Pierre with his new owner, Kayla (YouTube)With Halloween coming up, there will be a surge in advertising and imagery showing black cats as a symbol of mischief. For most people, the association is harmless.
But employees at pet shelters around the country say the inaccurate belief that black cats are somehow unlucky or are linked to supernatural traits has a negative effect on their adoption rates, making them less likely to find a home than cats of other colors.
"They get placed less and they get overlooked when they shouldn't be," said Lange Foundation adoption counselor Jonathan. The Lange Foundation is a nonprofit, no-kill pet adoption center.
However, there are some positive stories that buck the trend. The video below shows the successful adoption of Pierre, a black cat who waited two years for a family to take him home.
"I don't know, I always thought black cats were pretty cool," Pierre's new adoptive mother, Kayla, says in the video. "I didn't think of them as bad luck or anything like that. I definitely never avoided them."
Watch the full story of Pierre's adoption and learn more about how to help out black cats in this new video from the Pet Collective: