Dear Friend,

We’ve been sharing all year that the number of homeless pets coming into the city pound is at a crisis point. Through November, Chicago Animal Care & Control (CACC) has taken in more than 14,000 pets—2,114 more than in 2023. Today, we want to celebrate our partnership with our friends at CACC and give you a glimpse of how PAWS finds innovative ways to save homeless pets.

Every day of the year, lifesaving work is bustling at PAWS Chicago, and Christmas Eve was no exception. For 56 homeless cats at CACC, it was the Christmas miracle they needed most. Their story is below, but first I need to share some background information and ask for your support.

The best way to save homeless pets at CACC is for them to be transferred to other shelters or be adopted.  As part of our 360@CACC program, we have been supporting CACC adoptions all year long, and we’re thrilled to announce that CACC adoptions are up 30% and transfers are up 18.31% in 2024!

Much of this success is due to the hard work of our PAWS medical teams. With city budget cuts affecting all departments, the city pound has faced reduced headcounts and hiring freezes, which has impacted their medical teams the most. They simply cannot spay or neuter enough pets, a surgery that Illinois law requires all cats and dogs receive before adoption. This is where our PAWS Chicago team comes in.

Every week, as part of our ‘Big Fix’ program, PAWS volunteers transport CACC homeless pets to our PAWS Lurie Spay/Neuter Clinic in the morning and bring them back that afternoon, spayed, vetted and ready for adoption! We also offer a ‘Rescue Ready’ program to encourage transfer from CACC, by providing these medical services for rescue organizations who save a pet from the city pound. In total, we have spayed/neutered and medically treated 1,198 animals from CACC through November! (This is in addition to the 2,000 CACC animals we bring to our PAWS adoption program.)

…so to complete our Christmas story from above. Early on December 24, our rescue team transported 56 CACC cats to our Medical Center for spay/neuter surgery, and provided them with microchips, heartworm tests, and necessary vaccinations to make them adoption ready. Of those cats, 20 of them already had adopters ready to take them home, just in time for the holidays!

Thank you for being part of our PAWS community and making such a difference for homeless pets. Innovative PAWS programs are the difference between life and death for many homeless animals.

Please make a tax-deductible donation before the end of the year. More than 40 stray or abandoned pets enter the city pound every single day. The city’s resources are limited and their cages are full. Please don’t let euthanasia be the answer—not when PAWS Chicago has the solution.

Your donation before December 31 is tax-deductible, and will be matched up to $25,000 by the mom of beloved pets Smoky Boy and Coy. That means DOUBLE the lifesaving!