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ASPCA®’s Meet Your Match®: Feline-ality™ 101
What Is Feline-ality™?
Have we gone nuts? Nope, we’re just getting super-scientific, thanks to Feline-ality, a research-based assessment of a cat’s behavior and interests that matches adopter preferences with an animal’s behavior. And the cool thing is that it works great—shelters testing the ASPCA’s Meet Your Match Program (Feline-ality is a part of Meet Your Match) found a 40- to 45-percent increase in adoptions and a 45- to 50-percent decrease in returns and euthanasia. Amazing stats!
How Does Feline-ality work?
Let’s say you are looking to find the cat of your dreams. When you go to a shelter using the Feline-ality assessment, you’ll be asked to fill out a one-page Cat Adopter Survey—19 questions about your lifestyle and how you envision your cat fitting in to this lifestyle. Sound kinda fun? It is—think magazine quiz, not college application.
Your results will tell the shelter what your “color” is—green, orange or purple.
In a nutshell:
- Green adopters are most successful with cats who quickly adapt to new situations.
- Purple adopters are perfect for kitties who need time and encouragement to adjust to their new surroundings.
- Orange adopters are a good fit with the quintessential companion kitty.
P.S. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, the kitties in the shelter know their true colors, too—so purple people meet purple felines, and then decide if they’re ready to paint the town…well, purple!
But don’t worry if you’d rather mix-and-match—adopters are not required to choose a cat with a particular feline-ality, and the assessment can prepare you for your new love’s response to her new home and help her adjust.
Meet the Feline-alities
So what’s a lean green kitty machine like? Orange you curious about cats who’ve been assigned to the orange team? A cat’s feline-ality is determined by her:
- enjoyment of being petted and held
- playfulness, “talkativeness” and activity level
- responses to new people and things.
Here’s what a kitty’s color can tell you:
- Green cats are savvy, unflappable and adventurous. They’re further broken down into three categories—the MVP, the Party Animal and the Leader of the Band.
- Orange cats put the good in “good company.” They’re further classified as the Executive, the Sidekick and the Personal Assistant.
- Purple kitties seek affection, are pretty quiet and tend to stay out of trouble. Our three purple categories are Private Investigator, Secret Admirer and Love Bug.
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