Maru, a Japanese cat with a fondness for jumping in boxes, enjoys the adoration and status of an Internet celebrity, with his debut clip logging over 21 million views. On YouTube, there are currently some 25 million cat videos posted. Clearly, we love Internet cats.

But offline, Maru's friends aren't feeling the love. Millions live on their own, lost, abandoned or born outdoors, struggling to survive on the mean streets of almost every community. Each fall and spring, the kittens born to these homeless cats arrive in their own cardboard boxes at local shelters and millions are euthanized at taxpayer expense because not enough people are willing to adopt them. In fact, 1 in 4 Americans say they would never adopt a cat.