Furry Friends Food Relief Program Works to Help Feed Local Pets

The Furry Friends Food Relief Program is dedicated to helping East Contra Costa County pets stay with their families when financial times hit hard and pet food costs become a burden.

Sometimes, the financial hardship of purchasing pet food becomes the sole reason a family pet ends up in a shelter. The Furry Friends Food Relief aims to lend assistance by providing food and keeping cats and dogs up to date with vaccinations.

The organization was created in January 2014 by Dezi Pina and Erin Pina after working with other rescue groups and seeing how much dog and cat food was being turned away by rescues due to “lack of quality” while others have so much surplus food they have nowhere to get rid of it—other rescues only allow certain brands be donated.

The Pina’s hope to partner with as many local animal groups as possible who may be forced to turn down donated food or have excess so they can find families in needed with donated food.

“We ask them not to throw away or turn down any food and instead donate it to us. We then in turn give it to those in need including the homeless with pets. We currently have Antioch Animal Services, HALO, Harp and DASH donating food to the program. We hope to get more organizations to partner with us,” said Erin Pina.

The Furry Friends Food Relief Program accepts all types of pet food and they do not turn anything away because they want to help as many families as possible. They also try to provide enough food to families to last them a month’s time period—they do monthly distributions.

The idea was to focus on food, but now they are receiving other donations as well which they are putting it to good use.

“The outreach program started with the food donations. We then just by chance started getting other donated items such as leashes, collars, bedding etc. When we find anyone in need of these items we give them to those people,” said Pina.

Pina admits there are no income guidelines with their programs at this time; however, they do check incomes to see if there is a legitimate need for food and other items.

“We want to be able to help keep their loved ones in their homes and out of the shelters. We don’t want people to feel that there are no other alternatives or assistance. If all they need is up to date on shots and some food, we want to be able to provide resources for those people,” explained Pina. “We do not want people to feel like their last alternative is to surrender a pet to the shelter.

One of the main requirements of the program is that participating animals have to be spay and neutered which they can assist with.

“In order to continue to receive food from the program their pet has to be altered within 3 months of starting with us. To date we have gotten 6 dogs spayed or neutered,” said Pina. “The one thing that we want to get across to the public is that there are resources out there and we try to assist in any way that we can.”

To get assistance, families fill out a food request form from their website and come to the designated distribution location and complete the application. At that time, a determination is made if they need further assistance in the form of food and items—first time applicants will possibly even get a goodie bag which helps set them up with new collars, leashes, discount coupons for shots and toys and treats 5

Education & Training

Another side of the program is aimed at keeping pets out of the shelters with education on pet training, crate training and socialization tips.The education portion of the program is provided in partnership with Meryl Cohen who has her B.S. Animal Science; AKC CGC Certified Evaluator, Selected Mentor Trainer for Animal Behavior College, APDT Full Member; Bully Bark Pit Bull Training and Advocacy Co-Founder

The Furry Friends Food Relief Program  also educate on Spay and neutering and the importance of keeping pets up to date on vaccines and getting micro chipped

Website:  www.furryfriendsfoodre.wix.com/fffr
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FurryFriendFoodReliefProgram

Written by Kristy Keusch