The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has launched a new program called “Feline-ality,” a behavior assessment tool designed to match specific feline personalities to potential cat adopters. As part of its Meet Your Match adoption program, the ASPCA hopes “Feline-ality” will help increase cat adoptions.

The new program uses research-based surveys and behavior assessments to identify a potential adopter’s preferences in a pet cat. By assessing a cat’s “feline-ality” ahead of time, shelter staff can match adopters with the cats that will best fit their households. To create the new program, the ASPCA conducted two years of research, focusing on cat behavior and testing the program in five animal shelters in the United States and Canada.

Initial results from shelters using the program have shown an increase in adoptions by 46 percent, with animal return rates and euthanasia numbers down by up to 40 percent. A majority of the people who adopted animals using “Feline-ality” said that they would probably seek a shelter that uses the program when adopting a pet in the future.

“Feline-ality” is one tool shelter staff can use in the ASPCA’s Meet Your Match program, sponsored by Iams pet foods. Meet Your Match is a research-based adoption placement method designed to help increase pet adoptions and reduce return rates at animal shelters.

“The animals most at-risk in the companion animal world are those in shelters,” said ASPCA president and CEO Ed Sayres, “and increasing and maintaining successful adoptions is an extremely critical element to providing these animals the second chance they so richly deserve.”