Franklin is a 17-pound, lovable black cat with gorgeous amber-colored eyes. Taken in by DREAM Animal Rescue in Laguna Niguel with his littermates at 3 weeks old, he’s still in foster care at the age of 2 1/2.
Sigmund is a black cat who loves wrestling with other cats and even his foster mom’s small dog. He’ll be 2 in November and came to the rescue at 4 weeks.
“I wish people would just take some time to get to know some of these black kitties,” said DREAM founder Jonnie Ben.
Come October, caricatures of black cats are a common theme in seasonal marketing materials, decor, displays and pretty much anything related to Halloween. Sadly, some of the superstitions related to black cats – the idea that they’re bad luck or affiliated with witches, for example – may lead some potential adopters to avoid them.
“Black cats are always the last ones to be adopted,” said Cortney Dorney, shelter manager at WAGS Pet Adoption (wagspetadoption.org) in Westminster. “I can’t even tell you how many times a day you hear, ‘Anything but black.’ … The excuses range from superstitious, they’re plain looking … I even heard one person say, ‘I don’t want people thinking I’m a witch.’ ”
Samantha Bell of Best Friends Animal Society – Los Angeles (bestfriends.org) says it sometimes has to do with the animals’ photos – something that is also true of black dogs.
“They can be difficult to see in dark cages and may get passed over,” Bell said. “You have to make a little more effort when photographing them. And in a world where we like to show off photos of our cats, this can unfortunately be a deciding factor for some.”
Regardless of the true reasons, black cats seem to be abundant at rescues and shelters.
“I have probably a dozen kittens that have been here a year or more, and all of them are black,” said Dorney.
In August, Dorney says, WAGS had 49 black cats out of a total of 158 – a pretty typical ratio – and since the city shelter opened five years ago, only 215 of the 1,800 cats adopted have been black.
The shelter has a black cat adoption event every year – charging as little as $10 for a black cat.
And recently it had a “buy one kitten and get a black kitten for $25” sale (kittens usually cost $140, including spay or neuter and other services), but there were no takers.
“It doesn’t matter; we could give them away for free – people don’t want them,” Dorney said.
OC Animal Care (ocpetinfo.com), which runs the county’s animal shelter in Orange, in 2015 took in 10,571 cats, of which 13 percent were solid black and the remaining 87 percent were other colors. Of the black cats, 13 percent were adopted and 64 percent were euthanized. Compare this to the non-black cats: 21 percent were adopted and 52 percent were euthanized. (The remaining percentage of every color were either transferred to rescue, released, returned to owners or fostered.)
“Based on the numbers from last year, it does appear that less black cats were adopted than other colors and more black cats were euthanized. However, it would be difficult to determine what factors caused this without running more detailed stats,” said OC Animal Care Assistant Director Katie Ingram. “Many factors dictate a cat’s adoptability at the shelter, and it is possible that we may have received more black cats that were neonatal kittens, demonstrated behavior issues, had medical conditions or were irremediably suffering on impound. These factors have a significant impact on whether an animal is made available for adoption or selected for humane euthanasia.”
Bell said all of Best Friends’ cats get adopted, and many of them are black. But it’s likely black cats do have a longer length of stay at the rescue.
“While it may take them a little longer to find a home, they do have one thing working in their favor: The people who adopt our black cats love them for who they are,” she said
Fostering black cats as a volunteer for MeoowzResQ (meoowzresq.org) based in Orange, Kathleen Cassidy encourages any cat lover to adopt black cats, saying they are generally very affectionate and social.
“My own black, male cats are very nurturing to my foster kittens – they teach them to play, groom them and cuddle with them,” she says.
And for those with black cats, it’s particularly important to keep them indoors – especially around Halloween. “Our rescue, and most others, will not adopt out any black kitties during the month of October,” Cassidy says.
According to Dorney, black cats are sometimes used and even killed in cultish rituals or ceremonies.
So ditch the superstition and help save a cuddly pal.
