Black cats not wanted?

[Adelaide]

We adopted 3 kittens at Christmas, and when I took them to the vet to be fixed, she said that she was glad we picked a solid black cat as they are the least likely to be adopted. I've since heard that repeated by several other people. A Google search shows this belief is widespread, but I haven't run across anything factual.

We also adopted a solid black cat approx. 16 years ago, and I never heard it then either.

Some sites claim the same is true for black dogs, or that black cats actually rank 2nd to black & white cats in unadoptability (is that a word?)(our other 2 kittens are black & white btw).

Has anyone else heard this and is anyone aware if it's true?

[Lady Neeva]

Well, if the 8 foster kittens and one momma cat I ended up with last year are an indication, here is the order of adoption:

Brown Tabby longhair male
Solid Grey shorthair male
Brown Tabby/Tortie longhair female
Dilute Tortie shorthair female
Brown Tabby/Tortie shorthair female
Tortie shorthair female
Black longhair male
Black longhair male
Black Tuxedo longhair adult female

On the other hand, the rescue still has an older brown tabby female who's going on two years in the rescue, having been passed over even in favor of the cat with the thyroid condition that needed either $1500 in surgery or $30 worth of pills a week for life. The only reason I can see why she's still there is because on her listing she's marked as "black tabby" instead of "brown tabby" or "grey tabby". While black tabby is more genetically accurate, most people call them brown or grey tabby.

On the other hand, black cats might be harder to adopt because it is the second most common color among domestic cats -- only brown tabby is more common, but people seem to prefer the aesthetic appeal of stripes.

[Eve MG]

Well there's the black cat urban legend.

My husband's cousin does not let her black cat outside around Halloween, because she's concerned about people taking the cat for pranks or whatever. Maybe potential cat adopters are thinking they'll need to protect a black cat from this sort of stuff, but not a white or grey or brown cat?

[rebgirl420]

As a owner of a black male cat (he's 17 years old) I find this hard to believe. Maybe some people still go by the old folklore that black cats are evil or bad luck but in this day and age I think that it probably is more of a personal preferance thing over anything else.

[mags]

I had always wanted a black cat.

My sister adopted her cat from a shelter one of her friends volunteered at. Her cat was one of a litter that was dropped off. A few weeks later, she got an email from her friend saying that the brother of her cat was still there, and he is such a sweetie, but she was worried he'd never get adopted because he is black and has a wonky tail. My sister caved and took him in too. I told her I was jealous because I always wanted a black male cat, and the curly piggy tail made him extra special.

He's mine now

In his case, he was the only black cat in his litter, and hung around at the shelter a lot longer than the others. He is the most loving cat I've ever known, he loves everybody immediately, so I doubt it was his personality that was holding him back.

Years ago, when I was still living with my parents, we had a wonderful black cat. He was the greatest.

Anyway, we had our gas heater go out and so we called the service company. They sent out a guy who walked into our house and our cat ran across in front of him (like our cat liked to do). The guy stopped, turned white as a sheet, started backing away, and mumbled, "A black cat... A BLACK cat....A BLACK CAT!....". He got back in his truck and drove away. We had to call the service company back and they sent another guy. This time we locked our cat in one of the bedrooms, just in case.

Even today, all one of us kids/parents have to do is start mumbling, "A black cat..." and we all start laughing.

The only way the cat was unlucky was to himself. My Dad smoked, but the cat died of lung cancer...

This is what our local cat rescue says also, and they say it also goes for black and white cats. I have two black cats, and I love them to pieces. (Salem and Sabrina) They were fathered by a black cat (now neutered) who lives in my garden. I always wanted a black cat, now I am blessed with 3. I also have 2 black and white, 2 tortoiseshells and one pure white cat.

The local cat charities won't take in black or black and whites any more because nobody wants them and aren't deemed to be adoptable, which is more or less how I ended up keeping them. However, when they got wind I had a pure white kitten they were all over me and wanted to put her up on their site for adoption right away-I told them to get stuffed.

[Troodon]

I am really surprised at this. I would have thought that black cats would be the most popular, since as soon as I heard that they were supposed to be unlucky, I wanted one immediately. Aren't other people like that?

