PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Pennsylvania SPCA is offering a promotion this month to get under-socialized cats adopted into loving homes.
It's called the Houseplant Cat Club. There are cats up for adoption at Pennsylvania SPCA in North Philadelphia that have come from large humane law enforcement raids, where they lived in unsanitary conditions and low socialization with people.
"A lot of times when they come in to the shelter they don’t really know how to interact with people," said Maddie Bernstein, the PSPCA's lifesaving manager.
"There's a lot of growing and trust building that goes into helping these guys find adoptive homes," she added.
"So we place a lot of them in foster care where it takes a lot of time and patience and TLC to really help these guys find (a) the comfort that comes with socializing with people living in a home and (b) just adoptive homes."
Playing on the popularity of houseplants during the pandemic, the shelter came up a promotion that will waive adoption fees during April for the cats and give you a gift card for a plant at Urban Jungle in South Philadelphia.
"We kind of molded the program after something that happened at a shelter in Texas called 'Cactus Cats,'" she explained, "so it's basically taking these prickly cats, so to speak, placing them in homes and finding that niche group of adopters that is really excited about socializing them and giving them a wonderful home."
"We thought, 'You know what, why don't we pair these people who love caring for living things that are low maintenance with these cats who are living things that are low maintenance, and see if we can’t find some really fantastic homes for these cats?'"
More information can be found at PSPCA.org.