ABSTRACT

To what extent, if at all, do low-income owners of dogs and/or cats worry about running out of pet food before being able to buy more? If this insecurity exists among these pet owners, what contributes to it besides the inability to afford pet food? And whatever the sources of pet food insecurity, how do owners cope with it? A non-random, snowball sample of clients (n = 40) at three pet food pantries operated in Charlotte, North Carolina, Washington, DC, and Hyannis, Massachusetts were interviewed to understand their perspective toward and experience with feeding their pets. Results indicate that respondents commonly experienced emotional distress because they worried about being able to feed their pets and resorted to a variety of coping strategies to lessen this insecurity. They used pet food pantries, stretched their available supply of pet food, saved to buy pet food, shared human food with pets, asked for or borrowed pet food or money, and/or made sacrifices to buy pet food. Using these strategies enabled respondents to not surrender or abandon their pets and to see themselves as responsible owners, even if what they did fell short of how they typically fed their pets or what they considered being best for them. The extent to which these strategies are effective and parallel to those used by people in or near poverty to cope with human food insecurity are discussed.

摘要

狗和/或猫的低收入所有者在什么程度上担心（如果有的话）在购买更多食品之前担心宠物食品用光了？如果这些宠物主人之间存在这种不安全感，那么除了无法负担宠物食品之外，还有哪些原因呢？不论宠物食品不安全的根源如何，业主如何应对？客户的非随机，滚雪球样本（n = 40）在北卡罗莱纳州夏洛特，华盛顿特区和马萨诸塞州海恩尼斯的三个宠物食品储藏室接受了采访，以了解他们对饲养宠物的看法和经验。结果表明，受访者通常会感到情绪困扰，因为他们担心自己不能养宠物，并采取各种应对策略来减轻这种不安全感。他们使用宠物食品储藏室，扩展了可用的宠物食品供应，节省了购买宠物食品的费用，与宠物共享人类食品，索要或借用宠物食品或金钱，和/或做出了牺牲以购买宠物食品。使用这些策略，受访者就不会投降或放弃宠物，并把自己视为负责任的主人，即使他们所做的工作与通常喂养宠物的方式或认为最适合自己的宠物相比都不够。讨论了这些战略在多大程度上是有效的，并且与贫困或贫困地区的人们用来应对人类粮食不安全的战略相平行。