‘If I had to give my pets up, I’d be devastated. There would be no point in living.’ – for foodbank user, Susan Gibson, her pets are her lifeline.
And she’s not alone, demand for support from our pet foodbanks continues to rise. Between January and July this year we distributed 414,316 meals, the equivalent of providing vital food for one animal every ten minutes.
We’re also seeing a dramatic increase in surrender requests; in July we had a 236% increase in requests from October 2022.
On top of this, there are more and more animals coming to us with established behavioural issues or severe health problems. This not only drives up our cost of care but adds to the labour and emotional burden of our kennel team, vets and dog trainers.