A food bank for furry friends has been set up in Lincolnshire to help local families feed their pets.
Animal lovers Gemma and Daniel Colson set up Happy Paws Pet Food Bank to provide short-term support to Lincoln, Bardney, Wragby, Horncastle, Woodhall Spa and surrounding villages.
The service hopes to provide free food in response to financial struggles causing pets to be rehomed.
“We knew that lots of human food banks were struggling, so we thought if there are people who can’t afford to feed themselves, then there will be people who can’t afford to feed their pets,” Gemma Colson said.
The couple set up the food bank in November, alongside working full-time jobs and caring for their own two rescue and foster dogs.
“Before we started Happy Paws, I looked on Facebook to see who else was doing this. I got in touch with a lady who ran one in Portsmouth, who was really helpful and gave me advice,” Ms Colson said.
“At the moment, we’re helping 35-40 families feed their pets each week.”
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), a national animal welfare charity, explained that food banks like this can be a lifeline to struggling families.
“Sadly, the Coronavirus pandemic has put a real strain on people’s finances and we have seen an increase in families being unable to afford to provide for their pets,” a spokesperson from the RSPCA said.
They added that pet food banks benefit the health of animals by ensuring they get the right diet, and also improve the well-being of owners, by keeping them together.
Ms Colson said the community response has been fantastic.
“I spend most of the time crying because everyone is so grateful! A lot of people go without food to feed their animals, so now they don’t have to,” she said.
You can donate to the pet food bank on Facebook or provide food online here.
Keeping pets is a rich person’s hobby and I don’t feel compassionate towards people that have pets they cannot afford for whatever reason.
Most pet food is from either cruelly factory-farmed animals, or from the already over-fished sea. On top of that most pets are treated cruelly by being kept indoors most of their lives, often in cages, often altered by neutering, declawing, and with special operations to make their tails or ears stand up unnaturally, etc.
The whole industry is horrible when you get right down to, and make no mistake, it is an industry that exists for making profit. It is time to start ending it.
Sure, if you are an Eskimo who relies on his dogs to survive, that’s different. But for most people, pets are vanity “objects” and treated as such, and are a big part of deforestation and ecological collapse going on.