New Program helps pair Adopter with Right Cat for their lifestyle.
Adopting a pet is like moving in with someone—there’s the danger for personalities to clash, lifestyles to not match up and the regret that you just weren’t ready for such a big decision. But it can be rewarding and enjoyable. Much like how online dating has attempted to help make the process easier of finding that special someone, the Animal Welfare League of Arlington has implemented a special personality test that looks to match potential adopters with the perfect cat.
Created by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Meet Your Match Feline-ality Adoption Program seeks to pair up adopters with the right cat for their lifestyle and personal preferences. Using an assortment of tests to gauge the cat’s personality, the cat is assigned one of three colors indicating its traits. The adopter is then given a brief survey to see which color-coded scheme they best fit in to.
The three colors are green, orange pampered pets and purple. Green cats are savvy, unflappable and adventurous. Orange cats are side-kicks, great companions. Purple cats are quiet and stay out of trouble.
“It helps shed a light on your own expectations of the behavioral characteristics you’re looking for in a cat,” says Kevin Simpson, director of Behavior & Adoptions at AWLA. “An adopter comes in and they see a room full of adoptable cats and their all beautiful in their own way, sometimes you only have their appearance or that initial response while they’re in their apartments to go off of. This way I find an adopter has a lot more information and they can start to visualize how this cat may fit into their home and into their lifestyle.”
The Feline-ality program has been at AWLA since November in the hopes of “preventing euthanasia and increasing the number of adoptions,” says President and CEO of AWLA Neil Trent. For Joy Jacobson, working with AWLA and taking part in the Feline-ality program certainly made the adoption process easier.
“The best thing about taking the test was it made me think about these questions,” says Jacobson. “The questions help people realize there are things you absolutely need to think about before taking this on.”
Jacobson did end up adopting a cat that fit with her designated color-scheme, though the AWLA tells adopters it is only a recommendation, and the cat has proven to be a great fit.
Love at first sight is a great ideal, but when it comes to a monumental decision like adopting a pet, having a tool like Feline-Ality is a great resource for both adopters and the animals to make sure that the pairing will last.–Michael Balderston
(February 2015)