Welcome to The Every Animal Project, where every animal—from the brave little minnow to the mighty elephant—has a story. Those journeys, filled with challenges, triumphs, and even a little mischief, can shed light on our own humanity, expand our empathy, and deepen our connections. The EAP showcases true animal tales from around the globe, inspiring and empowering thousands of readers to seek healing both for themselves and the beings who surround us, ultimately transforming our world.
We invite you to dive in and get to know the hooved, pawed, finned, scaled, and feathered beings who share our planet. If you have a story about a special animal who has shaped your life that you’d like to contribute, please get in touch. We are particularly interested in highlighting stories written by Black, indigenous, and other people of color, as well as folks from the LGBTQ+ community.
Part 1: Blog
I’m Laura Lee Cascada, a Virginia writer, activist, and mermaid. I’ve spent my life around animals, collecting profound lessons and using those to build a more humane world around me through writing and campaigning. I created The Every Animal Project in 2016 to share what I’d learned through the lens of individual animals with all of you.
But my parents weren’t always so sure of the path that I would follow with our fellow earthlings. When I was still in the womb, they worried over whether their dog, Wookie, a fluffball with a surprisingly powerful voice, would accept me into the family. He hadn’t taken too kindly to the neighborhood kids who taunted him from the other side of the fence, and maybe, in his eyes, I would be just another one of them. From the moment I dropped into the world, though, Wookie planted himself firmly by my side. As I sat in my high chair sending Cheerios flying across the room, he growled softly at the other two family dogs when they tiptoed too near. He somehow knew that I was important, that my parents saw something special in me. I never really understood why, but I was his girl–no doubt about it.
An old dog, Wookie passed away during my childhood. Today, the only remnants of him are a handful of photographs and, of course, a lifetime of memories. Over the years, I’ve kept those pieces of him close, along with those of the many other animals who have crossed my path, from a cockatoo whose guardian was forced to rehome him when his needs competed with her growing baby’s to a many-legged millipede named Eddie who brought hilarity to my teenage years and, more importantly, taught me that even bugs are full of character.
Like me, you’ve probably cherished the relationships you’ve had with animals who have woven their way into your life. And maybe you’ve also marveled at the young bird just learning to fly in your front yard, the manta ray who brushed past your leg during a late-night snorkel trip, or the injured squirrel nursed back to health by a tireless wildlife rehabilitator down the street. Perhaps you’ve even wondered about the hidden lives or feelings of animals you’ve never seen, like the pig on a farm or the mouse in a research lab.
Animals are like us in many ways–their ingenuity, their fear or excitement, their bonds–but we’re only just beginning to catch on. In The Emotional Lives of Animals, Dr. Marc Bekoff opens with a heart-wrenching story of four magpies who laid to rest a dead companion with a ceremony not too unlike our own funerals. And let’s not forget about the famed elephant Tarra, who visibly grieved the loss of her canine best friend, or the fish who made headlines in 2011 after being photographed using a rock as a tool to crack open his meal.
Animals’ stories aren’t always happy, and they’re not always simple or clear-cut. Sometimes, they’re downright messy, heartbreaking, or even enraging. But every animal has one, a story. And through that story, as we laugh or cry, we will learn–not only about that animal, but about ourselves. Consider a vampire bat who, after feasting on blood, notices another starving bat and regurgitates part of his meal to save his friend. Did he do so only out of the kindness of his heart? How far would he go to protect his friend? As it turns out, vampire bats are remarkably prone to sharing within intricate social networks. Could we say the same about ourselves?
At a time when our world is teeming with divisiveness, when the most oppressed among us humans are fighting for their lives, nonhuman animals like the dog who adopted an infant squirrel or the goat who helped a young giraffe flourish can help us rediscover our own empathy and transform us into more compassionate leaders and allies in our own communities.
By reminding us of both our similarities and our differences, nonhuman animals have a way of opening up the parts of us we never noticed before. Today, the Every Animal Project is growing beyond me and the animals I’ve met. It now aims to uncover and share the stories of animals all over the world—not only to awe and amuse our readers, but also to pose a challenge: that we might all step just outside our world and into theirs, and that these experiences might reshape our own sense of humanity, helping us expand our compassion for all (including ourselves). The stories found here range from hard-hitting investigations, like our dive into a Hawaiian octopus farm masquerading as a petting zoo that led to the farm’s shutdown by the state and was covered by international media, to triumphant tales of rescue, like Toby the three-legged goat who couldn’t stop grinning for the camera.
From there, we’re empowered to seek healing both for ourselves as we navigate fears, losses, and life, and for those suffering in the world around us.
Part 2: Book Series
When I created this blog in 2016, I felt on top of the world, a mid 20-something armed with big dreams and reaching my creative peak. And, all the while, I had this goofy white pit-beagle, Powder, bouncing off the walls alongside me.
Shortly after our first encounter back in 2009—her dashing in front of my car during a late-night veggie dog run in college and me hitting the brakes in a panic—it was that evident Powder was my soul dog. I had been the teenager whose severe social anxiety kept me from leaving my house for anything besides school for a year because I was convinced everyone thought I smelled bad. And when at school, I obsessively applied deodorant in the bathroom between classes to combat my profuse sweating. Powder was the lost puppy who’d been abandoned at a motel and spent every thunderstorm trembling in the bathtub as though we were in a nuclear war.
Powder growled and lunged at every dog because they scared her. I, meanwhile, hid my gifts from a world I thought would reject me. We seemed meant for one another—and only one another.
But inside Powder was something inexplicable: an effervescent “woo!” that she’d emit immediately after every storm cleared. The disastrous became comical; life, quite frequently, became impossible to take so seriously.
With Powder at my side, I somehow went on the exact opposite of my teenage trajectory: I became a career-long activist, protesting on the streets, making phone calls, being at the helm of events with thousands of people, and waging and winning global campaigns.
I never really stopped to think about all the confidence she’d given me through that simple vocalization; she was just a boundless energy, unconditionally there. But in 2021, after 12 years, I lost Powder to an orange-sized tumor that had invaded her heart seemingly overnight. It was the final punch after a profound year of grief: marked by the passing of my second mom, Sherrie, perhaps my greatest cheerleader, to a sudden mysterious illness and the rollercoaster 7-month-long hospitalization of my dad.
My upcoming book, The Dog Who Wooed at the World, the first anthology from The Every Animal Project, is the product of my grappling with the gaping hole in my heart, and my forward voyage into an uncertain future devoid of that therapeutic “woo!” when I needed it the most. It is my reckoning with the instability of life, the inevitability of death, and the uniquely human quest for order and answers, when perhaps a simple “woo!” would suffice. And it is a reflection on the courage Powder imbued in me to take some of the scariest steps of my life, including persisting after her death. Between its covers, you’ll find Powder and my twin tales of thriving through anxiety-inducing mental illnesses.
Through the generous posthumous support of my late beloved Sherrie—whose compassion was boundless, exemplified by the story of her nurturing of a tiny june bug—the anthology will be marketed to thousands of people around the world, prompting them to rethink their relationships with all animals, from dogs and cats to fishes and crabs, and help build a kinder world.
Read more about the book in advance of its 2024 publication!
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