This is a lovely example of:
- How Blue Cross pet food banks can be a lifesaver for many people on tight budgets particularly retired, elderly people who’s companion cats are so very important to them and;
- How cat companions are almost lifesavers to some retired people, living alone on restricted budgets. They must be allowed to keep their cat companions.
Gwen, 84, from Bicester, Oxfordshire, UK, retired from her full-time job as a cleaner at a local school four years ago. She is recovering from a stroke. She has a limited budget which is being squeezed in the UK in various ways including what was inflation until recently and now the rising cost of fuel and the general rising cost of living.
This makes it ever harder for her to look after her two kittens: Lucky and Socks.
She said (as hundreds of thousands would) that, “They are such good company”. She explained how important they were to her as one sits on her lap and the other sits by her side while she does her wordsearch puzzle.
She added that, “They mean a lot, they really do. I can’t go to sleep if they are not in at night. It would upset me tremendously if anything happened to them.”
She further added that, “With all the costs going up the pet food bank is a brilliant help. I don’t know what I’d do without the help.”
That’s the important point. A lot of people need this kind of help and pet food banks have not been around that long in my recollection. We had food banks for people and then we had warm banks for people (i.e. places to go away and keep warm because people couldn’t keep their homes warm).
And now we have pet food banks. Blue Cross say that the rising cost of fuel to keep homes warm together with the decision to withdraw the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners (£200 annually granted at the beginning of winter) will lead to further abandonment of companion animals at some of their centres of which there are 11. They also run 4 animal hospitals.
More: 2 things an elderly, ill person can do when adopting a cat
