The Humane Society of Northeast Georgia is holding a “blackout” sale to help find homes for the black dogs and puppies in the shelter.

Through Nov. 14, the Humane Society is providing a discount on its adoption fee in hopes of shedding light on some of its dogs that are traditionally harder to adopt out.

“It’s sort of a nationwide shelter issue,” said Julie Edwards, director of development and marketing for the Humane Society.

The typical fee of $100 per animal will be reduced to $50 for dogs age 6 months and older and the adoption fee for black puppies under six months will be $75.

For a number of reasons, black dogs can be overlooked at shelters and often wait the longest to be adopted, Edwards said.

Many people falsely perceive that black dogs are meaner than those with different colored coats.

“A lot of times in literature and popular culture, they’re portrayed as being menacing,” Edwards said. “Traditionally through history (they) have been listed as sort of evil. It’s a canine issue and it’s also a feline issue.”

Black dogs are also more difficult to photograph. When people scroll through pictures of animals on a shelter’s website, black dogs just don’t show up as well.

“People may pass them by because they really can’t tell what they look like,” Edwards said. “You really can’t see distinguishing features.”

Edwards said many people may not be aware of the plight of black dogs, and she hopes the promotion will bring attention to the black dogs at the Humane Society that need to find homes.

“We were just promoting it sort of internally and we had a really good response,” Edwards said. “We decided to do it because at the time, we did have a lot of black dogs here that had been here for a longer period of time than some of the other dogs.”

She said there are black dogs of all shapes and sizes at the Humane Society, but large dogs like black lab mixes are especially common.

“This would certainly be a great opportunity to come in and adopt a black dog,” Edwards said. “We have some great dogs here that need to move to a new home.”

The Humane Society is a selective admission shelter, which means they do not euthanize dogs based on space limitations or length of stay.

She said this promotion is one way the shelter hopes to find good families to adopt some of the dogs that have been there the longest. Last spring, the Humane Society held a similar promotion for adult dogs.

“There’s more of a need to move dogs that have been here for a while,” Edwards said. “These dogs are here until they’re adopted. We’ve had to be more creative about trying to find ways to adopt the dogs that don’t move as well, that people don’t look at, and black dogs are certainly included in that group.”