It's June! That means the weather is getting hotter, the grass is getting greener, and my cats are shedding their winter coats (all over my apartment!).
It's also a special month for felines and friends—June is Adopt-a-Cat month!
Organizations like the Humane Society and ASPCA, and animal shelters around the United States, have taken this occasion to encourage folks to open their homes to new feline friends. Many shelters are offering discounts on cat adoption fees (or are waiving the fees entirely), providing cat-care tips, and spreading the word about how much cats can enrich our lives. (Check with your local shelters for specific details!)
June is dubbed adopt-a-cat month because it tends to be "kitten season"—the time of year when many cats give birth. Subsequently, is the time of year when shelters take in the highest numbers of both cats and kittens.
I recently heard from folks in my hometown of Albany, New York, that a local shelter cat had made headlines. According to news reports, a good samaritan dropped a cat off recently at a local humane society. But this wasn't just any ole' cat. This was a 36-pound "flabby tabby" shelter employees lovingly named Fat Joe. He's the heaviest cat that shelter has seen in more than a decade, and he's just 10 pounds shy of the heaviest cat in history (Himmy, who weighed almost 47 pounds, allegedly recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records)! Too big for the standard cat kennels, sweet and loving Fat Joe got a whole office to himself.
The cat's owner never came foward to claim him, so he was put up for adoption. News reports now say Fat Joe has been adopted by a local family that vowed to give him the love and medical care he needs to lose weight and get healthy!
While Fat Joe's story was a bit of a sensation, in my opinion it has helped draw attention to the cause of cat adoption. Shelters see thousands of cats and kittens come in every year, and only a fraction of them are adopted. Not everyone may consider themselves a cat person—I certainly didn't at first—but once I let my two cats into my life, they changed me and enriched my life in ways I could never have imagined. You just gotta give them a chance.
—Jessica Bloustein
In honor of Adopt-a-Cat month, Guideposts staff members tell you how their cats came into their lives. Watch the videos below!
