The rising cost of pet food is just another stressor for struggling Central New York families, but local agencies are working together to help.
Syracuse Dog Control officer Barbara Mortas sees loose dogs running through city neighborhoods more than ever.
"We can just assume with the volume that they're not just stray dogs," Mortas said. "They started from somewhere. You know that people are just letting them loose."
Dog control is also getting more requests to take an animal to the city’s dog shelter. But that’s problematic because the shelter is full all the time, in part because fewer people are adopting dogs these days.
"Dogs aren't moving like they used to," Mortas said. "People can't afford to live, let alone add on extra family members, so I think that's why we've hit a standstill."
While some families are being forced to choose between feeding themselves and their pets, Syracuse Pit Crew founder Stefanie Heath said the housing crisis only exacerbates the problem.
"People are having to move and they're not able to find housing that can, you know, meet financial, their financial requirements, but also a pet requirement or that they have like a restriction that that housing or whatever that might look like so they're having to give up their pet," Heath said.
The Pit Crew has joined forces with the city of Syracuse, local food pantries, the Humane Society of the United States and Chewy, the online purveyor of pet products, to start a program to get to the root of the problem.
Chewy donated 25 pallets piled high with pet food and supplies to three Syracuse food pantries that will begin offering pet food to clients. At St. Lucy’s pantry, in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, volunteer Tina Fitzgerald hears requests for pet food all the time, but can’t help. This changes all that.
"It should never be a choice between feeding yourself and feeding your animals," Fitzgerald said. "Just like our seniors, our seniors depend on those animals for love and support."
Heath said her organization has a program called Keep Us Together to raise funds that will keep the pet food shelves full at local pantries, once all the Chewy products are given away.
"We want to make sure that having a pet is equitable to everyone, and so we want to be able to provide that service of offering free food, other supplies like kitty litter or toys and collars and leashes," Heath said.
