Every year I see big discussions from shelters about closing down their black cat adoptions near and at halloween. Halloween and black cats. Sigh. We do things differently at Pets Alive! We will be promoting cats on Halloween for $31 and black cats for $13 (all black cats over 1 year old). People started telling us all about the Satanic cults out there that adopt to kill the animals. Many shelters won’t adopt out cats at ALL during the ENTIRE MONTH OF OCTOBER!! I want to shake these people. I presented a scenario. Please review:
It is two days before Halloween. An elderly woman walks in. She lost her cat a few weeks ago. He was 21 years old and she had him almost his whole life. She is heart broken. She did everything she could for him and she shows you pictures as she cries. She decided that she needs another cat in her life, life is not the same without one, and since she is older she is looking to adopt a senior cat. You show her your cat rooms and you watch as she wanders from cat to cat, room to room, petting and cooing softly to the cats. After some time, she decides on the cat that has captured her heart. It is Shadow. A black cat. So you go out and tell her to come back in a month or pick a different cat.
Does this make sense to anyone? Really? Because it is close to Halloween and Shadow is a black cat she must be denied. Shelter policy.
HELLO??? HELLO? Does anyone see a HUGE disconnect here?
These sort of archaic policies need to be put to bed and left there. EVERY adoption, every person goes through the SAME process, whether it is Halloween, or Christmas or Easter. The holiday does NOT change that if you have common sense and if your adoption team is decent and educated. If a woman came in dressed as a witch and said she wanted to adopt a black cat, any black cat, it didn’t matter – would you give HER one? or a 15 year old boy? No but they would fail for OTHER reasons having nothing to do with the holiday. The first person because we don’t adopt “ANY” animal to “ANYONE”. We wait to see a connection and love blossoming on the face and a healthy interaction between person and pet. That woman that just wanted “any cat” wouldn’t pass that. And the 15 year old boy? Well, he has to be 18, so he fails automatically.
Additionally animals being harmed at Halloween is mostly a myth. Does it still happen? Sure, just like it does every OTHER day of the week. If we see animals that were tortured on Dec 20 do we say it was a result of the Christmas holiday? In April is it a result of Arbor Day? No, but if it happens anywhere in October it is attributed to Halloween. I have spent considerable time this week researching the number of animal torture, mutilation and abuse cases in the course of a year. Know what I found? That October does NOT show a higher percentage of these at all. The media just HIGHLIGHTS it more. The media also continues to do “Keeping your pet safe on Halloween” stories every single year, but yet statistics show that there are no increased cases of this. In fact more animals are injured, lost or traumatized during July 4! But I worked in media at one point and it was always an assignment every year. Halloween and protecting animals. We never thought to question it, just pulled up archaic stories and gave out tips. People – let these die, they aren’t real. But shelters use these stories to “protect” their animals from adoption.
In 1996 a news crew did an intensive study around Halloween to see if any more animals were harmed THEN, than any other time. Result? No. No increase or stories of any cruelty to any animals. And really, let’s face it…do people intent on harming animals need to come to a shelter, give their drivers license and ID, home address and phone numbers, vet information, personal references, and pay an adoption fee to get a cat? Umm, no, you can walk outside most supermarkets and adopt a kitten or go to any feral cat community and trap one. People are not coming to us, knowing we will be doing follow up calls to check on the pets in a few days and then again in a few weeks, and handing over all this personal information so they can mutilate the animals.
If it isn’t logical and it doesn’t make sense, then it probably isn’t a real threat.
So the bottom line is this. We love our animals. ALL of them. We are careful with EVERY adoption. Holidays and every day of the week or month. We constantly try to find good homes, we constantly try to market our animals better and we constantly try to save more lives. We are always on the side of the animals.
We always will be.
So shelters please stop denying your animals a home. Trust your adoption staff. Let your black cats go home.
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Makes sense. People are just afraid, but fear can subside in the face of facts. Thanks for providing the facts.
First: people, especially those at shelters, need to do some research. It’s easy in this day, and time. They need to research these “urban legends” before making such silly decisions, and rules.
Second: people need to be educated about black cats. This is the 21st century, we shouldn’t be following, or believing superstitions any longer! Black cats are beautiful, they’re great pets, and not everyone has one. We had a big, beautiful male black cat, Mr. Spooky. We miss him terribly. He was a great companion!
This is actually a thing? Wow, I’ve never come across a shelter with that policy before! Our shelters are overcrowded as is – just let them take home the black cat!
The president of our rescue group forwarded your article to all our volunteers.
I have been with our shelter CatsArePeoplToo Club for 12 years and that HAD always been the policy. We have a very careful group of volunteers in 2012 with good instincts about people. It is good to hear a sensible argument FOR adoptions. There are many people who absolutely adore black cats. I love mine (even though he thinks he’s a dog). Thank you.
The shelter I volunteer for is overun with cats, even though they are no kill, it’s very sad to see cats who have lived there for 3-4yrs or even more being overlooked. I remember suggesting reduced adoption fee’s for orange and black adult cats during October and it was immediately shut down because people will just “adopt a black cat for bad reasons.” It’s really sad and discouraging, because if they actually had a good adoption process and didn’t let just anyone adopt an animal it wouldn’t be an issue. Thank you Pets Alive for being the voice of reason!
Thank you for this post! I so strongly believe in adoption promotions for black cats, and Halloween is the perfect time to do this.
We have adopted our beautiful all black cat Simba in the month of October. It had nothing to do with Halloween. We loved him when we was walking around and his little paw was out the cage trying to catch my purse strap. When we got him out the cage he was so curious about what was going on. we took him home the same day, he loved our dog, cuddled into out cat. We have had him over a year and he will grow old here. He sleeps with us every night. He’s just part of the family. we adopted him on October 6th, adoptions for black cats in the month of October was NOT allowed form October 15th-Novmber 3rd. It just blows my mind that if we wouldn’t of went that week we would of maybe never got our boy. he’s grateful to be out the shelter and we are happy to have him. I hate that a few days determined his fate with us. I love black cats, he looks great in his orange collar. Has some beautiful green eyes that pop. He blends with our buff tabby and our brindle dog. He goes great with any house décor we decide on.
I too have a Shadow who adopted me last October. She was just a little black kitten looking for love. Well, she found it, both from me and from my other two cats. She’s pure joy.
I adopted my cat Shadow 20 years ago from a shelter in the first week of October and have had her for 20 years this month. She has definitely slowed down a whole lot but she is indeed my shadow. So much so that for every single day she has been with me she sleeps on my pillow with me and will even move so she is touching me at all times during the night. I can’t imagine what might of happened to this beautiful girl if I hadn’t been able to adopt her.