Tears as Woman Shares the Most Heartbreaking Thing About Owning a Black Dog

Dogs bring a lot of joy into our lives and it is a privilege and a curse to watch them age in front of our eyes.

One woman on TikTok revealed she recently found out about an ageing quirk with her black dog. In the video posted by @amandauuu, which has been viewed over 4.2 million times, she can be seen lying on the couch with her 8-year-old rescue mix Vasco.

"Something that nobody tells you about having a black dog is that when they age, their fur turns white and you can see their age, and my poor baby, he's getting old. You can see all his white hairs," she says in the video, visibly emotional.

"Another day of my crying on the internet," reads the caption.

A common and popular way of calculating the equivalent dog age in human years is to use the 7:1 ratio. The theory, which has been around since the 1950s, is "based on the statistic that people lived to about 70, and dogs to about 10," according to the American Kennel Club (AKC). But the AKC says "the reality is not so cut-and-dried."

The AKC report that the American Veterinary Medical Association breaks down the dog ageing process like this:

• 15 human years equals the first year of a medium-sized dog's life.
• Year two for a dog equals about nine years for a human.
• And after that, each human year would be approximately five years for a dog.

Fur turning white or grey is not an ageing characteristic solely attributed to black dogs, and can occur on any dog from as young as one or two.

"One of the most obvious signs of your dog aging is a distinguished, silvery muzzle," say Small Door Veterinary. "It's normal for a dog's fur to turn grey or white as they get older, particularly around the face. Greying typically begins around 5 years of age, but you may notice the odd grey hair from even one or two years old."

One quirk that is specific to black dogs, and cats for that matter, is a long standing tradition that they are associated with either good or bad luck. Colloquially know as "black dog syndrome," the term refers to the idea that black dogs are less likely to be adopted or purchased due to superstitions or associations with certain literary or mythical characters, such as the "hellhound" of Greek and Norse mythology, a large black dog who guarded the gates of hell, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles.

"More recently, this superstition manifests in what animal shelter people call 'Black Dog Syndrome,' implying that black dogs are the least likely to get new homes," say the AKC. "They argue that this is perhaps because those negative superstitions hover at the back of the minds of people looking for a pet."

Psychology professor and canine researcher Stanley Coren, PhD, conducted a study where he had people rate photographs of dogs, including a set of Labrador retrievers that differed only in color. The experiment found that black Labradors were rated 27 percent less friendly looking than yellow Labradors, and that black dogs were twice as likely to be rated as aggressive.

The AKC also reported that this study alone is not enough to prove the theory, and pointed out that throughout eastern Asia, "and particularly in Japan, the devil dogs are white. The touch of such a dog surely predicts the death of the person involved."

Users on TikTok loved the emotional video.

"My dog has crazy old man eyebrows and I'm always crying," said one user, while another commented: "My bull mastiff has a white face it always makes me wanna cry if i stare at him for too long."

Newsweek reached out to @amandauuu via TikTok for comment.

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