By: Fernando Arce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Tilbury Times Reporter
Pet parents struggling to feed their loved, furry friends can now find over 300 pet food assistance programs in all 10 provinces and one territory with the help of the country’s first interactive Pet Food Bank Map.
Humane Canada launched the map with a $300,000 grant from PetSmart Charities of Canada, days ahead of PetSmart’s second annual Pet Hunger Awareness Day.
The map helps individuals “source local organizations to find pet food and supplies,” says Humane Canada’s director of national programs Kathy Duncan. Until now that has been “one of the biggest challenges,” particularly for pet parents in remote, rural and underserved areas.
But “help may be closer than folks realize,” she told the Tilbury Times Reporter.
“Humane Canada addressed the need for support by starting the National Pet Food Bank over the pandemic. Through close connection with this network, we understand that the demand for pet food assistance has never been higher,” she says.
A national PetSmart Charities of Canada survey found that 70 per cent of Canadians who own dogs or cats typically feed them before they feed themselves. It also found that 80 per cent of Canadians don’t know where to turn for pet food assistance in their community.
“Pets are members of the family, so when pet guardians face food insecurity, they often struggle to feed their pets too,” Duncan says, adding that some of the grant went to existing pet food banks.
Canadians’ use of food banks has increased exponentially, with roughly one in every four people — or close to seven million — facing food insecurity, according to Food Banks Canada. Duncan says “since 60 per cent of households have pets, when families face hunger, their pets do too.”
That’s something AnnMarie McLeod, from the Chatham-Kent Pet Pantry, can attest to.
“With the times being so tough, with grocery prices being so high, people can’t afford to feed both their families and their pets. Unfortunately pets come last in people’s lives,” she says, adding that shelters in the region are “so full of pets who can’t be taken care of anymore.”
Places like the Pet Pantry try to ease that need by collecting donations and delivering them to “all the pets that we possibly can,” says McLeod, and by sharing them with other groups including Pet and Wildlife Rescue and CK Animal Rescue.
Unfortunately, she says, they’re not able to provide other resources because they are a small nonprofit, and bigger organizations “seem to only help the rescues that already have animals at their facilities.”
Additionally, while she supports bigger organizations receiving donations “as long as animals are fed,” she finds it “frustrating” that they still ask for — and receive — government funding. Meanwhile, she says, “the government will not help us due to us not being a registered charity.”
According to Humane Canada’s national Pet Food Bank data, 87 per cent of pet food donations come directly from local communities and individuals.
That’s why the Pet Pantry is currently looking for a bigger facility, says McLeod, so that they “can help more people and accept more donations.”
But “easing this need,” says Duncan, also “requires a multi-faceted approach from all levels of government [including] more affordable housing that is barrier free (without pet restrictions).”
“Humane Canada is currently sponsoring a petition to advocate for the inclusion of Canadian tenants with pets in a Renter’s Bill of Rights and to ban any ‘no pets’ provisions in rental agreements,” she says.
“Another recommendation is increased financial support for those in need, and investment in mental health/substance use disorder supports. But this starts by utilizing a housing-first, pet-inclusive model to provide stability.”
In Ontario, landlords cannot legally ban renters with pets, though they can evict them if the animal “results in substantial interference with the reasonable enjoyment of others or the legal rights of a tenant or landlord,” according to the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO).
But as a recent blog from Odurra Legal Services put it, “it is common to see landlords state, ‘NO PETS ALLOWED.’”
Once they’re able to move to a larger facility, McLeod says it will be called “Lucy’s Place,” in memory of her lab.
“We will have everything pets need like food, beds, blankets, leashes, collars, toys, etc., and even, in time, have a groomer who will come in a couple times a week to do nails and groom emergency cases,” she says. “Hoping one day we can make this a reality very soon.”
