Pet owners hit hard by 'unprecedented' inflation crisis, humane society says

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The Toronto Humane Society said that pet owners are in crisis when it comes to the cost of keeping and feeding their pets due to the high rate of inflation.

THS launched the awareness and fundraising effort, torontoincrisis.com, in an attempt to keep pet owners and their animals together.

“We absolutely are experiencing unprecedented crisis across all of our program areas,” said Dillon Dodson, the manager of social work at THS.

“The number of families that are applying to our urgent-care program increased substantially. The number of families that are engaging in our preventative and early intervention programs, such as a food bank every single day and our community days (held monthly providing donated food, crates, muzzles, leashes) folks are waiting around the block to access, it’s really, really astronomical in terms of the growing numbers of requests (for food, etc.) that are coming in. And these are families that are doing their level best, but are simply overwhelmed.”

Between the food bank and the community days — the latter of which can see between 50 to 100 families line up — Dodson said that more than 114,000 pounds of food was handed out from January to June.

Often, Dodson said, pet owners have to choose between feeding themselves or their pets.

“We’re sort of hearing the heartbreaking conversations where families are trying to decide whether they should forgo their own groceries for pet food or whether they have to make those decisions around simply re-homing their animal because they don’t how to provide basic provisions for their families, while making sure their animal is having high quality of life as well,” said Dodson.

“The need has been increasing steadily. I think it’s becoming more and more apparent as the cost of living continues to rise, as gas continues to rise, groceries continue to rise.”

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The THS Urgent Care Foster Program, which has seen more than 600 requests since the beginning of the year, provides temporary foster care to families experiencing hardship and has already seen 80 animals fostered and returned home.

“So those were 80 animals we were able to maintain the bond and we have another 125 that are currently in the program,” said Dodson.

“And so our urgent care program has an 80% reunification rate. Eighty per cent of the time we’re able to maintain that family structure, that bonded family and have that animal return when the crisis has sort of subsided.”