“The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart”

Self-described “wannabe photographer” Rachele Totaro teamed up with La Collina dei Conigli ONLUS to help the charity raise funds and find homes for their animal charges. The Monza, Italy-based animal rescue organization takes in the former lab animals, cares for them, and makes them available for adoption. I find it really interesting that Italian law allows registered charities to rescue lab animals rather than having them euthanized. Of course, it would be better for the animals if the testing had never been performed on them, but it makes me feel a little better that they eventually get to know a happier life when their usefulness in the lab is over.

To help find them homes, Totaro photographed the rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, and mice as characters in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s iconic children’s book “The Little Prince.” The photos are then made into a calendar which causes a dramatic spike in adoptions every year when it comes out. I can see why! As happened when I wrote my post “Blondes Have More Fun,” I once again sorely tempted to go out and adopt some tiny furry lovelies. Damnit!

“My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant a guinea pig”

“It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears”

“You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed”

“I believe that for his escape he took advantage of the migration of a flock of wild birds”

“I wonder,” he said, “whether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again…”

“Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow”

“When he lights his street lamp, it is as if he brought one more star to life or one flower”

And just because they’re so adorable, here are a few pictures from last year’s calendar, which had an “Alice in Wonderland” theme!