Her Last Days

It was her last three days. She woke up, alone in her room, and looked out onto the world. She had spent her days trying to sit up and look happy just in case someone looked through the window long enough to catch her eye. But they never did. She’d go to sleep, wake up, and do it again. It was now down to her last few days. Time was running out. After three more days, she would be dead.

With the day more than half over, she was no longer sitting up; she was tired and didn’t even try to look happy. That’s why she was startled when she looked up and saw someone staring at her. But she looked back and they stared into each other’s eyes. "That one! That’s the cat I want to adopt." And just like that she was saved. She was going home. Another stray cat had met her match at the local shelter.

Cue the music and the ending credits. "This story would not be possible without the work of the Humane Research Council." And the Humane Research Council is not possible without your donation. Please make a much-needed contribution of $50, $100, $250 or whatever you can afford to help us save even more shelter cats, dogs, farmed animals, and laboratory animals in 2012.

HRC empowers all animal advocates through our free resources like HumaneSpot.org. We help organizations like the Handsel Foundation understand how to measure the effectiveness of spay/neuter programs. We work with issue leaders like the New England Anti-Vivisection Society to help understand public opinion about using chimpanzees in research. We provide free research services to small animal groups like the Food Empowerment Project, which we helped with a project to identify areas where residents lack access to affordable, healthy food.

And yes, we work with organizations like the ASPCA to make sure more dogs and cats find or keep their homes . For example, we have helped to measure the effectiveness of the ASPCA’s Meet Your Match® program, and have helped in research around ID tagging. Our work with the ASPCA and other groups helps them help more animals.

So your tax-deductible donation to HRC supports the difficult but essential work of using research to learn which messages, programs, and tactics are most effective in helping animals. Because most of our research is shared broadly with advocates, a donation to HRC can go further than other donations. You could even say a donation to HRC helps fuel the entire animal protection movement.

With your help, HRC can make superheroes out of heroes, and together we can create a world in which people treat other animals as individuals deserving of respect and compassion.

Donate today so that we can keep the animal protection movement informed

Thank you so much for your donation.

Happy Holidays,

The HRC Team

P.S.: More shelter cats can be kept in forever homes if we better understand owner surrender, the subject of one of HRC’s current Grassroots Research Fund projects. All donations in December are going to the fund, so PLEASE DONATE RIGHT NOW.