We adopted one of ours from a Humane Society satellite adoption center, and the other two from our vet’s office. In all three cases, we let the cats pick us, and I think it worked well. We asked the volunteers at both places lots of questions about the cats’ behavior, personalities, etc so we could be sure, but I think we knew almost from the start who we wanted.
Good for you and your son for adopting from a shelter!
Try to visit the shelter on a weekday, if you can. From what I’ve seen, weekends are much busier. It’s more rushed, crazier, and the cats are more stressed. It would be enough to make me cringe in the back of a cage, if I were a cat.
A weekday should be quieter.
It certainly may be an urban myth - I’ve never seen any first hand evidence of it. (Thank Goodness!!) However, the shelter I work at still adheres to that policy - I talked with one of the ladies who still works there just last week.
I don’t think it’s just an urban myth - true I’ve never had a black cat, but we had a white kitty when I was growing up and he would routinely come home with B-B pellets in his thigh around Halloween. It got so bad we eventually had to keep him inside for the week prior to and after Halloween as a precaution.
As for adopting a kitty, I’ve always preferred the love at first site option. I tend to look for an instant connection and if its not there, I move on.
The SPCA near where I live is a quasi no-kill shelter. They test all the animals that are given to them to see if they have any problems with humans; the ones they think are unsuitable for human companionship are put to sleep. All the ones they think are suitable for human companionship they will keep until someone adopts them. I think they said the record for an animal staying at the shelter without being adopted was one year for a dog, so her son doesn’t have to worry about the cats he doesn’t pick being put to sleep.
As I said, this is my local SPCA’s policy, but I don’t see why it would be different elsewhere.
My kitty was a vet clinic rescue where my uncle met her, fell in love with her, but didn’t need another pet. He called me, and e-mailed me an absolutely disablingly adorable picture of her playing on an office chair, and now she’s my little girl (using me as a bridge between the coffee table and sofa right now)
I would definitly look for comfortable being handled. Tug ears, paws and tails, roll the kitty over on its back, pet it backwards, restrain it clumsily, scruff it, poke it…basically everything your son is likely to try to do to it. If it tolerates all of that keep it under consideration, if not…it is not the cat for you. Beyond that, what other people said about outgoing, playful and friendly. I’ve also heard about the whole black cat thing, but I know that there are alot of people who adopt black cats because they are ‘unadoptable’ so I think it about evens out. A responsible shelter has animals screened by veterinarians before they are put up for adoption…you should ask about vet checks and plan on going to a vet in the first week or so of cat ownership.
Most of all, good luck and WE REQUIRE PICTURES OF ALL NEW KITTIES!
We took in a shelter cat two years ago.
I agree with the suggestion to look for a friendly cat. My current cat came right up to us when we first met. He settled in my baby daughter’s lap and started to purr. Since we took him home, he’s continued to be a very friendly boy.
I have heard that ginger cats are very popular and thus harder to find. This we found to be true. I would look at www.petfinder.com for orange cats and find a few candidates. In general we did find that once we actually got to a shelter the ginger kitties had already been adopted.
This is why my little sweetie is mostly white with bits of ginger rather than orange with bits of white. 
If you see a cat you like be prepared to adopt that day. Bring at least two references and a cat carrier just in case.
Another place to look is Craig’slist.org if they have one in your city. I saw lots of pet listings over there the last time I went looking.
Good luck.
I volunteer at the local SPCA, and there are a lot of black cats there, but I thought that was just because they’re pretty common overall (I have one myself). I recommend having your son spend time with the cats he’s interested in. Some cats just don’t like kids, others don’t like to be petted on their backs, to be picked up, or get overstimulated easily and become bitey. That’s not to say they’re not great kitties once you get to know them in a less stressful environment, but they’re probably not good pets for a kid. Find one that approaches your son, lets him rub his belly, touch his feet and ears, and is OK being held and hugged. Yes, there are cats like that (I have 4 of 'em).
Good luck with your new cat! I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.
We’ve got two former Humane Society inmates sharing our home. Both were subjected to a purr-test. I like my cats snuggly, so I wouldn’t take home a cat that didn’t purr at least a little when petted and scritched in the meeting room. We ended up with a two year old stray and a three month old kitten, adopted several months apart, and they’ve proved to be very affectionate and gentle little critters who will actively seek out cuddling and sleep with us at night- exactly what we were looking for.
I’ve heard that holding a cat on it’s back in your lap can indicate whether it has a calm temperment or not, but we didn’t think to try it on either of them at the shelter. They both allow it at home, though. Doc is the only cat I’ve ever known who enjoys having his belly rubbed.
FWIW, I have seen stunningly beautiful cats at Petco. A local rescue places adoptable cats there so they’ll be seen by as many people as possible.
I’m not sure about Petco, but at each PetsMart location I’ve been to in Indianapolis, they always have cats on-site that are available for adoption.
Our SPCA has a deal with PetSmart where the only cats PetSmart sells are shelter kitties. This is a good deal for everyone, b/c the cats get a better chance of being adopted and the stores is the place where folks will buy the supplies. If your PetSmart does this too, it’d be the same as going to the shelter… except that you might find a really sweet, shy, less overtly personable kitty at the shelter who would be perfect for you. We usually send out extraverted cats to PetSmart.
