San Francisco rescue hires cat tester to help senior dogs get adopted

Muttville Senior Dog Rescue in San Francisco has made cat compatibility part of its adoption process, sending in a feline named Mustache twice a month to see whether senior dogs can live with cats. When Mustache is unavailable, Little Dude steps in as the shelter’s on-call cat tester.

Muttville publicly laid out the setup in a June 17 post: “Cat tested, Muttville approved. When our main cat tester Mustache isn’t available, our on-call cat tester, Little Dude, steps in.” A June 25 post then put Little Dude in the spotlight again, underscoring how the rescue has turned a simple compatibility check into part of its matchmaking routine.

The experiment fits Muttville’s larger mission. The rescue says it is “changing the way the world thinks about and treats older dogs,” and its website explains that senior dogs are often euthanized or overlooked because they are older, not because they lack good health or personalities. For adopters who already have cats, that makes feline testing more than a novelty. It becomes a practical screen that can reduce the chance of placing a dog into a home that is not a fit from day one.

Muttville’s adoption page adds another piece of context: new mutts arrive daily, and applicants who are not sure which dog they want can fill out a questionnaire. That built-in matching process suggests the rescue is already treating adoption as a pairing exercise, not a single transaction. A cat test folds neatly into that model, especially for senior dogs that may be better suited to households with existing pets.

The appeal of the idea is its simplicity. It does not require expensive equipment or a major policy overhaul, only a willingness to check compatibility before a dog leaves the shelter. For rescues that place older dogs into mixed-pet homes, the same approach could be repeated with a resident cat and a backup tester, provided staff can schedule the introductions safely and consistently. At Muttville, Mustache and Little Dude have turned that logic into a recurring part of the adoption process.