For our dog, we knew we wanted a dog that would be good with the cats, so we passed any that were going nuts barking at us. That gave us a list of about 5 to meet. Two were Huskies, and the shelter worker asked, "Have you had a Husky before?" At which point we realized that probably wasn't a good idea. A third dog was already spoken for. We met the last two, and while meeting the second one we started talking about which one we liked more, while the second dog was still in the room with us. We noticed that he settled down really quickly, just kind of relaxed and chilled out while we were talking.

8 years later, he's still that way! A little excited at new situations at first, but then he calms down. The cats love him. I hope the other dog found her forever home quickly.

For the cats, it's just about the vibe with the cat. It can be hard to tell because they're so reserved, and shelters are stressful places. So far we've only really been surprised by one cat's personality - in the shelter video (during covid) he would demand to be carried around, but he wants none of that at home. But because of the pandemic, we never met him in person before adopting him, and I think that had an effect - he just got stuffed into a carrier and handed to us. He is slowly coming out of his shell (6 years later), but he may never be a lap cat, and he still runs to hide under the bed very often. We're still giving him a good home though.