from the animal shelters.

How to Know whether a Dog is Dangerous: Myth, Superstition and its Influence on the Human-dog Relationship

The relationship between humans and dogs is complex and ambivalent. The dog was the first animal that Homo sapiens domesticated. This means that the human-dog relationship has lasted longer than any other human-animal relationships. Despite all this, mythological, symbolic and folkloristic traditions often depict dogs in a negative light and as a dangerous and threatening force from the underworld. Due to the belief that seeing an unknown dog can lead to misfortune, accident or even death, people were often afraid of dogs.People had to invent certain rules that could help them determine which dog was dangerous and which was not. Those rules had to change over time based on the fact that human-dog relationship is culturally and historically defined. The author analyses stories from in the Glasovi (Voices) collection to show that, in the last few centuries in the territory of modern Slovenia, black dogs where most feared by humans. In contrast, nowadays the most feared dogs are those of the Pit Bull and some other breeds. Nevertheless, the folk superstitions and prejudice toward black dogs is still present in modern Western societies. In the English language “black dog” symbolizes depression. And some are still reluctant to adopt large black dogs from the animal shelters.

The Illiterate Man

32 WLT NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2015 photo : lionel viroulaud I f you want . . . I tell myself each day: if you want to see the black dogs of your childhood again, give yourself a reason. Throw your hair into the river of lies, plunge, plunge further still into the blood of insanity. The masks don’t matter to you, but give yourself a reason and die if necessary among the bald heads, the shanty-town kids who eat grasshoppers and hot moons, and the black dogs that play in the garbage dumps of the suburbs. In that time, the seasons rained colors, the moon rained legendary dragons. The beneficent sky opened onto white cavaliers . Just as the coquettish old women sang over the terraces of Casablanca. One night, a child lured the moon into a trap. Ten years later, he found it again old and all pale, even older than the old women without mirrors, the mustachioed grandmothers arguing endlessly like rank rain. So, he understood that the seasons of colors were an invention of the ancestors. This was the death of trees, the death of giants. Ghalia bent el Mansour didn’t live beyond the seven seas in an emerald castle on the backs of eagles. He met her in the neighborhood of Ben M’Sik if not at the Carrières Centrales, near the fairground kiosks. She wore plastic shoes and prostituted herself with the bicycle repairman . There was nothing left to do but slam the doors to the sky. So, hands ablaze, I restarted the suns. My illness is a barbaric world that claims to be without arithmetic or calculations. I cover the sewers and the garbage dumps, I call friend all the black dogs, all the cockroaches that crawl through my deranged dreams. Forgive me and to the devil with you! Love, admire, detest as you see fit. My factory has no robots, my machines are on strike, the waves of my ocean speak a language that is not yours. Forgive me and to the devil with you. I am dead and you accuse me of living, I smoke second-rate cigarettes and you accuse me of burning feudal farms. Listen, listen to me. Under what law is it permissible for the chicken to fly higher than the eagle? In its dreams the fish would like to jump to seventh heaven. I built terraces and entire cities. Casablanca lived under the American bomb. My aunt trembled on the stairs and thought she saw the sky’s stomach split open. My brother M’hammed made Charlot and Dick Tracy dance with the flame of a candle. My mother . . . special section political voices from the maghreb The Illiterate Man by Ahmed Bouanani Must I really go back to the house of the louvered shutters? The stairs infested with an army of rats, the nude woman with sorcery hands, Allal raping Milouda in a pool of blood, and the Senegalese cutting off his penis at a butcher’s on Derb Al Kabir . . . Must I really go back to the house of the louvered shutters? The sentinel washes his feet with your tears. Your most beloved dream topples over in the barbaric world of daylight and the moon. You do not stand up. Your equations in your pockets, the world on the horns of the ox, the fish in the cloud, the cloud in the drop of water, and the drop of water containing infinity. The walls of the sky bleed from every pore. The dogs burst into a barbaric song. A Kabylian song or a Targuie legend, perhaps it’s simply a tale, and this tale ends by falling into the stream. He puts on paper sandals, goes out into the street, looks at his feet and finds that he’s walking barefoot. The walls of the sky bleed from every pore. The wind, the clouds, the land and the forest, the men turned into traditional songs . . . Behind the sun, the officers dig the tombs. A man is dead, a 7.65mm bullet in the neck. And then, here is an old woman lamenting, here is another recounting stories of milk and honey about the son of a nasty lumberjack who...

