Keep the donations coming to keep animals' bellies full

Have you ever gotten that phone call at the last minute letting you know that 10 people are coming over tonight for dinner? You immediately start worrying that you won't have enough food to feed everyone. (You probably also want to pull your spouse aside and ask them exactly how they thought inviting 10 people to your house for dinner tonight without speaking to you first seemed like a good idea, but that's another conversation for another day.)

At the Aiken SPCA, we've got lots of mouths to feed. Some days we have as many as 200 dogs and cats looking to us to provide them with breakfast and dinner each day. As you can imagine, that's a lot of kibble to have on hand at any one time.

We sometimes get to "cook" for goats, horses, rabbits, birds, iguanas, ferrets and pot bellied pigs. Our kennel staff "chefs" are responsible for preparing specialized meals for all of these animals and boy can they eat!

We are very fortunate that many people and businesses help to provide the "groceries" needed to feed all of our guests. Our dogs eat mainly Pedigree dog food, while our cats enjoy Whiskas brand cat food. In Columbia, Masterfoods Inc. supplies more than half of the food that comes in as donations. Once a month, we drive over there and fill up our van with dog and cat food.

These donations are greatly appreciated, but our hungry animals need even more food to keep those bellies full. Local businesses have stepped up and help fill in some of that gap. Volunteers Bruce and Muf Fuller designed and built donation bins that are now in space donated by Boots, Bridles and Britches, PetSmart and SuperPetz in Aiken where shoppers can make a contribution to our shelter animals without having to drive all the way to the shelter.

Local schools, churches and civic organizations also have pet food drives for us that bring in a lot of canned food, treats and toys the animals truly enjoy. Just this past week alone, the Palmetto Kiwanis and Chukker Creek Elementary School had a food drive for us. So did St. Mary's School, and we recently received donations from Aiken Prep School, too.

Other people are great about driving big bags of cat and dog food up to our shelter, along with donations of blankets, towels and cleaning supplies. All of this is greatly appreciated. If coming to the shelter is too far or if you are afraid you'll adopt every cat in the lobby, you can drop your donations off at our downtown Aiken thrift store at 220 Park Ave.

If your business, school, civic group or church would like to host a pet food drive to help us keep our 200 hungry mouths fed, give us a call at 648-6863. Even better, if you'd like to adopt one of our great animals to give us one less mouth to feed, come on down or visit us online at www.aikenspca.org.