Most rescues I know of, and many shelters, spend the month of October pretending black cats don’t exist. Within the animal welfare community, stories abound of cats, especially black ones, being abused at Halloween. I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of this happening so I looked it up on Snopes to see what they had to say. I liked, and appreciated, the way the article ended: ”the evidence of such events is inconclusive, but any policy that protects pets from abuse is well to be supported.”
So.
Then, why did we feature black cats at our Adoption Fair on Saturday, October 31st?
Well, first of all, we don’t do same-day adoptions, so any cat adopted from that event would not go home that day. Second, we do pretty thorough screening (hence the no-same-day-adoption.) Third, black cats are wonderful cats, but for some reason are among the last to be adopted. And, most of all - black cats are inextricably tied to Halloween and it’s time to reclaim and redeem that association!
Thus, we had a Black Tie and Tails event for Halloween!
Our wonderful host store, Bowlicious, is located in the Stanford Shopping Center, which is a very upscale outdoor “mall.” The management hosts many Center-wide special events throughout the year, including Trick-or-Treat at Halloween! Cats and candy - what more could you want?
Check out the purr-fect balloon! It attracted a lot of attention, and brought some folks into the store that might not have noticed otherwise.
We had some of our beautiful and wonderful black and tuxedo cats on hand to greet the kids after they’d grabbed their candy. Here they are watching the activity just outside the window. The store (wisely) handed the candy out while standing on the sidewalk. (L -> R: Mittens, Patches, Munchie, and on the other side of the towel, Blaze was snoozing. Muchie and Blaze are just getting acquainted, hence the towel “wall” between them.)
And, on the other side, Tank and DJ on the bottom, with Susie and Shadow (snoozing in the blue cube) on top.
Here come the kids! Cheryl (store owner) is ready to hand out candy to the kids, while Nicole, Whiskey and Tini wait to greet the four-legged trick-or-treaters!
Here they are, waiting patiently. Aren’t they cute? (and tolerant!)
And check out this cutie (didn’t get his name, but he had one of the best costumes!
Susie is watching the trick-or-treaters out the window.
Munchie looks away from the window, “Can we go home now?”
You can meet some of our wonderful black cats by visiting us at the store. Check out our home page to see when we’ll be there. While you are on the site - check out the Adoption Gallery and see who is looking for their forever home.
And, I can’t finish without doing a shout-out to a special friend. This is Kindle, who lives up near Seattle with his devoted human slave. Kindle had a rough summer health-wise, and we’re all thrilled he is still here to celebrate Halloween!
