Updated: It’s been a year since I predicted the rising star of Hannah Shaw aka Kitten Lady. A year later, in Aug, 2017 she won the Advocate of the Year Award at Cat Con.

Happy Feline Friday! Today is all about a Whole Lotta Black Kitten Lady Love.

I’m swimming in the most glorious, furry pile of black cats, in love with their photos and stories. So many, I’m seeing double. I want to share them all but I can’t. Just as I want to save all the black cats about to be euthanized across this country, but I can’t. What I can do is share what’s possible. What’s hopeful, right meow. Our focus is on Instagram cats from around the globe.

What’s becoming increasingly apparent while working on our nonprofit Black Cats Tell All campaign is the passion for the cause. There were over 80,000 views of a Facebook Live video event hosted by Cole and Marmalade this week. It’s pinned to the top of our Facebook page, if you’d like to take a peek at Cat Wisdom 101. There are over 3000 comments. I haven’t been able to read them all, let alone respond. Thank-you to everyone who has supported us as we head into final stretch. If you haven’t seen our latest updates and rewards, visit Black Cats Tell All and tell all your friends.

What’s baffling is despite all the media attention, press, social media shares about the campaign (purrs for all the bloggers who placed badges in their sidebars. You rock!) the numbers are not translating into pledges. We have at the time of this writing, 168 backers which is impressive for Kickstarter BUT we have 6 days left and need to raise $7, 000 to reach our goal.

I’m not kitten you! I’ve left no stone unturned and it’s up to the cat gods now. One way or another this project will be completed. If you have an idea to get us to our goal, message me. I’m all ears.

My focus today is on hope and a little black kitten rescued by the Kitten Lady aka Hannah Shaw because all black cats start out in life as black kittens.

Hannah is a neo-natal kitten rescue and foster advocate with a nonprofit Kitten Lady. It’s a takes a special breed of kitty mojo to rescue the tiniest kittens, care for them 24/7 and then find them homes. I see Hannah, a tattooed millennial (she reminds me of myself 20 years ago minus tattoos) hot on a mission to save lives. I’m an old timer who founded a nonprofit cat rescue twenty years ago. We did the work, grueling, heartbreaking, a bottomless pit of need without accolades. This was before social media. We quietly impacted the lives of thousands of cats. The work goes on and every generation takes advocacy and cat rescue to the level.

In the case of Hannah, she uses social media to grow her Kitten Lady brand and it’s working. The social media and fostering, teaching becomes a blur of kitten life and well-oiled media machine. She relies on her team of volunteers and her photographer partner, Andrew @iamthegreatwent to keep the kitty content fresh and adorable from Facebook, YouTube Instagram where rules atKittenxLady about to hit 500K.

It’s no wonder Kitten Lady is lighting up Instagram. She is passion perfectly aligned with purpose. Check out her educational videos on YouTube. I predict big things for the advocate of little cats. She kindly sent me a couple exclusive kittenpics on Instagram! Visit her at fast-growing Instagram page @KittenXLady and today is her 29th birthday!

Meet Munchkin, the incredibly lucky kitten who rescued from certain death and adopted this week by a couple in Baltimore. She has a new name, Luna and a new life with another cat and a dog. In this video, she’s given a much-needed flea bath. A few weeks later she transformed into an adorable adoptable and already has a following of her own on Instagram at @Munchkinlu

Update on featured black cats. Sophie the Model is in our new book as is Blade and Nitro. Sadly, the amazing MonksterCat died last summer. The Instagram community is supportive and many bereaved cat parents bounce back, often adopting a new fur baby. Monkstercat’s dad was so bereaved he closed he stopped posting. The account is still up.

There are many amazing black cats on Instagram. Search the hashtag #blackcats and be prepared to go wow. Our #blackstellall tag has grown to@14000

They could be funny or quirky, adventurous or serious, but I view them as the new advocates for black cat adoption. Some of my favorites panthers on the rise include: @Sophie the Model a meowdel who is eternally chic and funny. A hard combo to pull off but she does, daily.

Another world away in Australia are Blade and Nitro Blake. Blade is handsome British Shorthair and his allegedly crazy younger bro fur are known on Instagram as Blade_the_Black_Cat Blade is a mancat who is not afraid to look pretty in pink or to speak his mind. Don’t you want to know what’s he’s thinking? I know I do.

One of the most intriguing cats, who is writing a story for us, isn’t super famous yet but Monkey Cat, who is part Sphnyx is known as Monkstercat on Instagram. He has an identical twin brother Pharoah and they live in my old hometown of Toronto, Canada. The sparse-coated baldies aren’t what some would call gorgeous, but they show the beautiful diversity of black as beautiful. Their cat dad, Alberto thinks they are amazing and I agree. He made this graphic, Black Cats Matter although I prefer “All Cats Matter”.

Flipflopping across the globe again to Asia, we find Bunny and Maine Coon and his black Oriental brother Muezza or @BunnyMuezzaCat on Instagram. I’m including him today because of what his mom told me. Muezza wears all kinds of collars in different colors but

every color looks good on a black cat.