adoption – Page 2 – Pain In The Bud

People Like This Should Be Banned From Having Pets

A woman surrendered a cat she’s had since kittenhood. Her reason? He sheds.

The moment Everest the cat was unceremoniously dumped at an Atlanta animal shelter, he freaked out.

The little guy had just lost the only home he’d ever known, his home since kittenhood, and the woman who agreed to be his caretaker for life simply ditched him with a curt “I don’t want this cat.”

No sentiment. No apologies. Just annoyance that Everest, a white cat, was apparently shedding too much for her liking.

Everest the Cat. Credit: FurKids Midtown Atlanta

Shelter employees realized a short time later that the woman had never taken Everest to a veterinarian, had never gotten him shots or had him neutered. Now they’re tasked with rehabilitating a very scared, confused little guy who doesn’t understand why he’s been abandoned.

“We also think he may be deaf but need to conduct tests,” the manager of Furkids Midtown Atlanta Center said in a post on TikTok. “If he is deaf, it’s even more heartbreaking. We don’t think his original owner knew he was deaf, she didn’t seem to care when she surrendered him – she walked in saying, ‘I don’t want this cat.'”

“Karen With A Cat Demanding To See The Manager,” oil on canvas by Buddy the Cat, aka an AI image of what I imagine Everest’s negligent owner looks like. And yes, I used Theresa Caputo in the prompt!

The upside is that the shelter is taking Everest’s health seriously, and they’ll have him neutered and nursed back to health before adopting him out. They’ll also make sure he goes to a home where he gets the love and respect he deserves as a sentient animal with feelings.

Staff at the shelter said they’re determined “to find him the best home. He deserves so much more than the life he’s lived so far.”

“He’s still a little scared,” the shelter manager said. “He is processing what’s happened since now he’s in a shelter where there’s a lot of noises and people.”

This incident, and many others like it, are precisely the reason we need databases listing people who are abusive or negligent to their pets, so they can’t ruin more innocent lives by abandoning cats and dogs when they simply tire of them, or decide they don’t like the fact that they behave precisely the way they’re supposed to as members of their respective species.

It should be done in a way that shelters and rescues in every state can access the database, and contributions should be limited to them as well, with shelters signing their names to the entries. That would prevent people from abusing the list for malicious purposes and ensure that abusive and negligent pet owners can’t simply go to another county or state to evade bans.

“I don’t like Karens.” – Buddy the Cat, The Book of Buddesian Wisdom

Every time I read about a case of cat abuse or an incident like this, I think of Bud and what his life could have been like if he was adopted by someone who didn’t appreciate him. His curiosity, boldness and fire would have been snuffed out, and he would not have been given the love he deserves. Likewise, he would have been deprived of giving back love, and he has a lot to give.

All cats are little buddies, and they all deserve people who love and care for them.

When I ran this by Buddy himself, he agreed.

“That’s right, human,” he said. “Now fetch me a snack!”

Today We Celebrate The House Panthers And The Voids

A Virginia man created National Black Cat Appreciation Day, a celebration of melanistic house panthers, in honor of his late sister, who loved her 20-year-old black cat named Sinbad.

Happy National Black Cat Appreciation Day!

A few years after the death of his 33-year-old sister, June, Wayne Morris wanted to do something in her honor. June adored her black cat, Sinbad, who died at 20 years old, just two months after she passed.

So the Virginia man teamed up with Rikki’s Refuge, a sanctuary where he volunteered, and created National Black Cat Appreciation Day in 2011. Morris chose the day of June’s passing, August 17, in her memory, and that first year marked it by holding a fundraiser for Rikki’s Refuge.

Morris was delighted by black cats as well. He often posted about Norman and Batman, his own melanistic miniature panthers, advocated for the adoption of black felines, and painted whimsical scenes of cats, which were auctioned to raise money for Rikki’s.

Morris often posted about his cats, including Batman, seen here. Credit: Wayne Morris

Wayne Morris founded National Black Cat Day.

