Coping with Pet Food Insecurity in Low-Income Communities

ABSTRACT

To what extent, if at all, do low-income owners of dogs and/or cats worry about running out of pet food before being able to buy more? If this insecurity exists among these pet owners, what contributes to it besides the inability to afford pet food? And whatever the sources of pet food insecurity, how do owners cope with it? A non-random, snowball sample of clients (n = 40) at three pet food pantries operated in Charlotte, North Carolina, Washington, DC, and Hyannis, Massachusetts were interviewed to understand their perspective toward and experience with feeding their pets. Results indicate that respondents commonly experienced emotional distress because they worried about being able to feed their pets and resorted to a variety of coping strategies to lessen this insecurity. They used pet food pantries, stretched their available supply of pet food, saved to buy pet food, shared human food with pets, asked for or borrowed pet food or money, and/or made sacrifices to buy pet food. Using these strategies enabled respondents to not surrender or abandon their pets and to see themselves as responsible owners, even if what they did fell short of how they typically fed their pets or what they considered being best for them. The extent to which these strategies are effective and parallel to those used by people in or near poverty to cope with human food insecurity are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Food insecurity
• food pantries
• human–animal interaction
• pet food
• social class

Acknowledgements

Bennett Simon provided valuable comments on the interview guide as well as many insights into pet-keeping in poverty. Suzanne D’Alonzo of the Humane Society of Charlotte, Delal Salah and Katie Rotramel of the Humane Rescue Alliance, and Natasha St. Amand of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals made it possible to interview pet owners using their food pantries.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The term “pet” rather than “companion animal” is used throughout this article because most participants, both pet owners and shelter workers, employed this term and because pets were not always companions.

2 While the exact number of pet food pantries is unknown, their numbers are purportedly increasing (Hu, 2016). According to one online resource (Generation Wags, 2020), there are at least 172 pet food pantries in the United States. However, this number likely understates the total since many may not be easily identified because they are small, low-profile programs that are independently run or attached to local animal shelters.

Additional information

Funding

The Food and Nutrition Resources Foundation (FNR), the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) generously funded this study.