Best Friends’ No More Homeless Pets department has resources to help people with pets find pet-friendly housing and save on the costs of caring for their pets. Links to those resources and others can be found at the end of this article. For more information, e-mail NMHP@bestfriends.org or call (435) 644-2001, ext. 4800.

In this story, the first of a two-part series on “petonomics,” Best Friends staff writer Sandy Miller looks at the growth in pet food banks and provides helpful links if you find yourself stretched thin financially. Check back Tuesday afternoon for the second part of the series, which offers suggestions for saving money on vet care.

The United States is weathering one of the roughest economic storms in recent history, and people with pets are feeling the pinch.

But there’s some good news. Many individuals and organizations are offering help to ease pet owners’ financial burdens.

Pet food banks are springing up around the country. Some veterinarians and clinics are offering services at a discount. Many organizations offer low-cost, and sometimes free, spay/neuter services. There’s help for pet owners facing foreclosure on their homes, as well as for shelters and rescues bursting at the seams with abandoned and relinquished pets. And there are many things pet owners themselves can do to trim costs when it comes to caring for their pets.

The goal of Best Friends’ First Home, Forever Home campaign is to provide resources to help people keep their pets. It’s one of four Best Friends campaigns aimed at reaching the goal of No More Homeless Pets.

Across the nation, people are stepping up to help pet owners during these hard economic times. One of the ways in which they’re helping is by starting pet food banks.

After hearing that people in Atlanta, Georgia, were abandoning their pets or dropping them off at shelters because they could no longer afford pet food, Ann King, owner of Blooming Cookies/Paws Fifth Avenue Pet Gifts, rallied the Atlanta pet community, uniting shelters, rescues and pet businesses to create a pet-food relief network.

Today, the Save Our Pets Food Bank gives away more than 3,000 pounds of dog and cat food a week, and on distribution days, as many as 200 people line up for a month’s supply of pet food.

“Some [people] are a little embarrassed, but everyone can have a financial problem, especially in this economy, and that’s why we’re here,” King told USA Today.

Save Our Pets is compiling a list of pet food banks across the country. Its website also has a wealth of information on other ways to save on pet care, as well as information on how you can start a pet food bank in your own community. Darlene McCaslin started Pikes Peak Pet Pantry in Colorado Springs last year.

“It means the world to me,” Rose Laxson told USA Today. “When feeding yourself is uncertain, it is so comforting to know you can feed your pet.”

Pet food banks and retailers are also lending a helping hand to shelters and rescues, which are finding themselves with an overabundance of pets to care for.

“There are a lot of shelters and rescues that rely almost solely on donated food to feed their animals,” says Anna Gonce, associate director of Best Friends Community Programs and Services. “This is especially true for small rescues that don’t have facilities and rely on foster homes to care for their animals. These groups typically partner with their local Wal-Mart or grocery store to take all the pet food that has been damaged.”

Theresa Strader, founder of the Colorado-based National Mill Dog Rescue, gets food from a local dog-food distributor in Colorado Springs. The distributor gives her ripped bags of food that can’t be sold in stores.

Strader says rescue organizations should contact their local pet-food distributors as well as their local PetSmart and Petco stores, many of which are willing to donate damaged bags of pet food.

“Let them know you’re there and that you need help,” Strader says. “Just like anything else in life, you have to ask for what you want. If you ask, people will respond.”

Photos by Clay Myers

As part of Best Friends’ 25th anniversary in 2009, our goal is to double our membership, so we can double our efforts to bring about a time when all companion animals have a forever home. What can you do to help? Give the Gift of a Best Friends membership to family and friends.

Resources

Check out Best Friends’ You and Your Pets resource library and Animal Help resources.

The Humane Society of the United States has a comprehensive list of organizations that offer financial aid to people with pets. The list includes pet food banks and organizations offering discounted veterinary services, temporary foster care and other resources.

No Paws Left Behind has a number of resources to help pet owners facing foreclosure, as well as resources to help shelters and rescues that are struggling financially because of the abundance of abandoned pets coming to their organizations.

You can also contact your local shelters and rescue organizations. Most have lists of local resources for acquiring pet food, pet-friendly housing and low-cost veterinary care.

April 7, 2009 : 10:05 AM ET
posted by: animalresources

Thanks for the story! Another resource:

Pet Food Help Oregon (and Nationwide!) http://petfoodhelporegon.blogspot.com

~Barb, AnimalResources

March 19, 2009 : 2:05 PM ET
posted by: Clarinda Karpov

Please contact President Obama--at www.whitehouse.gov--and other elected officials and ask for a pet-food food stamps program to be established. Pet-food food stamps that could ONLY be used for pet food--and perhaps supplies like litter!--would help so many going through hard economic times to keep their beloved companions. Also, Time Magazine calls food stamps a good economic stimulus, because they are spent, not saved. Thank you! -- Clarinda Karpov, Omaha, NE

