Don’t choose a cat by its colour.
The other day I received a press release from Cats Protection containing statistics of cats taken in by their four largest adoption centres. Black and white cats topped the list with 1355, closely followed by Tabbies with 1201 and black cats with 841.
The reason for this is simple: black, black-and-white and tabby cats are more common in Britain than other colours. The sad fact though is that black cats and black-and-white cats are much harder to find homes for, because prospective owners choose by colour and prefer more unusual colours.
I find this really sad. My beloved cat Freddy was a beautiful black-and-white petite female cat and very affectionate. She came from a litter of black-and-white and black cats. But being a charming little critter she really chose my mum and me. I always found black cats very pretty because every black cat looks so different – it’s their eyes. And I adore black-and-white cats.
I guess you will ask: so why do you have a white and tabby cat and didn’t adopt another black-and-white? The simple answer is that Bobby chose us really. Nobody was interested in her because of her age (still a kitten but older than the usual adoption age of nine weeks) and her bad state of health I also thought it would be good not to go for the same type of cat because you subconsciously expect the cat to be similar to its predecessor. Colour really wasn’t an issue when we adopted Bobby – in fact she was very skinny, had ear mites and an eye infection – so not pretty at first sight.
I urge prospective cat owners not to go by colour or other physical attributes but follow your heart and let the cat choose you – you won’t regret it.
Bobby has blossomed into a beautiful cat, full of charm, affection and she even has a sense of humour. And she knew instinctively that we would give her a loving home.
January 7, 2010 @ 11:12 pm
We adopted a fluffy black cat back in the 80’s called Topaz from a cats and dogs home. I actually had an idea of a cat looking like that before visiting the shelter having seen one like that in another shelter. My friend wanted the tabby but Topaz was recommended. She didn’t take to me much but instead took to my friend.
In the same way why do people prefer to buy cockatiel cocks over hens. It’s so sad to see a cockatiel male in a cage all alone in the window of a house. No hen to keep him company in case they mate and produce a hatch of chicks but in reality they seldom mate when pets and living in pairs as opposed to groups because hens can be quite fussy. No male friend either in case they fight but that isn’t always the truth. Birds are sociable creatures. It’s also sad to go into pet shops and see hens alone in a cage because customers wanted the males. I even saw two sets of couple and two single hens in the pets department of Focus in Llanishen and the single hens were wailing because their mates had been sold.