It happens to all of us. You fall in love with someone’s looks … but then they’re not quite what you expected. Even, sometimes, if it’s a cat.
Some animal shelters are now using the Feline-ality program, developed by behaviorist Emily Weiss of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The program assesses a variety of behaviors in individual cats. It rates the animals on confidence and sociability, then tallies those assessments to place the cat into nine personality categories, which can be matched with a family’s situation and desires.
All of the types have fun, vivid names and descriptions. A cat high on the sociability and confidence scale is “leader of the band.”
His opposite, a cat low on both scales, is a “private investigator” who stays out of trouble.
A more middle of the road cat is the “personal assistant.”
“You’re working on the computer? Let me press the keys. Reading the paper? I’ll hold the pages down for you.”
Equally important to the Feline-ality program is the fact that people differ, too. Adopters fill out a questionnaire and the results give them a color code, telling them which set of personality types would be best for them to consider.
Weiss says that people still sometimes fall in love with a cat that isn’t a perfect fit, but the program can help in these cases, too: People who know what issues to expect are more prepared to deal with them.
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