Kittens are king on Uber's Cat Day
LOS ANGELES — The Uber ride-sharing service promised warm kittens with cold noses, kitty breath and lots of energy for what they called the best 15-minute snuggle available for $30. Then they delivered.
Three Los Angeles shelters — Kitty Bungalow Charm School for Wayward Cats, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles and Heaven on Earth Society for Animals — provided kittens for the visits Thursday, which was also National Cat Day. The shelters will split fees collected.
Two Kitty Bungalow orphans, Smiley and Horvath, were delivered to Warner Bros. Studio for the cast crew, producers and writers of the Friday night comedy “Undateable,” which airs live on both coasts. Writer Laura Moran ordered the kittens because she thought it would be fun for everyone.
“They stopped rehearsal to play with the cats. So if anybody forgets a line Friday night, you can blame the kittens,” she joked.
“We were busy. As we expected, demand was high,” Uber spokesman Michael Amodeo said. He didn’t have a final count on how many visits were made or how many adoption pledges they got.
“We are overrun with cats. We used to have kitten season in May. Now, with the weather we have out here, it is kitten season all year long,” said Madeleine Bernstein, president and CEO of spcaLA.
She said she jumped at the chance to take part in the Uber snuggle day because “I like to do things that are new and different and 21st Century, remind people we are a shelter, that cats are available and to promote shelter adopting.”
The hope was snugglers would be smitten with a kitten and adopt.
But it will take a trip to the shelter to seal the deal. The kittens still have to be spayed or neutered, vaccinated and microchipped. Adopters also have to fill out an application and pay a $100 fee, she said.
Even though all of the 15-minute sessions were booked and even if all the kittens had a hold on them, Bernstein said she didn’t expect them to all get adopted.
“People get to hug and play for 15 minutes,” she said. That is enough to make anybody’s day, but it may not carry over.”
Last year, 30 cats were adopted.
