“Indifference is scarier than cruelty because cruelty is a rare thing, while indifference can be seen everywhere,” — that’s what the classical literature writers thought in the 19th century and few things have actually changed in the world since then. One of the ways a person is assessed today is by their attitude toward animals who’ve found themselves in a difficult situation. Not abusing them is only half the battle, helping them is what it’s all about.

Bright Side authors were touched by the stories we found on Pikabu, Reddit, and Overheard. We want our readers to know about them too. At the end of the article, there is a short story about a little girl who met a homeless person.

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There was a spaniel roaming, for several months, around the only market in my town, starting from summer to the first cold days. He was covered in dreadlocks, which made it hard for him to move around.

My mom decided to help him: we took the dog, tried to cut off those dreadlocks by ourselves, but we couldn’t since there was a big risk that we might cut his skin. It seemed his mats of hair had grown into his skin. We took the dog to a groomer who broke several tools when trying to cut the dreadlocks off, but who also later gave us a discount because we were helping this homeless dog. The dog turned out to have a really charming look, and the groomer even sprayed him with some special dog perfume.

Later when we were walking with him, everyone around us kept admiring him and asking, “Where did you get such a handsome dog?” From the very place where 90% of the town residents saw him and did nothing.

© Flowwwerr / reddit

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2 days ago was National Black Cat Day, and I heard that many black cats go unadopted. I’m not a cat person, but my wife and I adopted a gorgeous 7-year-old black cat as our first cat. © KevdogFTW

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Pavel Abramov, a 9-year-old boy from Russia, draws animal portraits and exchanges them for medicine and food for shelter animals. A little human with a big and kind heart. © overheardaboutanimals / vk

© Overheard

Bonus: Today a homeless man came up to my 3-year-old daughter. He was unkempt and smelled like old alcohol, with the saddest, watery eyes. My daughter reached out, touched his face, and said: “It’s okay.” He started to cry, thanked us, and left the bus at the nearest stop.”

© Stacey Duggan / quora

The life of any living creature is precious and we should remember that sometimes it’s important to not just pass by, but to save an animal if we are able to. Have you ever saved a homeless animal?