It’s easy to become cynical about human nature. Just open the newspaper to any random page and you’ll likely find a story of cruelty and stupidity.

And even the well-intentioned can be overwhelmed by the difficulty of improving the world. Most of the readers of this blog, say, would love to help dogs, but may not have a clear idea of how to do that. I usually count myself among them.

So I’m passing along a two-fer: An opportunity to redeem your faith in human nature and to help a dog.

Jim McBean of DoggyBytes.ca isn’t exactly a stranger — he’s been a guest blogger on this site — but I don’t know his cousin Theresa. Or her family. I do know, through Jim’s blog today, that their dog, Ginger (aka Shugie), needs life-saving surgery. So go over to his site and read the story. Then make a donation, even just a little one. I did, and it’s made me feel better about myself and about the world.

Try it. You’ll see.

Update: By coincidence, I just came across an article in The Week about the nature of compassion, how it’s easier to wrap your head around the plight of a single sufferer — in the article’s example, a small dog lost at sea — than a group in distress. It’s a fascinating excerpt from a book called The Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam. Check it out here.

10 thoughts on “The Kindness of Strangers”

  1. Edie, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!

    Thank you for writing this post, thank you for donating and thank you for helping to renew MY faith in humanity.

    If I could hug you, I would. =)

  2. Hello Edie,

    Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your donation and for writing your post. I never thought we would ever have to do this but there is no way I could put a member of my family down when her injury can be fixed. I am down stairs right now with my little ones so that we could keep Ginger company (she can’t walk up the stairs very well and it’s terribly painful when she does).

    THANK YOU,

    Fraser Family

  3. Interesting post. I’ll definitely read up on the kindness of strangers. Meanwhile, I made a donation to Shugie – one thing is easy to understand, the pain of pets

  4. Edie, Michele, Clare & Diane, thank you very much for your donation on behalf of Teresa, Ginger and family.

    As of tonight, PayPal shows $854CDN and I believe there has been another $200 or so called in directly to the vet hospital.

    We’ll keep you posted.

    1. Wow, that’s excellent! Glad we could help. Yes please do keep us posted about how the donations are going, when the surgery is happening, how Shugie/Ginger is doing in the meantime, etc. She’s now got an entire surrogate family rooting for her!

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