Fhilcar Faunillani 
The puppy lay in the dirt, belly swollen, legs useless. Her soft whimpers echoed through the village. Nobody stopped. Faces turned away, footsteps hurried past. She was small, broken, unseen. But her eyes, wide and pleading, caught the morning light. A little girl knelt beside her. Her small hand hovered, unsure, then touched the puppy’s …
The door slammed shut. Two dogs whimpered, their pleas ignored in the empty yard. Lily, the black one, pressed her nose against the gate. She barked softly, tail wagging, every time a shadow passed. Daisy, her white-furred sister, lay still, her swollen belly heavy with unborn pups. A scribbled note hung on the fence: “Please …
The dog’s eyes followed the car’s red taillights, her paws pounding the cold dirt. She couldn’t catch it, but she ran anyway, her swollen belly swaying. Her name was Afina, though we learned that later. She was a stray, abandoned just before her pups were due. The road was empty now, the dust settling where …
The dogs tugged hard at the leash, their noses low, breath steaming in the cold. I stumbled forward, heart pounding, unsure what they’d found in the snow. Their barks echoed through the quiet forest, sharp and urgent. The winter air bit at my fingers as I followed, boots crunching on the frozen ground. The dogs …
The phone rang softly in the evening. A woman’s voice trembled, asking for help. Her dog, Duke, was hurting. His paw had swollen, each step a heavy burden. She spoke his name like it carried her heart. Duke limped toward us when we arrived. His eyes, warm and brown, held a quiet plea. Pain shadowed …
The sun hung high over the dusty path. A small dog inched forward, his body thin and tired from the long day. The young man pedaled his old bicycle up the slope. He saw the shape ahead, not sure what it was at first. Maybe just some forgotten thing by the roadside. But as he …
The old dog lay in the dim corner, his eyes half-closed against the world. A soft whimper escaped, not from pain, but from the weight of forgotten days. He had known better times, perhaps, though they seemed distant now. The room around him held echoes of neglect, but in that moment, something shifted—a door opened, …
The small dog trembled in the dim corner of her crate. Her eyes, wide and silent, caught the light just enough to show a quiet plea for someone to see her. We had come for another dog that day. Griselda, steady and waiting. But fate turned our steps toward this forgotten one. She had been …
Her eyes were half-closed, trembling in the dusk. A tiny dog, all bones and whispers, lay curled by the Riviera de Don Bosco. She was alone. Her body shivered, not just from cold but from a wound that spoke of years forgotten. A rope had carved a story into her neck, raw and deep, a …
The sun hung low over the quiet road, casting long shadows. A woman paused, her heart catching at the sight of a still form by the ditch. She knelt beside him, this weary dog with eyes that held old sorrows. No wag of tail, no spark of recognition—just a quiet surrender to whatever came next. …
The sun burned the pavement, and a thin cat staggered through the heat. His ribs pressed sharp against his fur, each step a quiet plea for something better. Vern appeared in Brooklyn like a ghost. No one knew him. No one claimed him. His spine was a map of hunger, each vertebra a marker of …
The rain fell soft on the forest floor, soaking the leaves. A puppy shivered alone, her eyes wide with fear. She was small, barely a shadow in the underbrush. Her belly swollen, her tail wounded, she curled tight against the cold. Ants crawled over her matted fur, and she didn’t move. She didn’t know how …
The girl’s voice cracked over the phone, trembling with tears. “Please save this dog.”Her words hung in the air, heavy with a child’s desperate hope. I could almost see the dog, curled up in some forgotten corner, waiting for someone to care. The evening was cool, the kind that makes you pull your jacket tighter. …
Her tiny body shivered in the alley’s shadow. Fleas crawled over her matted fur, and her eyes, crusted shut, saw nothing but darkness. She sat still, a kitten named Gingham, waiting for someone to notice. The city hummed around her—cars, voices, footsteps—but she was invisible. A soft mew escaped her, barely a whisper, as if …
The old cat sat on the sidewalk, his orange fur dulled by years of dust. His eyes, half-closed, held a story no one knew. He didn’t move much. Neighbors said he’d been there forever, a shadow slipping between fences, surviving on scraps. Twelve years, they guessed, maybe more. A long time to go without a …