When Timmy arrived at Pasadena Humane, he weighed just four pounds and couldn’t move his back legs. He’d been struck by a vehicle, leaving him with broken ribs, puncture wounds, and a spinal injury severe enough that veterinarians weren’t certain he’d walk again.
What followed was weeks of surgery, medication, and physical therapy from the shelter’s animal intensive care unit — the kind of round-the-clock recovery that rarely gets seen by anyone outside the clinic walls. Slowly, Timmy regained movement in his hind legs. Eventually, he was healthy enough to be adopted into a permanent home.
His story became the centerpiece of Pasadena Humane’s fifth annual Day of Giving, a fundraising campaign held this spring to support the shelter’s operations. The timing carried extra weight: every donation made before midnight on the day of the campaign was quadruple-matched, up to $100,000, thanks to a contribution from the Denne Trust — meaning the shelter’s Day of Giving had the potential to raise as much as $400,000 in a single day.
**One recovery, hundreds of others**
Timmy’s case is dramatic, but it’s also representative of the kind of care that donations like these actually fund. The money raised didn’t just cover emergency surgeries — it supported foster care networks, wildlife rehabilitation, and low-cost community services like vaccinations, spay and neuter procedures, and microchipping for pet owners who might not otherwise be able to afford them.
For a shelter, a single animal’s recovery story rarely tells the whole picture. But for the people deciding whether to donate, it’s often exactly the reason they do.
*This article is based on reporting from Pasadena Humane and mynewsla.com. Read the original report [here](https://mynewsla.com/business/2026/05/11/pasadena-humane-to-hold-day-of-giving-2/).*
Photo by USFWS Pacific Southwest Region, public domain (PDM 1.0).