It Takes a City: Keeping the Food Bowls Full In Hard Times

Full Belly Bus is a local non-profit collecting food donations to feed dogs in need. photo: Full Belly Bus

We believe that dogs are inherently trustworthy. When you look into the large, liquid, earnest eyes of a dog, you would never imagine you could be looking into the eyes of a liar and a thief. But when it comes to food, all bets are off. Not only will dogs insist that they have never been fed, not even once, but some will take every opportunity to rob your dinner table blind.

Squirrel, my cousin’s Lab mix rescue, was a shameless beggar. She had an extremely innocent face and a patented “who, me?” expression, coupled with a Machiavellian talent for tugging at your heartstrings. At every meal, she would shuffle up under the dinner table to lay her head across your knees and longingly stare upwards. It’s possible she hoped that food would suddenly fall from your fork onto your lap, or perhaps she was using telepathy to convince you to share some tasty morsels.

In any case, my cousin had warned me that Squirrel was also a thief, but somehow I didn’t put two and two together. I had come for brunch, bringing an assortment of scones, bagels, and muffins from a nearby bakery. After placing the closed (and taped shut!) bakery box on top of the kitchen counter, I left the room to bring in another bag. I was gone for five minutes tops. During those five minutes, Squirrel got up on her hind legs, opened the box, and proceeded to devour every single pastry. I came into the kitchen to catch her in the act of eating the last muffin out of the box. She looked extremely guilty but was ultimately unrepentant.

My friends’ rescue Beagle, also coincidentally named Squirrel, was fond of cats, as well as cat food. One time she managed to tear into the dry feline food and ate so much of it that she looked like a watermelon with legs. You could practically make out the shape of every piece of kibble against her stomach. Another time she found a pouch of wet cat food and ate the whole thing, pouch included. Of course, she didn’t limit her food-related larceny to just cat food. Nothing was safe from her Beagle nose.

I was a houseguest on the night that she really took it to the next level. I woke up in the middle of the night to discover that Squirrel had infiltrated the guest room. She had somehow opened up my (zipped!) backpack to extract two bars of fancy chocolate that I had brought as a gift but forgotten about. The first bar was already eaten, along with the wrapper, and Squirrel was working on getting the second one polished off. Obviously, chocolate is toxic for dogs, so I ripped the soggy pieces of the chocolate bar away from Squirrel, much to her dismay. Then I ran down the hall to bang on my friends’ bedroom door, screaming that I’d accidentally poisoned their dog with my forgotten chocolate. Luckily, Squirrel was just fine, and lived for many more years to steal a lot more food.

Both Squirrels were rescues, so they probably had some lingering food insecurity or other food-related trauma. While getting my Wildlife Rehabilitation certificate, I learned that food insecurity can actually lead to serious behavioral issues in captive animals, including “resource-guarding” and even cannibalism. I also learned that I shouldn’t have tried to take away Squirrel’s chocolate bar, as it might have caused her more stress (though obviously in a potential poisoning situation that’s a hard call). In dogs, food guarding can escalate to biting and other forms of aggression, which can then lead to owner surrender or abandonment.

Fortunately, with proper training, food aggression can be reduced. But what if you don’t know  where your next meal is coming from? Unless you’ve been living entirely off the grid for the last couple of years, you’re no doubt familiar with many of the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those with the good fortune to have jobs that lend themselves to remote work have become used to working from home – so much so that returning to work in the office has actually become a contested topic. Others had little choice but to go to work anyway, because their jobs simply could not be done remotely. And still others have had their hours cut or jobs eliminated entirely because of the upheaval caused by the pandemic.

It seems as if hardly a week goes by that we are not reading about yet another long-standing restaurant or other institution closing. Community food banks have seen significantly increased demand. And when there is not enough money to go around to provide food for the humans in a household, they can be forced to make heartbreaking decisions, decisions that may well impact their furry family members first. This sad reality is reflected in a dramatic increase in the number of shelter surrenders, which has strained an already overtaxed system.

Happily, there are a number of organizations devoted to trying to make sure that people never have to give up their best friends because they cannot afford to feed them. Here in the Bay Area, these include Full Belly Bus (FBB) and SFDOG, among others. Full Belly Bus offers monthly mobile pet food pantries for people experiencing homelessness. And since the start of the pandemic, SFDOG’s Pet Food Pantry has handed out nearly 60 tons of pet food in San Francisco’s Mission District.

But not everyone knows these resources are available. If you’re reading this and know someone who is in a tough spot, please share this information with them. Let’s all work together to make sure that everybody’s food bowls stay full. 

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The San Francisco Commission of Animal Control and Welfare (Animal Commission) meets on the second Thursday of each month at 5:30 p.m. The meetings are still being held virtually over WebEx. Details at https://sfgov.org/animals