Kathy wonders..
Posted: February 18, 2009 Filed under: Apso Aficionados 1 Comment
Hmmmmm, what’s next? Is this an ingenious plan to prevent doggy
dumping in shelters because their owners can no longer care for them?
Have you seen pets used like this in the States? I guess this is
another way of the whole family pitching in to add more money to
struggling household budgets. Are you finding new statistics on the
overall effects of the economic crisis on dog ownership? What does
history tell us? What happened with pets during the Great Depression?
Kunza at FleetFire Timbers 
My grandparents raised a family on several farms during the Depression. From what I recall of conversations with my Mom, the dogs were fed left overs and scraps. Some days, there weren’t any (given it was a family of 11, mostly boys). Commercial fdog food hadn’t yet been developed. Based on what I know of farm dogs, I’m sure they supplemented with whatever they could beg, steal or catch on their own.
Another tidbit about the Depression … families moved from farm to farm every couple years or so, letting the land lay fallow. Commercial fertilizers were not available so they had no choice but to move as the soil nutrients were depleted.