A friend of my sister has a beautiful black and white Manx cat.

[catty5nutz]

This could well be a UL. I have heard that some American animal welfare societies will not adopt black cats out in October, because they are afraid that they will be hurt or used in satanic rituals.
Come to think of it ... aren't the stories about people practising satanic rituals a bunch of ULs.

We've always wanted a big black or black and white male. Long hair optional. It's never quite worked out that way ... every time we had a cat die, or thought about getting a black cat, another cat, completely different would turn up. Result. Two tabby males, two black females.
And coming home oneday to find a very small black and white cat, little more than a kitten, sitting on our lawn. We tried to find his owners ... no luck. We didn't want him. Then it was, "okay, he can stay until the local cat rescue can take him in." Then, when they couldn't taken him right away "okay, we'll foster him until they can find a place." That quickly became "let's keep him."
He's turned the place upside down. We have to keep the toilet lid permanently down, because he likes to use it as a paddling pool. He's knocked over more water bowls than I can count, because he likes to splash about in them; the bags of dry cat food we have to hide because he's figured out how to get them open. Not to mention the birds, mice, butterflies and anything else that moves that he has brought inside. If there is mischief afoot, it's usually him that's responsible.
The trouble is, we can't stay mad at him for long ... we always end up laughing and shaking our heads.

[DawnStorm]

Originally Posted by mags

He is the most loving cat I've ever known, he loves everybody immediately, so I doubt it was his personality that was holding him back.

Sounds like my Felix. He's all black with a little strip of white on his throat and he's a love bug. He's also a scamp who likes to tease my other cats.

[quiltsbypam]

We had a pair of black cats when I first got married. The mother was a pure-bred Burmese show cat who got loose one night and DOYC only knows WHO she was cavorting with. So the litter was quietly disposed of.

Turns out ExH was allergic, so we gave them to Mom and Dad just until we could find another home for them. Heh. California Fats lived to be 8 or 9 and Hershey was 18 before they went to the Great Litterbox in the Sky.

Much as I love black cats, I just seem to end up with yellow tabbies now. Scamper looks just like my beloved Admiral, who sickened suddenly and died a day later. But Scamper is a lap kitty who wants nothing more than for me to read to the quiltlet, 'cause then I'm sitting down.

[Troberg]

Entering the discussion late.

All things being equal, black cats (and dogs) are insanely hard to get a decent photograph of. You usually end up with a black blob with glowing eyes. HDR photography would probably help, but how do you get an animal to sit still in a nice camera pose for several consecutive shots without having it stuffed?

[Lainie]

Originally Posted by Troberg

All things being equal, black cats (and dogs) are insanely hard to get a decent photograph of. You usually end up with a black blob with glowing eyes. HDR photography would probably help, but how do you get an animal to sit still in a nice camera pose for several consecutive shots without having it stuffed?

You haven't met the black cat who lives at my house. He can sit motionless for several consecutive hours.

[imjustasteph]

I think if I was going to adopt a cat from a shelter, I'd have to meet the cats that were there and see which one I loved.

But having read here that black cats are less likely to be adopted, I think I'd go for one of those.

Every black cat I or my family has had has been wonderful.

But a funny thing: I tend to shy away from orange cats. I just don't like orange.

And yet.....twice, orange cats have adopted me, without asking my opinion on the matter at all, and they have been probably the best cats I've ever had.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Black cats at animal shelters take longer than others to find homes, probably because of all the superstitions surrounding them, the charity said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifes...59R27C20091028

[Native Medley]

I seem to specialize in being suckered by cats who are unpopular colors. My first kitty was a dilute tortoiseshell with an "I'll pick my owner and stare at her for the next eight years" type of disposition, and when my sister tried to give her to an animal shelter once (before everyone just gave up and accepted that Kiki and I got along well and I should have her--the pain of being in high school and having dog people for parents) and they said she'd be hard to adopt out because she looked too much like a mutt.

My second cat, Timer (who unfortunately became our oldest house cat about two weeks ago) sort of has the tuxedo print but with gogo boots, and she's a semi-longhaired gray, so I suppose she's sporting more of a casual, open-jacket pantsuit. Everyone thinks she's a boy and I've been told she wouldn't win any beauty contests for color. She's a total lap cat (in that she likes to sit on your legs and lick your face) and also loves to be carried around like a human baby. I guess I don't have to worry about adopting her out or showing her.

