Black cats go hand in hand with Halloween like witches and bats. But there's another folklore that all ebony felines are known for called “black cat syndrome," the theory that they take longer to be picked for adoption at animal shelters.
Black cat syndrome is a theory that’s difficult to test, according to Connecticut animal welfare advocates, since shelters generally don’t have the manpower to track specific adoption data such as coat color and an adoptee’s motivation for picking a cat.
But Animal Haven’s volunteer coordinator, Jenna Kalkwarf, said in her experience at the shelter in North Haven, she does see black cats being overlooked, but she said it might just be because they are quite common.
"I think it is a population thing where we're just seeing a lot more black cats as strays, coming into the shelter,” Kalkwarf said.
At one point in the past three months, she said Animal Haven had two all black cats give birth to 12 all black kittens.
James Bias, executive director of Connecticut Humane Society, said a bigger sample size would be more useful.
“Shelter intakes of cats does not necessarily give you an idea of the sampling of the community,” he said. “We only have that bubble of what happens under our roof so that’s not always the same”
Take for example data from the PAWS shelter in Norwalk. Over the past 12 months, PAWS executive director Kerry Dobson said the shelter found that mostly all white cats took longer to get adopted than all black cats at its shelter.
"Everything in the in-between is what attracts everyone,” Dobson said. “You know, the calicoes or the different little markings and everything."
Bias also agrees that potential pets with only one coat color are at a visual disadvantage, meaning they tend not to stand out to prospective adoptive families. He said the coat color bias impacts cats and dogs at the Connecticut Humane Society.
“I would say that if there's a pattern that's there, whether it's stripes or whether it's a color marketing like a tuxedo cat, they tend to stand out more," Bias said.
Dobson said potential adopters might have a hard time making an emotional connection with an all black dog or cat because the lack of contrast in their coat coloring means “the facial expressions might be a little bit tricky to read.”
“A cat with markings may not be smiling at you, but if it’s got those markings, you might think it’s smiling at you,” Dobson said.
Dobson advises anyone looking to adopt a feline family member to take their time meeting the cats at your local shelter to give them time to reveal their true personalities.
