OGDEN -- Heavy snow Saturday morning didn't stop the regular Black Dog Patrol from cruising Ogden's 25th Street.
Half a dozen volunteers, their hair sprinkled with snow, their charges shivering, walked the length of the street. The humans dodged slush and held puppies up to windows or thrust them at strangers. The puppies looked cute and cold and needful of homes, which was the whole point.
Sherry Skidmore of North Ogden, started the Black Dog Rescue Project last June. "I was out of a job and looking for something to fill the time," she said. Rescuing black dogs seemed like a good way to fill time.
First she started a web site, www.blackdogrescueproject.com. In September she organized friends and volunteers to borrow black dogs from the Ogden City Animal Shelter and take them for a cruise, getting them out in public so people could see them and adopt them.
Skidmore said she emphasizes black dogs because of Black Dog Syndrome.
"Black dogs are the last to be adopted and among the first to be euthanized," she said. "If you look at movies, they always use black dogs as the bad dogs. You never see a black dog in an advertisement because black dogs are so hard to photograph."
Nobody is sure why that is.
"Some people want to make it into a big discrimination thing," she said. "I think it's just flat out human nature. People naturally look more at light colors."
The dogs are of all ages and breeds. Sarah Hiza cradled a miniature pinscher in her arms, swaddled in a blanket.
"He doesn't have a lot of hair, so he's cold," she said.
Bryanna Buie held a 3-month old striped and wrinkled thing that Skidmore identified as a "catahoula leopard" mix, although "Heinz 57" seemed to fit as well. Bryanna's sister, Angela Buie, cradled a shivering year-old Chihuahua.
The group of volunteers and dogs made a tangled scrum along the sidewalk. Puppies dodged amid legs and stumbled over heaps of snow while the humans tried not to trip over the dogs.
The humans stopped outside Moore's Barbershop at the corner of Lincoln and 25th. All haircuts came to a halt as the two barbers, both women, came out to pet and coo and ask where they could find out more.
Then Hiza said "Karen's Cafe always has lots of people!"
Big windows, too. Everyone, puppies in tow, lined up to cross the street.
Skidmore said her group has succeeded in getting numerous dogs adopted, but doesn't always beat the shelter's deadline. Her web site shows the story of Milly, a 3-year old flat haired retriever who didn't make it.
"She was such a sweetheart with a world of potential," Skidmore says on the web site, "but unfortunately, no one chose to bring her home. The shelter is full and Milly had been waiting too long. This beautiful girl was humanely euthanized on January 4, 2010."
In addition to trying to keep black dogs from dying, she said Saturday's walk was a special rescue effort for one black dog not with them.
On Friday, Skidmore said, someone found a 7-day old black puppy that had been put into a plastic bag and left to die in a city park. It had a mangled rear leg and was taken to the pound. Now named Dodger, the puppy is being bottle-fed by volunteers but the damaged rear leg needs surgery.
"We're trying to raise $200 to pay for it," she said.
Donations can be sent to the Ogden Animal Shelter, 1490 Park Blvd., Ogden 84401, or by calling (801) 629-8244.
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