Until recently, humane societies and animal shelters routinely restricted cat adoptions around Halloween, especially adoptions of black cats. This was partly based on the belief that pagans, satanists, druids, witches, and/or warlocks would adopt dark kitties in order to sacrifice them in unspeakable rites on Samhain.
As awesome as it would be to live in a world where this happens, in our boring reality, it doesn’t. Satanists don’t adopt or catnap black kitties at this time of year either. Satanists like cats, generally, and they’re also super boring, as anyone who’s ever been buttonholed by a satanist at a party can tell you. The belief probably stems from reports of witches with black cat familiars that date back to medieval times.
There is a non-folkloric reason pet adoption places sometimes give for limiting adoptions of black cats around Halloween, though: It is feared that some people adopt black cats as spooky decor for Halloween, only to abandon them on Nov. 1. I haven’t been able to find a documented case of this happening, though, so it’s probably hearsay too.
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