Bungay Black Dog Double Response

The Black Dog Response is a conventional bid in Contract Bridge of either a suit or no trump at the lowest available level after a players partner has doubled on the first round of bidding.
The name of the Black Dog Response was inspired by the legend of the Black Dog considering the response to the original double as being a 'ghost bid', never knowing what substance there was to the response.
Background
The most frequently used convention for responding to the a takeout double on the first round of bidding in Bridge requires partner to bid regardless of the quality of his hand.
The issue with this approach is that there is no way to gauge the value of partner's response to the double in terms of point count or distribution.
Description
As with the weak squeak response to an opening of 1NT from partner (generally a bid of 2 Hearts or 2 Spades showing minimal points and 5+ cards in the respective major suit bid), then a suit bid over the double would be considered to be a weak squeak, whereas if the responder to the double had a minimum of 6 points, thereby ensuring at least a partnership sharing the total number of points available, then the response should be 1NT, allowing the originally doubling partner to make a safer call of their own suit at the 2 level in the comforting knowledge that he will find some support in his partner's hand.
Example Weak Hand
Assume that you are playing South in the following deal, and West is the Dealer. West would open 1 Heart, your partner doubles to show his opening hand (this is a take-out double), and East passes, not having sufficient support.
Under the standard response to the conventional take-out double South must bid regardless of his holding. His only option is to bid his longest suit: 2 Diamonds.
North's difficulty is that South would have bid 2 Diamonds with any number of points between 0 and 10 - clearly, if his partner has 10 points North would be looking for a game contract, on the other hand, if his partner has 0-4 points, North would be looking to pass... what should he do? Not knowing which way to go, his only safe course is to assume South is weak, has only bid because the convention demands it and consequently North must pass. North will then hope that he can make an over all gain by losing less points in penalties than his opponents would have scored in a game contract. North may miss out on a game contract because of his uncertainty over the strength of South's hand.
However, if the partnership is using the Black Dog Response then North can be sure that passing is his best option knowing that South is weak since had South had 6 or more points he would have bid 1NT; North/South cannot be missing out on a potential game.
Example Strong Hand
As before, West is dealer and you are sitting South.
West will open 1 Heart, North will double and East will pass. The standard response is now for South to bid 2 Diamonds showing his longest suit but giving no information about the strength of his hand. North, not knowing South's strength is forced to assume he is weak (incorrectly this time) and pass.
However if the partnership are using the Black Dog Response, South can now show his stronger hand by bidding 1 No Trump instead of 2 Diamonds. North still has no information about South's distribution but now knows South has sufficient High Card Points to give him a reasonable chance of making at least a low level contract. North can bid 2 Spades and initiate a normal bidding sequence.
North/South may or may not now choose to stop at a part score or eventually find a game contract, they should however avoid needlessly wasting a potential game hand.
Considerations for Advanced Players
Although the standard response to a take out double requires partner to bid with a very weak hand, playing duplicate bridge (and at suitable vulnerability) partner may calculate that the points his opponents will make in a doubled one level contract including the likely over tricks is probably less than the penalty points opponents will gain from doubling whatever failing contract he bids. The same logic applies when using the Black Dog Response.
Partner may also pass if he believes the contract opener bid has little chance of making - usually because he has a substantial holding in that suit, some high card points and/or a very short suit elsewhere in his hand.

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