March 15, 2009 : 12:42 AM ET
posted by: Keehlala

We run a small rural shelter in Washington state. We hold "Pet food drives" at least every other month. We have found a large network of support even in this hard hit economy. One way to increase traffic, even if they only donate something small, is we purchase $50 worth of scratch tickets, and everyone who makes ANY donation, even a dollar, or food, or balnkets, gets in the drawing. We even find a sponser to purchase the tickets sometimes. We more than double the amount of food that is donated every time we do this compared with times we dont. Also rescue's and shelters should check with their local food banks, because ours is not allowed to distribute the pet food they COULD get from their national suppliers. We get together with them, and arrange to have them recieve it, then we collect it, and help distribute it when people come in to surrender pets because they cannot feed them. This is a resource that would otherwise go un-tapped. Schools are another awesome source. with all the animal programs on TV, kids are VERY willing to help. Arrange with a grade or middle school ( we dont do as well at high schools) to bring in a donated culligan water jug ( your local distributor usually should have tons that they cannot re-fill) have the kids have contsts decorating them, and pit one class/grade against another, to "change a shelter pet's life" we raised over $400 in 3 weeks for our spay/neuter program, and now we are raising change for senior dental work, and kitten formula. The prize? cupcakes (donated) and they get to have a visit from a batch of bottle babies to the winning class. The thing is, to network. What you cannot use, someone else in rescue certainly can, and the more you put yourself OUT in the community, showing that you are there for the animals ( like my hero's Best Freinds) the more they will respect and support you. We started less than 2 years ago with a shelter who had a 80% euthanasia rate. We are less than 44% now, and declining every day, but we had to TELL the public what we needed, and HOW they would have to involve themselves for us to lower that number even further. In a small rural area, as the only shelter for 150 miles, no kill is not an option for us, but we make the public LOOK at every euthanasia statistic, every budget woe, and we tell them how they can help us if they want it to change for the better.

March 13, 2009 : 8:25 AM ET
posted by: PW

Are the major organizations like the Salvation Army and Goodwill (and other local resources) also considering peoples' pets??

Whenever I contribute to my local food drive, I always bring cat and dog food in addition to whatever people food I bring.

Remember also -- meat trimmings from the local supermarkets -- I bet they throw out a ton of that stuff -- MOST of which can be cooked and fed to pets (not usually the faty or the bones -- but then again I have cats so I don't know what bones would be safe for dogs)

And for those organizations who are in financial distress -- would having a non-profit or tax-exempt status help in any way???

March 10, 2009 : 11:08 AM ET
posted by: jermain

The organization I volunteer with might not be around much longer if they don't find more money. We were talking about how to write urgent requests for help without sounding like we're desparate even though we are. We need to somehow convey the emergency money situation but we also don't want them to feel like they are just wasting their money if they give to a org that might be closing its doors soon if the money doesn't start coming in more. It seems like we have to say something extreme to get their attention these days since people are being very careful about their money but they need to know we won't be around much longer if they don't give.

March 9, 2009 : 10:13 PM ET
posted by: nicole

In order to fight BSL (banning of pit bulls) - please click on the following link. The message goes direct to President Obama and your elected officials.

http://www.rallycongress.com/stop-breed-banning-/1584/stop-breed-banning-now/

March 9, 2009 : 5:50 PM ET
posted by: bug34

We have noticed grants are drying up or they are taking three times as long to get any money from them and the amount is much less. This is because more groups than ever are asking for help and also these grants can come from the interest from investments and those have also been hit hard. We are covering things like food and vet care ourselves and we never had to do this before. We can't do this forever though.

March 9, 2009 : 5:08 PM ET
posted by: bogiedew

Well, in my email, I did not really say much. Someone I volunteer with sent out information about the Pet Food Bank, and I just replied to all volunteers and said if anyone wants to donate, give it to me and I will drop it off. And people donated. The flyer I made for the people at work was also pretty basic. I came up with it real fast, printed it and passed it out. I pretty much said something like this:

PET FOOD DRIVE

I am collecting food for an organization called Meals Fur Pets. This organizatin collects food for people that are having a hard time feeding their pets. By supplying food for their animals, it is keeping pets out of shelters.

Something like that...sorry I cant remember exactly what I said. Only 3 people at my work donated.

But I really got a lot of food..and bought a lot myself. I clipped coupons and bought what was on sale. Where I volunteer, if people donated food that the shelter could not use ( they feed the cats Science Diet ), they gave me some. Some went to ferals, some to me. I think I dropped off well over 300 bags and cans of food. I am overwelmed by the amount of donations I got. For me, I think email worked best. I sent out one, then a reminder a couple weeks later and people contacted me. I hate hearing that so many people are having a hard time feeding their rescues and pets. I wish more help could be found.

March 9, 2009 : 3:09 PM ET
posted by: dalmation rescuer

We did a food collection last Oct and got a decent amount but no where near what we used to get. We ran out of food in Jan we did a fundraiser and that was depressing we didn't get much money. We can't do a food collection every two months. We have food collection barrels they don't get much food in them now. So we're diving into our own pockets for a lot of the food. Many of our members are on very fixed incomes I'm charging the food most of the time.