Black Cat Syndrome in Seattle: The Data
Does the "black cat syndrome" hold up in Washington? We track thousands of cats at Seattle-area shelters, and this page recomputes the answer from our live data every hour.
Black cats were adopted slightly faster than non-black cats — 6.8 days on average versus 6.9 days.
Days to adopt by coat color
Averages are shown only for color groups with at least 10 tracked cats. Median is the middle value, which is less sensitive to a few unusually long stays than the average.
Methodology
What is measured. "Days to adopt" is the time between when a cat first appeared on a tracked shelter listing and when it disappeared. A cat that leaves a listing is treated as adopted; this is a proxy — the cat could have been adopted, transferred, or otherwise removed. Records are limited to cats whose shelter publishes a coat color.
Data window. 2026-03-27 through 2026-10-08 Figures are recomputed on every page load from current database state.
Color coverage by source. Coat color is free text that shelters describe differently. Bicolor cats are assigned by their first-listed (dominant) color, so a "Black / White" tuxedo counts as black while "White / Black" counts as white. Sources with color data and their coverage:
- Tacoma Humane — 0% of removed cats have color data
- Seattle Humane — 99.7% of removed cats have color data
- Raskc — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Kitsap Humane — 0% of removed cats have color data
- Auburn Valley Humane — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Seattle Animal Shelter — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Paws Cat City — 0% of removed cats have color data
- Noah Center — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Burien Cares — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Seattle Area Feline Rescue — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Everett Animal Shelter — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Homeward Pet — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Rescuegroups — 69.6% of removed cats have color data
- Humane Society Of Skagit Valley — 0% of removed cats have color data
- Whatcom Humane Society — 81.6% of removed cats have color data
- Purrfect Pals — 98.4% of removed cats have color data
- Meow Cat Rescue — 81% of removed cats have color data
- Oakbrook Cat Rescue — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Sunny Skys Animal Rescue — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Main Street Mutt Rescue — 100% of removed cats have color data
- West Sound Paws — 0% of removed cats have color data
- Vipp — 100% of removed cats have color data
- Emerald City Pet Rescue — 0% of removed cats have color data
- Waif — 0% of removed cats have color data
Excluded sources. Tacoma Humane and Kitsap Humane list no coat color, so their cats cannot be classified and are omitted rather than mislabeled. RescueGroups adoptions are also excluded: its removed history comes entirely from an April-August 2026 feed outage (the RescueGroups listing sync went silent in production for about three months), so those records' removal dates are not real adoptions and would fake impossibly fast results.
Black Cats Available for Adoption in Seattle
The data is only half the story. These are the newest black cats currently listed at Seattle-area shelters — each one is a real cat waiting for a home.