Morris also liked to show off his other black cat, Norman. Credit: Wayne Morris

Morris painted scenes involving black cats, which were auctioned off to raise money for feline rescues. Credit: Wayne Morris

Batman. Credit: Wayne Morris

(Above, clockwise from top left: Batman, Wayne Morris, Norman, Batman again, and one of Morris’s paintings.)

Wayne Morris died in 2022, but the day he founded has continued to grow in popularity. In the 14 years since its inaugural celebration, National Black Cat Appreciation Day has spread via fundraisers for shelters across the country, as well as sites within the online catosphere, like this one.

Morris was motivated beyond honoring his sister and raising money for his favorite rescue. Black cats — also affectionately known as voids — have suffered unfortunate reputational damage over the centuries.

Melanistic felines are actually considered good luck in Japan, China and most of Asia, where they can be found in temples and their likenesses are used as maneki neko, the ubiquitous “lucky cats” in homes and businesses. (Black maneki neko are said to ward off evil spirits, diseases and people with bad intentions, while the golden cat statues are associated with wealth and the white neko are thought to bring good health.)

But in much of the western world they’re associated with bad luck, “evil” forces in folklore, and they’ve been invoked in outbursts of moral panic over things like witchcraft.

Black_jaguar_edin_zoo — Big cats can be voids too, like this stunning black jaguar in Scotland’s Edinburgh Zoo. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A black cat — or a statue of one — was said to be involved in Satanic rituals in Spain by Konrad van Marburg, an inquisitor known for his brutal zealotry. While the effect of that accusation has been exaggerated for years in internet discussions and posts (Pope Gregory IX’s papal bull dealt with a small area of Germany and did not declare that black cats were Satanic), it naturally comes up in superstitions about the animals.

A 2020 study of 8,000 adoptions found black cats were less likely to be adopted and more likely to be euthanized. That study and others found there was “scant evidence” for the dramatic margins suggested by anecdotal accounts circulating online and in some publications, but confirmed the problem is real. Research also suggests that negative perceptions of black cats isn’t correlated to religious preferences, but is tied to general belief in the supernatural.

Interestingly, additional research has hinted at a decidedly more modern and petty reason people may hesitate to adopt black cats: they think voids are more difficult to photograph, which is an issue for people who want to show their pets off online. (We’ve written about that particular hang-up before, and noted it’s possible to take beautiful photographs of voids by being mindful of factors like lighting and contrast between fur color and the background.)

Regardless, the combined effect of the superstitions and negative associations has harmed black-coated felines, and National Black Cat Appreciation Day is also an attempt to push back and show people that black cats are just, well, cats.

Matt Damon’s Cat Is One Tough Little Dude

Matt Damon rescued a stray living on the periphery of a Costa Rican jungle.

Matt Damon stopped by the Late Show With Stephen Colbert this week, and somehow they got on the topic of Damon’s cat.

The Oppenheimer actor described how he and his wife gained the feline’s trust while staying at an AirBnB in Costa Rica. The cat, who was living on the edge of the nearby jungle and “fighting for his life every night,” gratefully accepted food from the Damons and grew to trust them over the month they spent at the rental.

“By the end we were like, ‘We have to take this cat. This guy’s gonna die. Now he’s relying on us.'”

It turns out the little brawler was done with living rough and enthusiastically took to the life of a pampered house cat.

“He moves into our house, and I’m thinking ‘I have a little yard out in LA, it’ll be great out there [for him],'” Damon told Colbert. “He never went outside ever again.”

Damon’s cat had a serious health scare, but the story has a happy ending and it’s better to hear Damon tell it, so turn up your speakers/headphones:

@colbertlateshow

Matt Damon shares an incredible story about the cat he adopted from Costa Rica. #Colbert

♬ original sound – colbertlateshow – colbertlateshow

Yes, Damon’s cat may be “jacked,” and he may even be the Arnold Schwarzenegger of felines, but surely he doesn’t compare to the OG of ripped and meowscular cats.

Woman Loved Stray She Met On Vacation So Much, She Spent $1k To Transport And Adopt Her

A UK woman said she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the cat behind on the Greek islands.

