If you think having a black cat cross your path is unlucky, try being one in the weeks leading up to Halloween. Talk about a hard life: being the object of superstition and myth and being targeted for harm by way of pranks and, perhaps most distressing, occult sacrifice.
It's enough of a danger that many local shelters say that while they don't explicitly ban adoption of black cats in the last few weeks of October, they certainly take a long, hard look at anyone lining up to get one.
"I don't know if this really goes on here or not, sacrifices and cults, but we just try to be careful," said Marilyn Hall of the North Little Rock Animal Shelter.
Hall said while adoptions won't come to a halt, the shelter is discriminating when it comes to placing black or even white cats in homes just before Halloween.
The shelters in Little Rock, Bryant, and Maumelle also are wary of those seeking to take home a black cat this time of year.
"We always look at people who want to adopt any animal," said Rebecca Fitch of Bryant Animal Control. "If they're coming in to adopt a black cat on a whim or to use in a prank, we can usually pick up on that."
In Sherwood, however, the thinking goes that you can never be too careful. The city shelter imposes an outright ban on adopting black cats from mid-October into the first week of November.
"It's strictly for the protection of the cats," said shelter director Robin Breaux. "There is a real threat to black cats this time of year. I don't know how prevalent cults are in Arkansas, but just in case, we have to protect our cats.
"Usually three or four days after Halloween we start adopting them again. It [the ban] is just about three weeks, and people can always wait," she said, noting the policy has been in place for all of her 12 years at the shelter.
Rita Cavenaugh, president of Feline Rescue and Rehome (FuRR), said the Sherwood policy is a good one and one that she enforced as the director of the Little Rock shelter in the late '90s and early years of the new millennium.
She said those who might think that pranks and cult activity that pose a danger to cats are things that don't happen here should think again.
"I usually don't watch Animal Planet because it makes me mad, but there's nothing I've seen on Animal Planet that I have not seen in Little Rock," she said. "I would definitely advise anyone without a thorough screening process not to adopt."
Cavenaugh said that many shelters have taken steps that allow them to continue adoptions and remain confident in the safety of their animals. One such measure is the adoption fee shelters charge. That fee might range from $50 to $90, depending on the shelter and the age of the cat, but either way it serves as a deterrent to aberrant - and abhorrent - behavior.
"Because of the adoption fee, we don't get the riffraff we used to," she said. "When you charge little or no fee, you'll always have people [with questionable motives] come in wanting black or white cats."
S he said she advises people not to put "free to a good home" ads in the newspaper leading up to the holiday since they likely won't have experience in the screening process trained shelter personnel have.
"If I were a standard person, I would not adopt out anything the week before or the week after [Halloween], but especially before," she said.