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| Several websites can help you find your soul mate cat or kitten. |
Isn’t it extraordinary how the Internet has revolutionized the way we interact? Thanks to websites like eHarmony.com and Match.com, we can fill out questionnaires online and, in a matter of minutes, review a list of potential dating partners.
We sift through the results and narrow our focus to only those in which we’re interested, saving dozens of awkward, “Sorry, you’re not my type,” conversations. If only finding the perfect cat were this easy …
Fortunately, it is.
Several websites not only help you find your soul mate cat or kitten, they also can help you locate a lost pet, find pet-friendly housing and report animal cruelty. One such example is PETS 911.com.
“We’re basically a match-maker,” said Tracyann Mains, program manager for PETS 911. “We match your needs to the cat’s needs.”
PETS 911 partners with more than 8,500 animal shelters across the country to help lost and adoptable cats and other animals find homes. When you come to the site, you enter your zip code, and a list reveals available cats with detailed descriptions about their personality at shelters in your area. You also can enter specific preferences, such as male or female, older or younger, etc. Currently, more than 15,000 cats and kittens are listed as available for adoption in PETS 911’s database.
Don’t be surprised if you find a purebred cat among the cats available at a particular shelter. About 25 percent of shelter cats and kittens up for adoption are pedigreed, which surprises a lot of people, Mains said.
Unfortunately, of all the cats that enter shelters, only about two to five percent are reclaimed by their owners, she said. However, PETS 911 has helped tens of thousands of cats and kittens find homes since it began in 1998.
“I can never get tired of hearing over and over again that the job you’re doing is saving lives,” Mains says.
Another match-making Website is Petfinder.com, where 65 percent of all U.S. adopters first “meet” their pet, says Betsy Saul, co-founder of the website. Her husband Jared Saul is the other co-founder of the site, which began in 1996.
Ashley Warren of Morehead, Ky., adopted her cat Skeeter in November 2007 after she read about him on Petfinder. She needed a cat that was friendly with other animals and children, as she has a Pomeranian, seven sugar gliders (two are hers and the other five are temporary rescues that she’s fostering), and a toddler son. Fortunately, Skeeter fit all her requirements.
After Warren saw Skeeter on Petfinder, she called the animal shelter to arrange meeting him.
“We played at the shelter, and I fell in love with him,” Warren says.
“Petfinder adoptions tend to be stickier — work out better — than other adoptions,” Betsy Saul said, citing other examples as newspapers or going straight to your local shelter.
At Petfinder, you can enter specific criteria you want in your ideal cat or kitten. That way, you only receive cats that meet your particular lifestyle qualifications, she said. Currently, there are more than 105,000 cats listed as available for adoption, and about 30,000 of those are your average domestic shorthair cats and kittens.
With that many options, how could you not find your dream cat or kitten? And if you already have one cat or a dog, Saul wants you to consider adopting another one. If one out of every eight pet owners would adopt another pet right now, we could empty the shelters nationwide, Saul said.
Laura Lee Bloor is an award-winning freelance writer living in Southern California with her fiancé Adam and cat Phyllis.
Did you first “meet” your cat or kitten on a website? If so, which one? Share your experiences with other cat owners on the CatChannel message boards.