Jessica Addis met the friendly stray on the Greek island of Kos.

The UK woman vacationed on the Aegean island for sandy beaches, crystal blue water and the stunning ruins of classical Greek temples, but she fell in love a little white cat with ginger tabby markings.

Addis named the little one Zia after a sleepy Greek village on the slopes of Mount Dikaios, and began feeding the stray every day during her time on Kos this past September. Zia, who lived under a palm tree and depended on the kindness of tourists, liked her new human friend so much that she followed Addis back to her suite and began greeting her every morning.

addiszia1 — Addis with Zia on the Greek island of Kos in September. Credit:

Leaving Zia at the end of her vacation wasn’t easy for Addis.

“I gave her the last of the cat biscuits and food and a last fuss, before I left,” she told Newsweek. “It broke my heart to leave her not knowing what would happen to her.”

When she asked hotel staff if anyone would care for the friendly moggie, she got a noncommittal answer. Greece lacks the extensive shelter infrastructure and trap, neuter, return (TNR) efforts of other western nations, and the result can be seen in the streets and the edges or human habitation, where a large population of strays eke out an existence by eating from garbage cans and hunting what they can.

“The hotel was closing for the season at the end of October, so I knew she then wouldn’t have the tourists to feed her,” Addis told Newsweek.

She said she was “heartbroken” thinking about Zia on her own without anyone to care for her or feed her during the off season.

“I knew straight away I needed to get her back to the U.K. I told my partner as we were on the bus to the airport that I was going to get Zia home. As soon as I got home, I started sorting everything to get her back to me.”

She enlisted the help of a Greek rescue group whose members wrangled Zia into a carrier, got her vaccinated, microchipped and onto a UK-bound plane with the appropriate paperwork. In all, it cost Addis $1,020, money well spent.

addiszia — Addis with Zia after the latter was brought to the UK with the help of a Greek animal rescue group.

She welcomed Zia to her forever home over the holidays, but says the Greek kitty still hasn’t quite grasped that she’ll be fed and cared for.

“She is happy, content and has a belly full of food,” Addis wrote on a social media post that contained a slideshow of her with Zia on vacation in Greece, then later in her home in the UK. “Zia loves treats, playing with her bird feather catcher and having endless naps snuggled up with her blanket. Although she still thinks she’s stray, as she always wants food! She now has a loving home for the rest of her life.”

Top image credit: Angela O’Brien/X

Adoption Ad Warns Cat Will ‘Own You, Your House, Everything You Hold Dear’

Quinn the cat has “the uncanny ability to make people feel unwelcome in her presence!”

Quinn the cat lives separate from feline genpop, she doesn’t suffer fools and she’s got a well-documented habit of smacking people, cats and dogs.

The infamously disagreeable feline is up for adoption and the shelter where she lives has been up front about her unique personality, saying she might do well with a misanthrope who would appreciate Quinn’s dislike of any visitors and intolerance for anyone who doesn’t directly serve her.

“Tired of visitors coming to your house? Adopt Quinn! She has an uncanny ability to make people feel unwelcome in her presence!” shelter staff wrote in Quinn’s adoption post.

She’ll tolerate her caretaker, but just barely, staff at the Washington County Humane Society in Maryland joked.

Yet they’re confident there’s a home for Quinn, insisting that “surely there’s someone out there who would appreciate her icy stare and her sudden smacks!”

Of course Quinn could blossom into a happy, sweet cat once she’s living in her forever home and she realizes she’s not going back to the shelter or the streets. Most cats do poorly in shelters where fear and stress overwrite their usual personalities. Even the most outgoing, sweet cat can appear depressed and antisocial when locked in a cage most of the time, without people to love them, play with them and make them feel safe.

Quinn’s direct adoption page (scroll down to adoptable cats) says she’s three years old and wasn’t claimed by her owner, so who knows what kind of traumas she may have endured in her short life?

Quinn currently lives in the shelter’s office where she “rules with an iron paw.” Anyone interested in adopting her should ask for her by name, the shelter said. Contact the shelter at the link above or by calling 301-733-2060.