Fact vs. Fiction: Black pets and Halloween

It's almost Halloween, and that means that the urban legend mill is churning out lots of stories about black pets and animal sacrifice. We want to set the record straight about our raven-furred friends and why we have no qualms about sending them home around this delightfully spooky holiday.

There are tons of myths about black pets, and black cats in particular. Black cats have long been maligned by an association with witchcraft and bad luck, but even the quickest of Google searches will show that these myths are not the same the world over; in fact, there are more superstitions that features black cats as good omens than bad. In Scotland, if a black cat sits on your porch, you'll soon be enjoying untold riches. In Italy, if a black cat sneezes, everyone who hears it will have good luck. French black cats are a little more picky; they only bring good luck to owners who are generous with the kibble and treat them with the respect they deserve. If that part about the kibble is true, Dax (pictured), my adopted black cat, ought to be making me the luckiest gal in the world.

The stories about animal sacrifice are myth, as well. There has never been any credible evidence that animals are tortured or killed more during the Halloween season than at any other time of the year, and that makes sense, if you think about it. For one, the idea that black cats are likely to be harmed by people practicing witchcraft is illogical; in witchcraft, black cats are seen as "familiars" - magical companions or servants - and a practicing witch would not harm a familiar. Secondly, the people who are likely to harm animals - people with sociopathic tendencies - do not act out at any one time of the year, nor do they have any particular preference about what the animals they harm look like.

There is one true story about black pets, though, and it's true all year 'round: black pets are not adopted as often as their more colorful counterparts. Whether it's because of superstition, or simply because they're easy to overlook in a rescue full of pets all waiting for homes, black pets - both cats and dogs - wait longer for a home to call their own. At Woodford Humane, where we have no time limit on any pet in our care, black pets can wait as long as it takes, but in many places they are not so lucky.

We screen adopters very carefully before sending any pet home, no matter what month it is. With so many black pets in our care, we won't pass up a good home simply because of an urban legend that lingers in the back of so many minds. So, this Halloween, if you really want to help out a black pet that is waiting for a home, why not adopt one? You can help us save lives and fight all the misconceptions about black pets, bad luck, and Halloween, all at once. Think of it as a good investment; adoptable Dessa (pictured) can't wait to bring you all those untold riches, if you'd just take her home.

Plus, if you feed that black cat really well and whisper a few sweet nothings to it en francais, you just might end up bringing home a little good luck, too.

Fashionable cruelty: Think twice before getting feather hair extensions

Celebrities (like Hilary Duff, right, and Steven Tyler, lower left) started it. It takes a while for fashions to make it to Kentucky, so I had a little time to do some research and stew over feather hair extensions before I started seeing them pop up around town. Now I see them on visitors, on random folks on the street, and in the salon when I go to get my hair cut, and every time, it makes me cringe. Here's why.

The feathers that are now used for hair extensions used to be feathers for fly fishing lures. The roosters they come from are specially bred to grow long, luxurious, beautiful feathers, like the black and white striped grizzly saddle (now the most popular feather for hair extensions). Before, a grizzly saddle would have retailed for $40-$60. Now, people are paying hundreds of dollars for them; a single grizzly saddle feather recently sold for $480 on eBay. I've seen prices quoted in the thousands for high-end feathers.

Like most things in life, this comes down to an issue of supply and demand: thousands of people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for feather hair extensions, so production of feathers has skyrocketed. What most people don't ever think about is where those feathers come from.

These birds are raised solely for their feathers. It takes about a year for the long tail feathers to grow in, and then the birds are "harvested." Some companies euthanize the birds before plucking, but many do not; most of the birds that are plucked while alive do not survive the process. The meat isn't butchered for sale; the birds are just thrown away. While there are some organizations that collect feathers from molting birds or care for their birds humanely until they are plucked, that is not the status quo. The practices were the same when the feathers were just being used for fly fishing lures, but now that the demand is so high, countless hundreds of thousands of birds are dying each year for no other reason than to make us feel trendy.

As someone who works in the humane field, the weirdest part of this whole scenario is that there are companies who sell feather hair extensions for dogs. Humane practices should extend to all animals, not just the ones that we care for in our homes on a daily basis.

There are humane alternatives, so you fashionistas out there can breathe a sigh of relief - there are synthetic feathers available, and other, non-feather decorative extensions are on the market. If you absolutely must have feather extensions, please make sure that you're purchasing synthetic feathers, and do your part to change minds. When someone comments on that beautiful feather in your hair, tell them that it's not real, and tell them why.

I hope you all will share this with your friends, family, and stylists; sometimes all it takes to change the world is a little knowledge.