“Whenever the cat of the house is black/ The lasses of lovers will have no lack.” — English Proverb

If only North Americans shared the same affection for black cats as the Brits apparently do, the black beauties wouldn’t be the last to be adopted at animal shelters — victims of stubborn superstition:

They bring bad luck, are devilish, mysterious and associated with witchcraft.

Don’t let one cross your path or your day is going to be ruined.

Heading to the gambling den and a black cat crosses your path? Might as well fold your hand and turn around.

To the Japanese, black cats bring good luck. The Russians love them. And in everywhere but Yorkshire, the English give them as wedding gifts and consider them a good-luck charm.

But this is Toronto and like most cities in North America, black cats are last to be adopted. The unfortunate outflow of that is euthanasia comes first to these rejected felines.

Toronto’s city-run animal shelters have about 150 cats up for adoption this minute. In an innovative campaign set for tomorrow, Black Friday, the shelter is offering up black cats — free.

No $75 adoption fee — all you pay is the $15 licence fee (applicable for Toronto residents only; half that for seniors). Consider it affirmative action for black cats who’ve considered cat-icide when the rejection is too much.

“Black cats don’t get adopted as quickly; I don’t know why,” says Mary Lou Leiher, program manager at Toronto Animal Services. “They are lovely cats like any other. But they just get passed over.

“We need to reduce their population and get them into loving homes” she says, acknowledging there is superstition about black cats.

Buy a cat from the pet store and, in addition to the purchase cost, you could spend at least $500 to get your pet microchipped, spayed and neutered, vaccinated, dewormed and checked by a vet. You get all that Friday to Sunday free if you take home a cat with black markings; it’s not limited to the classic, all-black cat.

U.S. shelters have staged Black Friday adoption events to coincide with the Friday after American Thanksgiving. This is Toronto’s first.

Toronto’s animal shelter adopt out an average 3,000 kitties a year. They stage seasonal events to raise awareness and move the pets into homes. Next month, for instance, they’ll stage the “12 Strays of Christmas.”

Hate to break it to you, Kitty Lovers, but even rats get adopted easier than black cats.

“Yes, rats, they are not a problem to adopt out,” says Leiher. “They are really social, very good pets. We get a lot of them. They come in as strays or people surrender them. There’s an underground world of rat owners.”

Different strokes, for sure. But rats, ahead of cats — red, white or black? Say it ain’t so.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

I shouldn’t be talking, of course. I’m part of the problem, a member of the black cat superstitious society.

In fact, I was a lifelong member of cat avoidance fraternity. Cats are too finicky, too silent, too mysterious, too inscrutable. They seem to look through you, into your soul. The purring? Goodness, me, it sounded to me, for years, like an evil gurgling from another world.

And then my daughter, somehow — daughters do that — convinced us to get her a cat for Christmas in 2011.

We answered a newspaper ad, knocked on the apartment door and the kitten was, ah, black. Well, agreeing to a house pet was life-altering; a cat was a huge concession; but a black cat? Forget about it. He’d be crossing my path every day. Aren’t they supposed to be evil, of the devil, bad luck?

We settled on a white cat, with a couple black and grey markings. An aristocrat, he is. Appropriately named Ernest Hemingway, he inspires consumable prose in my columns.

A second cat arrived — this one, grey. Sushi. She’s sleeping on my lap as I write this. And my kids say I have crossed over.

So, now I Google ‘black cats’ and find a vigorous debate claiming them to be good luck and bad luck, the greatest treasure known to man, the study of their colour mutation now the subject of cancer research inquiry.

Should I outlive Hemmy and Sushi, my next cat will be black. I’ll call him Nelson Mandela. Mande.

There are many names awaiting the black cats at the city’s four shelters. Info at toronto.ca/animal_services/pet_adoption.htm