The Illiterate Man

32 WLT NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2015 photo : lionel viroulaud I f you want . . . I tell myself each day: if you want to see the black dogs of your childhood again, give yourself a reason. Throw your hair into the river of lies, plunge, plunge further still into the blood of insanity. The masks don’t matter to you, but give yourself a reason and die if necessary among the bald heads, the shanty-town kids who eat grasshoppers and hot moons, and the black dogs that play in the garbage dumps of the suburbs. In that time, the seasons rained colors, the moon rained legendary dragons. The beneficent sky opened onto white cavaliers . Just as the coquettish old women sang over the terraces of Casablanca. One night, a child lured the moon into a trap. Ten years later, he found it again old and all pale, even older than the old women without mirrors, the mustachioed grandmothers arguing endlessly like rank rain. So, he understood that the seasons of colors were an invention of the ancestors. This was the death of trees, the death of giants. Ghalia bent el Mansour didn’t live beyond the seven seas in an emerald castle on the backs of eagles. He met her in the neighborhood of Ben M’Sik if not at the Carrières Centrales, near the fairground kiosks. She wore plastic shoes and prostituted herself with the bicycle repairman . There was nothing left to do but slam the doors to the sky. So, hands ablaze, I restarted the suns. My illness is a barbaric world that claims to be without arithmetic or calculations. I cover the sewers and the garbage dumps, I call friend all the black dogs, all the cockroaches that crawl through my deranged dreams. Forgive me and to the devil with you! Love, admire, detest as you see fit. My factory has no robots, my machines are on strike, the waves of my ocean speak a language that is not yours. Forgive me and to the devil with you. I am dead and you accuse me of living, I smoke second-rate cigarettes and you accuse me of burning feudal farms. Listen, listen to me. Under what law is it permissible for the chicken to fly higher than the eagle? In its dreams the fish would like to jump to seventh heaven. I built terraces and entire cities. Casablanca lived under the American bomb. My aunt trembled on the stairs and thought she saw the sky’s stomach split open. My brother M’hammed made Charlot and Dick Tracy dance with the flame of a candle. My mother . . . special section political voices from the maghreb The Illiterate Man by Ahmed Bouanani Must I really go back to the house of the louvered shutters? The stairs infested with an army of rats, the nude woman with sorcery hands, Allal raping Milouda in a pool of blood, and the Senegalese cutting off his penis at a butcher’s on Derb Al Kabir . . . Must I really go back to the house of the louvered shutters? The sentinel washes his feet with your tears. Your most beloved dream topples over in the barbaric world of daylight and the moon. You do not stand up. Your equations in your pockets, the world on the horns of the ox, the fish in the cloud, the cloud in the drop of water, and the drop of water containing infinity. The walls of the sky bleed from every pore. The dogs burst into a barbaric song. A Kabylian song or a Targuie legend, perhaps it’s simply a tale, and this tale ends by falling into the stream. He puts on paper sandals, goes out into the street, looks at his feet and finds that he’s walking barefoot. The walls of the sky bleed from every pore. The wind, the clouds, the land and the forest, the men turned into traditional songs . . . Behind the sun, the officers dig the tombs. A man is dead, a 7.65mm bullet in the neck. And then, here is an old woman lamenting, here is another recounting stories of milk and honey about the son of a nasty lumberjack who...

Three Poems

88 wlt may / august 2015 Isabella Sleeps with the Dogs Isabella asked where are the dogs she slept with dogs dreamt dogs in a raging storm, there were no dogs in our house or in any other but Isabella kept looking for the dogs. And no, this wasn’t our house but a room where house is possible where love is possible, but every time it rained we walked around the room and threw stones. Isabella sleeps with the dogs sowing a bone for roaming we walked just like her from house to house and when it rained we only found branches. Black dogs take their rest with Isabella, coiled on her woolen breasts, her nipped flesh, they know everything. I sat in the street and saw the two of us or maybe I only saw the escape I knocked with the branches knocked hard at each door, there was no house the storms came and went and blue sliced the sky. The Mountains of Spain I am writing what is impossible because there are people who talk about money during sex transferring through carnal channels money I’ll never receive and I hear someone say, we sold for millions I am listening to those blue metallic eyes Back at home, I’m thinking that nice frames cost 1,000 shekels and I’m thinking that on Wednesday at the employment office I’ll place my finger on a square and a red beam will scan its ridges and a machine will print out the words: move along there’s no work. And I’ll be happy. It can’t be that next to money my head is as pretty as a Russian princess who’s lost everything suddenly, in the dark, in one fell swoop and now drinks tea from a thermos and eats dried fruit and lies on her back half the day in her old ragged bathrobe reading English novels about English ladies with destiny in their favor. It can’t be true that I’ve only just discovered this innate, chronic refusal to think about money, to charge, to want to work for it. It’s a curse I inherited from my mother along with my penchant for aesthetic pleasures and that unholy union of wealth and beauty not to mention a fancy for coffee served in a coffee shop, and pastries and lace dresses. All of this is so impossible that it holds back thoughts of love and lust and my will to breathe the air after rain so much that I’ll lose myself in a book called Cocaine Nights and get mad when I read about people with money, so much money that they retire to the mountains of Spain and sunbathe in fancy villas at the age of thirty-eight. cover feature new hebrew writing Three Poems by Tahel Frosh worldliteraturetoday.org 89 How is it possible that instead of lounging in these Spanish mountains I am thinking about money in a studio in Tel Aviv and it’s raining and so what I won’t go looking for puddles and make fun of tourists on lousy vacations. No, it’s impossible to listen to that man talking about his millions and not want to die to really die on the cover of my English novel between chewed organic plums and a thermos of tea sitting half empty. photo : alon porat Accountant Dad, I think your job killed you, when I was little you’d leave the house every morning at an ungodly hour and I would lie in bed with my heart pounding wanting to kill everyone even myself because you had to get up so early and drive and drive, your eyes really hurt, you’d put on special glasses, the sun blinded you and at night you couldn’t see anything, and still you would drive like a faithful dog to that place, you were always loyal to your job, wherever it was: once it was Hassneh,1 where you managed an investment company that privatized and collapsed and your heart broke, after that you tried to be a free agent and you went to work at some Polish...

