Black Cat Appreciation Day

It seems like every cat shelter or rescue has at least one, and usually several of them: black cats that everyone agrees are nice, but no one wants to adopt. On Black Cat Appreciation Day, rescue organizations take special effort to showcase these cats to help them find homes.

Black cat adoption is important today and all year around since 33% of the cats entering the shelter system are black. That means that 1/3 of all adoptions need to be black cats in order to get them into homes. That’s hard when many people already hope to adopt a white cat or a tabby cat or a calico or some other color.

So if you’re considering adopting a cat, there are lots of reasons black cats are awesome. They’re little house ninjas, and they never go out of style, like that little black dress.

But most of all, there are so many of them in shelters that there’s one whose personality is the perfect match for yours waiting for you right now.

Even though we don’t have any black cats living with us today, for many years we had three: Cyrano, Louie, and Talia, whose photos are in this blog post.

black cat

Reference and further reading:

ASPCA Professional, Black is the New White

Has Anyone Seen Pierre?

Where’s Pierre? Has anyone seen him?

Even in the middle of the summer when the house is warm, Pierre burrows under his kozy to nap. Or most of him does, anyhow.

Pierre: Do you mind? Somekitty is trying to get some of my eighteen hours of daily sleep over here.

It’s Time to Check Your Chip

This Saturday, August 15 is National Check the Chip Day. It’s a reminder to all of us that getting your cat microchipped isn’t the only step in the process in giving her a much higher chance of getting home. Cats have a 20 times higher chance of being returned to their owners after entering an animal shelter if they are microchipped.

Just having a microchip isn’t enough. You have to be that the chip is readable and that your information is up to date. That’s what Check the Chip today is to remind you about.

Get Chipped

If your cat isn’t already microchipped, getting her chipped is a simple procedure that can be done at your veterinarian’s office. Reduced-cost and sometimes even free microchips are available at events in your community. Microchips are implanted under the skin with a large-gauge needle, like getting a vaccination.

Get Registered and Keep Contact Information Current

Make sure your chip is registered, and keep it up to date if your contact information changes. New phone number? New address? Don’t just change the information with your friends. Update it with the microchip registration for your cat, too.

This is important because one of the leading causes of microchipped pets not being able to get home is not being able to find the current contact information for the pet’s home. If you get a microchip implanted in your kitty and then move across the country, your old vet who implanted it may lose touch with you. If your microchip isn’t registered, the last person the microchip company knew had the chip was your old vet. Keep your contact information up to date with the chip registry to be found when your pet needs you most.

Check the Chip

Check the chip! Microchips are implanted between the shoulder blades. When Ashton was a bony, little kitten, you could feel the chip, about the size of a big grain of rice, if you scritched her shoulders just right, just past the end of her neck at her shoulders.

In rare cases, a microchip can migrate. Pierre’s chip has migrated about two inches so it’s over his shoulder blade instead of between his shoulders. This is unusual enough that when our vet felt it, he let some of his vet techs feel it so that they would recognize a migrated chip if they felt one.

Chip migration doesn’t hurt your cat, but it does mean that if someone passes a microchip scanner over your pet’s shoulders, it might not be energized by the electromagnetic field produced by the scanner. This can lead to the microchip not being detected. To be sure this hasn’t happened, ask your veterinarian to scan for your cat’s chip as a part of their routine veterinary exam.

References and Further Reading

Ohio State University Research News, Microchips Result in High Rate of Return of Shelter Animals to Owners

Photo Credits:

Light Warrior, Wikimedia Commons
Joel Mills, Wikimedia Commons
Oscar111, Wikimedia Commons

About Ashton’s Table Manners

When we posted the other day about Ashton’s table manners, several of you said that you don’t allow cats to beg at the table. We thought we’d tell you a little about why Ashton is allowed.

Ashton is afraid of the manpeep. She is four years old now, and to this day, she won’t share a piece of furniture with him. Not the sofa or even the bed.

The only time that Ashton is willing to come within his arm’s reach is when there’s chicken involved.

So we changed our rule about no begging at the table and grill a breast of chicken for her every week so that it’s food that is healthy for her and safe for humans to handle at mealtime.

Ashton started by sitting in the windowsill and looking cute for her treats, but she learned the paw wave works even better than looking cute. The humans think they taught her the paw wave, but she knows that she trained them.

As long as she gets chicken, she isn’t going to argue about who trained who.

She doesn’t realize she’s also having a positive interaction with the manpeep who she wouldn’t otherwise approach. A very positive interaction.

We know that Ashton getting some extra chicken at the dinnertime isn’t going to make her fall in love with the manpeep, but he’s getting closer to being able to touch her when she’s on the cat three where she feels safe, so it’s a start. For a timid cat like Ashton, it takes a lot of little steps… and a little chicken.

Black Cat Appreciation Day

Has Anyone Seen Pierre?

It’s Time to Check Your Chip

Get Chipped

Get Registered and Keep Contact Information Current

Check the Chip

About Ashton’s Table Manners

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