In a sign of the times in Europe’s biggest economy, poodles, terriers and sheep dogs are queuing up for rations at Berlin’s first soup kitchen for pets. The venue is a disused night school in the former communist east Berlin, where the smell of straw, dry food and wet dog lingers in the air as a Jack Russell in a chequered coat waddles past on its way to the kibbles line for biscuits. Pensioners and those on the dole qualify for the free pet food buffet which opened in the district of Treptow in mid-October, allowing those with no disposable income the chance to hold on to their beloved dogs and cats.
Berlin opens soup kitchen for pets
A growing number of Americans are giving up their dogs and cats to animal shelters as the emotional bonds between people and pets get tested by economic ones. From the Malvern, Pa., man who turned his two dogs over in order to help pay for his mother’s cancer treatments to the New York woman who euthanized her cat rather than keeping it alive with expensive medications, rising economic anxieties make it increasingly difficult for some pet owners to justify spending $1,000 a year or more on pet food, veterinary services and other costs.
