Meet Your Match Feline-ality Workshops

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What is Feline-ality™?

The Meet Your Match™ Feline-ality™ Adoption Program is a research-based program that pairs distinct Feline-alities with adopters whose personality and lifestyle fit them best. Good matches help make strong bonds, and bonding is the key to successful adoptions.

What Can the Feline-ality™ Assessment Predict?

Adopters hope to meet the perfect cat but "perfect" is different for different people:

• A cat who loves to play.
• A cat who loves to cuddle.
• A cat who loves to snooze peacefully in a sunbeam.

The research-based Feline-ality™ Adoption Program is built around the Feline-ality™ Assessment that reliably predicts how an individual cat is likely to behave when the cat arrives at their new home.

In addition, the Meet Your Match™ Cat Adopter Survey identifies the aspects of the adopter's preferences, expectations, and lifestyle that correlate with specific Feline-alities. Adopters can then look for the cats with Feline-alities known to be a good fit for their household. Adopters who meet their new feline companion through the Feline-ality™ Adoption Program bring them home already knowing something about the cat's:

• Enjoyment of being petted and held
• Playfulness, "talkativeness," and activity level
• Interest in new people and new things

What Shelters Have Learned about Feline-ality™

Shelters implementing the Meet Your Match™ Feline-ality™ Adoption Program report that the program enhances their work across the board:

• The Feline-ality™ Assessment enables staff to appropriately "showcase" individual cats to their best advantage.
• Staff also use the results to provide a better shelter experience for their cats: providing toys for playful cats, opportunities to socialize for cats who love human attention, etc. Cats who are comfortable in the shelter environment can "put their best paw forward" with potential adopters.
• First-time cat adopters are delighted to learn that cats do have distinctive identities. Color-coded cage cards "narrow the field" for adopters choosing among a shelter's many cats.

What Adopters Say

Shelters follow up with adopters to see how they and their cat are doing. Some typical responses:

• "This was the first time I have ever gotten a cat that matched my personality."
• "I wanted a friendly and affectionate cat that liked to cuddle, and she is all that and so much more. I just adore her."
• "The program helped me decide who was right for me. … [My cat] behaves exactly as they said she would."
• "I liked that there was a process that matched your personality to the animal's personality. Got just the cat we were wanting."
• And from an "orange" family who adopted a "purple" cat, "He is not a perfect fit for our family … the kids fell in love with a purple cat … But we love him and will make it work.

Note: Attendance limited to the first 40 registrants and is limited to 5 staff members per agency. The Executive Director or Director of Operations should attend. We strongly encourage that other attendees be members of your staff who interact with adopters and/or care for dogs at your shelter.

Limited scholarship assistance may be available for this workshop. Requests must be received 30 days prior to the workshop. To request scholarship assistance, please email meetyourmatch@aspca.org. Please make the subject of your request email "Scholarship Request". To be considered, your request must include workshop (subject, location, date), requestor name, role, organization, city, state, daytime phone number, and an explanation of need . Please be specific so we may provide you a response as quickly as possible. Thank you.