The seemingly separate worlds of body art and beloved pets will collide today at noon.

Pain & Wonder Tattoo Studio and the Athens Area Humane Society are partnering on a fundraiser to raise awareness for the Humane Society’s adoptable pets program and its Spay & Neuter Center.

For 10 hours, a portion of all Pain & Wonder sales — including piercings and tattoos — will go to the Humane Society’s adoption program.

The Athens Area Humane Society has an idea — supported by tattoo studio Pain & Wonder — to offer body art for animal lovers, as a way to support its Spay & Neuter Center. MARIJA VULETIC/Staff

“I came up with the idea,” said Amanda Newsom, Humane Society outreach coordinator. “I wanted to find a fun way to spread awareness about spaying and neutering pets, because it’s so crucial to ending pet overpopulation but it’s not as fuzzy of a topic as adoptions. I have tattoos and piercings and was open to using this as an idea.”

Though tattoos are not usually pet adopters’ first association with the Human Society’s furry residents, there’s actually a rationale for using ink to raise funds.

When pets are spayed at the Athens Area Humane Society Spay & Neuter Center, each animal gets a little ink of its own on the underside of its belly, indicating the animal has already been spayed and can no longer reproduce.

“It’s a creative way to get people to think more about the importance of spaying and neutering animals,” Newsom said. “And it’s a fun story they can share with people the rest of their lives as they show off their animal-themed tattoos and tell others what they mean.”

Even though the Humane Society had a fundraising theme in mind, it still needed to find a tattoo studio willing to partner up and execute the event.

Pain & Wonder Tattoo Studio stepped up.

“We all have pets and love animals,” said Carolyn Rittweger, manager at Pain & Wonder. “We support [the Humane Society’s] cause. We know they’re a good cause, and we just like what they do. We’re all kind of softies, I guess, with animals.”

The Humane Society rescues animals from local animal control shelters and gives them a second chance at life through its no-kill adoption program.

In 2011, 60 dogs, 230 cats and 21 small animals were adopted from the Humane Society into new permanent homes, according to a Humane Society press release.

Since about half of the animals at animal control centers never leave, many of them must be euthanized due to shelter space and resource constraints.

“I’d love to meet a goal of $1,000 for the event,” Newsom said. “But I also really hope to spread awareness about the importance of spaying and neutering pets and to get people talking more about the mission of AAHS — which is to lower our area’s euthanasia rates.”

Three tattoo artists will be on staff at the studio for the event’s duration.

“We’re only doing walk-in appointments this time,” Rittweger said. “We’re going to not take any advance appointments. If people want to come in and talk to us, you know, to see what they’re thinking and to talk to an artist beforehand, we totally are okay with that. But we just want to do first-come, first-serve this time around.”

For participants interested in the Pets and Wonder cause, but less interested in new body art, there will be T-shirts sold at the fundraiser as well.

The idea is to get people interested, not tattooed.

“People are welcome just to come in, even if they don’t want to get tattoos,” Rittweger said. “They’re going to have T-shirts for sale and people can come in and just kind of chat and see what’s going on.”

PETS AND WONDER

When: noon to 10 p.m.

Where: Pain & Wonder Tattoo Studio

Price: Ranges from $15-150, depending on purchase

Contact: www.AthensHumaneSociety.org