Black Nerds, Asian Activists, and Caucasian Dogs

This study focuses on modern representations of race on the Internet. As race continues to be used as a meaningful category for understanding the social world, Internet-based displays of racial membership reflect the ongoing significance of race. Concurrent with Facebook's growth in popularity has been the development in ways that racial identity has been expressed online. While Facebook has been the site of study for individual behavior, Facebook Group behavior is still understudied. The author applies the communication theory of identity and self-categorization theory to digital expressions of race as examples of cultural markers of identification. Thematic analysis is used to examine intra-racial and cross-racial variances across cultural groups that are self-identified as White/Caucasian, Black/African-American, and Asian/Asian-American. The results indicate that users of colors create online representations of race that are different and counter to those found in mass media.

Introduction: The Muses of the Black Audio Film Collective and Smoking Dogs Films

Introduction: The Muses of the Black Audio Film Collective and Smoking Dogs Films

Speed of Dog Adoption: Impact of Online Photo Traits

The Internet has radically changed how dogs are advertised for adoption in the United States. This study was used to investigate how different characteristics in dogs' photos presented online affected the speed of their adoptions, as a proof of concept to encourage more research in this field. The study analyzed the 1st images of 468 adopted young and adult black dogs identified as Labrador Retriever mixed breeds across the United States. A subjective global measure of photo quality had the largest impact on time to adoption. Other photo traits that positively impacted adoption speed included direct canine eye contact with the camera, the dog standing up, the photo being appropriately sized, an outdoor photo location, and a nonblurry image. Photos taken in a cage, dogs wearing a bandana, dogs having a visible tongue, and some other traits had no effect on how fast the dogs were adopted. Improving the quality of online photos of dogs presented for adoption may speed up and possibly increase the number of adoptions, thereby providing a cheap and easy way to help fight the homeless companion animal population problem.

Pastoral and Plague: Bearing Witness to “The Fundamental Problem of Evil” in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs

This essay reads Ian McEwan's Black Dogs as “literature that sets out to transform history by bearing witness” (Shoshana Felman, “Camus' The Plague” 108). It argues this is achieved in large part by means of the novel's dialogic engagement with three intertexts: the classical genre that is pastoral, Arthur Koestler's “The Yogi and the Commissar,” and Albert Camus's The Plague.

The Relationship between History and Ethics in Ian McEwan’s Black Dogs

The relationship between history and ethics may seem irrelevant at first; however, these two have been related during the long history of war, violence and mass killing. The need of history to ethics is for saving itself from all the violence and terror. Emmanuel Levinas as a philosopher has tried to define ethics in a way that suits the terrible historical condition of humanity in the twentieth century. In his view, ethics is the infinite responsibility towards other human beings. He defines ‘being’ in relation to the ‘other’ who may be a complete stranger. In this definition a person bears complete responsibility toward the other and should answer the other’s call for help. In Ian McEwan's novel Black Dogs the protagonist is exposed to historical legacies of violence, and develops an ethical consciousness until the end of the novel. Responsibility seems to be a good answer to historical mass killing and violence that is dominant in the world.

Management and personality in Labrador Retriever dogs

Canine personality is of keen interest to dog owners and researchers alike. The regular human contact with them makes dogs an ideal species to use in the investigation of animal personality. This study specifically focused on Labrador Retrievers, consistently one of the most popular breeds both in the UK and around the world. Using surveys completed by dog owners, data was gathered on the behaviour of the dogs, in addition to the physical characteristics and management characteristics of the dogs (n=1978). Twelve personality traits were identified and investigated for associations with the demographic data. It was found that the working status of the dog was more commonly associated with differences in personality than other analyzed factors. Gundogs had higher scores for ‘fetching tendency’ and ‘trainability’ than Showdogs or Pets (P<0.05). Chocolate dogs were more ‘agitated when ignored’ and showed more ‘excitability’ than black dogs, and lower ‘trainability’ and ‘noise fear’ than both yellow and black dogs (all P<0.05). Dogs exercised for longer periods showed less aggression, less fear of humans and objects and lower separation anxiety than dogs that were not as active. The effects observed in this study may be due to the experience and training of the dogs, the work-related genetic strain of Labrador Retriever or most likely, a combination of both influences.