This third cat, Georgie, is dark black except for a single white hair on her nose and ten or so on her belly. She more or less insisted on coming inside in the middle of September when we still had two cats in our house and everybody started to remember Halloween. After we determined she wasn't somebody's pet, we considered finding a nice shelter (I called seven between Dayton and Cincinnati) or a new home, but...suffice to say she's helping me type this post by smacking the space bar whenever she wants to, and that's how trying to get rid of a black cat worked out for me. I don't know if the shelter bad luck had much to do with her color (well, one of them told me it did), but the private homes were sad when they found out she was black.

(these cats are sooooo ugly)

[Banrion]

Originally Posted by Native Medley

My second cat, Timer (who unfortunately became our oldest house cat about two weeks ago) sort of has the tuxedo print but with gogo boots, and she's a semi-longhaired gray, so I suppose she's sporting more of a casual, open-jacket pantsuit. Everyone thinks she's a boy and I've been told she wouldn't win any beauty contests for color. She's a total lap cat (in that she likes to sit on your legs and lick your face) and also loves to be carried around like a human baby. I guess I don't have to worry about adopting her out or showing her.

Your grey cat, looks just like my grey cat. And she is beautiful despite my bias. Does yours have some phantom stripes in her tail too by chance?

[Native Medley]

Originally Posted by Banrion

Your grey cat, looks just like my grey cat. And she is beautiful despite my bias. Does yours have some phantom stripes in her tail too by chance?

Thank you

She has a lot of phantom stripes... you look at her under a bright light (because she likes to sniff light bulbs in use--I think they're the only thing she hasn't tried to lick yet, luckily) and she looks a bit different from when she's standing in front of a TV with a dark and interesting show on. It could be the position she has to get into for her whole fat butt to fit under the lampshade though.

How long is your gray one's fur, and how sure is she that she's human? Timer is 100% sure that she should be held and rocked as much as a human infant. I use her as contradictory evidence to the "cats ignore you" argument, because she won't put up with that.

[Banrion]

Originally Posted by Native Medley

Thank you

She has a lot of phantom stripes... you look at her under a bright light (because she likes to sniff light bulbs in use--I think they're the only thing she hasn't tried to lick yet, luckily) and she looks a bit different from when she's standing in front of a TV with a dark and interesting show on. It could be the position she has to get into for her whole fat butt to fit under the lampshade though.

How long is your gray one's fur, and how sure is she that she's human? Timer is 100% sure that she should be held and rocked as much as a human infant. I use her as contradictory evidence to the "cats ignore you" argument, because she won't put up with that.

She would be classified as a short-hair domestic, but she has random stray medium length hairs all over. She is a bit timid. But she can be very affectionate to the people she knows, mostly just me. We have 3 cats, and we call her the cranky old lady because she will sit and nap with the other cats, but she won't play with them, and if they get to rambunctious she will slap them. She does like to sniff people food, but won't eat it, and when she gets anxious she hides in her cat nip box. She is one of those kitties who mellow with nip, so it is always available to her in a large plastic storage bin, it helps her cope with the kitten (now 2 1/2 but still likes to swing from curtains occasionally).

[RCIAG]

Did everyone here know it's National Cat Day?!

I spent the day looking at kitties on Petfinder & found this little guy:
Emmett. I may be sending an email to his foster family soon.

I've never cared what shape or color the kitty is, but the hubby does. He's all about form over function in lots of things.

So I sent him that link & he said "he's cute...he's all black" the I gotta explain "no he's not all black, he's smoke with some tabby markings & HE'S GOT EXTRA TOESHE'SSOOOKEEEWWWWTTT!!!"

We'll discuss it when we get home.

Now I did catch him right before his 6 month cancer checkup in the car on the way to John's Hopkins (he's fine it's just his usual screening) so he was a bit distracted.

So we'll see.

I think he's hoping some little furry friend will just walk into our life like Bubbie did but I don't think that's gonna happen. And NONE of them will be our Bubbie, but I get that, though he's having a hard time with it.