This week, from just two of our Caring Pet Cupboard bins, we picked up 101 pounds of cat kibble and 7 cans of cat food. Thank you! It was so much fun to bag it up and think ‘oh go wild, add another cupful!’ We had asked for cat food and you answered.
We also have 5 lb boxes of Darford dog food. They are at the St. Thomas Caring Cupboard, St. Thomas Animal Control on Burwell Road and we are distributing them to people.
Darford’s food is very high quality, so it’s best to mix it with your dog’s usual food at first. That’s wise to do any time you switch food. 
Especially with a high meat protein food like Darford’s, switching all at once can cause the same gastric upset as you might get if you ate a 16 oz. rare Porterhouse steak when you were used to eating vegetarian. It’s not that either are bad for you, it’s just a jolt to the system.
We’ve seen a huge jump in prices lately. It’s positively scary going to the gas station. Food costs are going up. We’re all looking for ways to cut costs. Some things are obvious and pretty easy to do, others aren’t. What STDOA wants to do by providing pet food is to help people bridge that financial gap, just like food banks do for the weekly human grocery supply. We don’t want people to have to see their family pet as an unaffordable ‘luxury’.
Pets serve many functions in our lives. They provide love and companionship. They are guardians and teachers of tolerance and acceptance. A child raised with a pet learns responsibility, caring and always has a friend and sympathetic ear. A senior living alone has companionship with a pet and a reason to go for a walk every day. Someone needing a push to take up running or hiking has that willing partner in a dog. Just stroking a cat and hearing the purrs calms your soul. We’re not doing them a favour so much as they’re doing us one by sharing our lives.
What we’re trying to do with the Caring Pet Cupboard is keep those relationships intact. No benefit happens for anyone by someone who can’t afford food for their dog dumping him or her at the pound, rescue group or in the woods. Taxpayers, rescue volunteers and the animals and their families all pay. What does it tell a child if you say 
“We can’t afford to keep Fluffy any longer, so he’s got to go”? If I were that child, I’d wonder if I would be next.
If you need help feeding Fluffy or Fido, go to the St. Thomas Caring Cupboard on Talbot Street or the Aylmer Corner Cupboard on John St. N. You don’t have to be a registered client to get pet food and there are no restrictions on how often you can come in. All the food is donated. The food banks themselves do not spend any donor money on its purchase.
Jim Stewart took the photo at City Hall of the Darford boxes when we were leaving some of them with the City. You can see Charlie has no respect for the office of Mayor. Thanks to Mayor Heather Jackson-Chapman for helping us distribute the food and The St. Thomas/Elgin Weekly News for publicizing it (Apr 20/11 iss.).
