Who starts out every day thinking of you?

(Beth Clifton photo)

Dear friends of ANIMALS 24-7:

Who starts out every day thinking of you?

We hope you have someone special who does.

Beth and I do. We produce ANIMALS 24-7 together. We team up on the research, I do most of the writing. Beth does the art and photography.

And we begin each day thinking of you.

Our first conversation, most mornings over coffee, centers on what you are reading and what you might want to read about next. We look at our readership numbers for recent articles and those that are read again and again for months or even years. We look at your comments and “Feedback” messages, including your requests and suggestions for coverage.

(Beth Clifton photo)

What do you most want to know about?

Then we look at the day’s possible article topics, from among hundreds of animal-related news issues developing worldwide.

What will you most want to know about, that we should spend the day or several days investigating, to give you inside information and perspective that you will not get anywhere else?

Some of you we know personally, from our decades of reporting for people who care about animals. Some of you have contributed information to articles. Some have been subjects of articles.

Many of you, though, are people we have never met. We may recognize your names, perhaps as longtime readers and donors, or perhaps as relative newcomers to ANIMALS 24-7, who just signed up recently to get our daily alerts about newly posted articles.

(Beth Clifton photo)

We begin our day thinking of you

But even if we know nothing about you, except that you care enough about animals to have come to ANIMALS 24-7, we begin our work day thinking of you.

We know that practically all of our readers, young, old, and in between, have been helping animals and advocating for animals for most of their lives: typically, for ten, twenty, or thirty years. Some of you have been involved for 50 years or longer.

We know that most of you are very concerned that the animal advocacy movement you grew up with has gone astray, whether that movement was the animal welfare movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the humane movement of earlier times, the animal rights movement of the 1970s and 1980s, the no-kill movement of the 1990s, or the vegan movement of more recent years.

(Beth Clifton photo)

Many of you have lost animals to pit bulls, or have been injured yourselves

Most of you are intensely worried about misplaced advocacy for dangerous dogs, especially pit bulls, that is getting tens of thousands of other dogs, cats, and other animals killed each year, along with several dozen people, and is increasingly alienating much of the public.

Many of you have lost animals to pit bulls, or have been injured by pit bulls yourselves.

Most of you are also intensely worried about misappropriation and misuse of donated resources meant to help animals, by charlatans whose chief interest in animal advocacy is to exploit your good intentions and take advantage of young volunteers, pocketing easy money or spending it to feed addictions.

(Beth Clifton photo)

Too many “animal advocacy” groups partner with animal use industries

Quite a few of you are further worried about the tendency of too many animal advocacy organizations either to partner with animal use industries, for the money in that, or to espouse intolerant, inflexible positions that drive people away from the animal cause instead of welcoming more people in. You have found an effective balance in your own lives, without compromising your values and beliefs, and wonder why people who are paid six figures a year to show some leadership cannot do the same.

Many of you are reminded every time you visit the supermarket that some of the big national organizations you once might have trusted are now endorsing the slaughter industry, in one way or another, while some giant corporations, whose only real interest is in making money, are now advancing vegetarianism and veganism, putting plant-based food products on the shelves right alongside traditional products from slaughtered animals––where the plant-based products often outsell the dead meat!

(Beth Clifton photo)

Animal issues can be complicated

You know that animal issues can be complicated. You look to us to help you sort out what is what. We begin each day thinking about how we can live up to your trust.

Later each day, though, we wonder how we are going to pay the bills to keep ANIMALS 24-7 up and running, and keep ourselves on the job, 24-7, all day every day and usually late into the night.

Times have been thin here for several years now, never more than lately.

When you consider which animal organizations and causes are worth your donations, please think about us!

Your gifts––$25, $50, $100, $500, $1,000 or more, or whatever you can afford––are essential to helping us fulfill your expectations.

Very much appreciated!

P.S.––We are thinking of you, and our shared concern for animals, at this very moment! Please send your contribution––$25, $50, $100, $500, $1,000 or more, or whatever you can afford––which at this very moment we are working to earn!