https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dog_%28ghost%29
In my family, and my wife's family, it's tradition to adopt difficult-to-place animals. We've adopted some of the worst dogs in the world, worse than
Marley & Me.
I'll visit the animal shelter with my wife and I'll see a dog I know is going to be nothing but trouble, judging by lifetime experience, just looking at it, an unadoptable dog on death row, and my wife brings the dog home the next day. Maybe like she brought me home.
Where my brother lives the black dog myths are especially strong among English, Spanish, and Portuguese speakers, which is why his family has adopted so many black dogs from the shelter. Many of them, but not all, have been absolute sweethearts. Some black dogs, like all dogs, really are full of the devil.
When I was a kid we had a horrible dog who killed some of my great grandmother's chickens when we were visiting. My great grandmother served these chickens for a spite dinner and it was all my parents could do to keep her from shooting our dog, because in her world that's what you did with chicken killing dogs.
My wife and I have a chicken killing dog, who was a feral terror to all the chickens covering many square miles of our county before animal control caught her.
We keep her away from chickens. Otherwise she's a good dog. Mostly.
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