This makes me think of another point: sometimes the best cats need you to find them. They are in a very stressful situation and some of them withdraw and won’t compete with other cats for attention. There was a cat like this at our shelter for 7 months, and it was so absurd b/c he was the sweetest, gentlest, most loving guy you’d ever want to meet, but he didn’t approach people, so he just sat there for months in obscurity. I was tempted to take him home myself, but at last someone saw his true colors and chose him. That is one lucky person.
Quick Update: I am hoping to stop by the animal shelter close by in the next day or two by myself to check it out and ask questions. If satisfied, I will try to go with my son soon.
I will try to keep you posted - not sure of the timing.
Thanks again for your help.
Remember, the price of all of this advice is PICTURES!!!
Well, since I don’t have a digital camera, a digital camera phone or a frequently-used web-photo-hosting site I depend on, can I just shove the cat’s face into my scanner and send around a photo of that?
I keed, I keed…I will see what I can come up with picture-wise when the moment arrives.
Update: So I went to the local shelter. Great cats, but the place is in a rough part of town and looks a little like a warehouse. Also, there were a LOT of cats there. Bottom line, my almost-8-year-old son would not have done well - he would’ve wondered about the other cats, been scared by the surroundings, etc.
So I looked. There was a few cats that were nice, but one really stood out. Very playful, not shy at all, wanted love and attention, didn’t mind being flipped over on his back. Cute, grey with tabby markings, about 9 pounds, a little over a year old. Will the cat - that was his name - was the right choice.
So I walk about and start to fill out the paperwork, thinking about how I will explain to my son about how I thought it was best to not bring him there. A volunteer there says “oh, you picked Will! He’s so great.”
Then she says “but what about Grace, his sister?”
The director of the shelter chided the volunteer - she was worried that if I knew Will had a sister, I might not pick him. Instead, I checked out Grace - really cute, all black - more mellow than Will but they were all over each other when I put them together.
So now we are the proud owners of Will & Grace. My son flipped out - he says this is the best day of life.
Thanks for all your help. I suspect pics may happen soon, but it will take some time to get them developed and scanned in. I’m so behind the times…
Yay! New kitties!
They totally suckered you in! Good luck with the duo (get them fixed) and do post pics!
How wonderful–congratulations on your new monsters!
Er, beloved companions!
I’ve worked for our local humane society for a little over five years, and I take all our pictures. While you’ve already made a decision (and a great one, from the sound of it), I want to put in a few words:
The only plausible scenario I’ve heard is that some Goth flake might decide to adopt a black cat around Hallowe’en as, essentially, an ornament. But I’m unaware of that happening, either.
No-kill shelters are NOT morally superior to full-access shelters. Virtually all of them are no-kill because, when they’re full, they close their doors to additional animals, turning those animals away. Full-access shelters like ours never turn any animal away for any reason. Because there are so many animals, we do have to euthanize thousands of animals every year, and we hate it. But when you adopt from us, that means you open up a cage for an animal in back, so that you save the life of the next animal.
Yeah, that’s right: adopting from a full-service shelter sometimes doesn’t save the life of the animal you’re adopting. Many, like ours, don’t have a time limit on an animal once it moves to adoptions: once an animal moves to adoptions, assuming it doesn’t develop serious behavioral or health problems, it stays there until it’s adopted. It’s hell on the staff if they know that Fluffy is going to be euthanized at five today if nobody adopts her, and it’s emotional blackmail on visitors as well. Some animals get adopted in one day; some get adopted after two months. Adopting them allows another animal to move into their cage instead of be euthanized.
To choose a shelter, I’d recommend the following things:
a) Look for cleanliness. If the shelter is stinky, if there are more than a couple of cages with pools of urine or feces, that’s a very bad sign that the shelter has a lousy cleaning regimen. And a lousy cleaning regiment equals poor disease control, and poor disease control can equal big vet bills for you.
b) Along the same lines, you want to adopt from somewhere that’s paranoid about your sanitizing your hands between each animal you touch. If they’re not paranoid with you, they’re not paranoid with other folks, and that means that if any animal in the room gets a disease, they all get it.
c) Look for a shelter that participates with www.petfinder.com. They’re an incredibly cool organization that offers all kinds of resources to animal shelters, but the resource you’re looking for is the month of free insurance they offer to animals adopted from participating shelters. This is huge: it means that if your animal gets sick when you take it home, you’re covered for something like $500 in vet bills. And it’s pretty common for an animal to get sick or injured in its first few weeks in a new home: it’s a stressful experience for the animal, and it may have picked something up from other animals at the shelter, and it may run out the door and get hit by a car. (Talk to your shelter about the program’s details–I’m no expert on exactly what is and is not covered).
-Find out what you’re paying for. A smaller adoption fee may look good, but a larger one may include spay/neuter surgery, rabies shots, other shots, a veterinary checkup, leashes, carrying cases, microchip, the aforementioned surgery, etc.
-Finally, and this may be obvious, but you want to adopt from a shelter that has good records on your animal. If their records are shoddy or incomplete, then you may not know what situation you’re getting into, and it’s even possible that they’re trying to pawn off an animal with known behavior problems on you. I’m not completely sure, but I think this last problem is more common with no-kill shelters.
I hope Will and Grace bring you and your son much joy!
Daniel
Of course. Try to get both of them to shove their heads together on the glass. 
Thank you for making your boy’s day and letting yourself be adopted by siblings. Our kitties are sisters and we’ve never regretted a minute getting them both. Double karma points for you, bucko!
Yay! Kitties!
And two kitties are definitely better than one – they’ll be good company for each other.
You’re a good dad.