Feeding furry friends

Area farm industry representatives are trying to prove they care about animals.

Neal Cardin

Ray Allen Mackey, left, and Chuck Crutcher joins others in helping load donated pet food onto a trailer bound for the Hardin County Animal Refuge Center on Tuesday morning at the Elizabethtown Southern States store.

Buy this photo

Neal Cardin

Penny Edwards, operator of the Animal Refuge Center, is shown Tuesday.

Buy this photo

View Map

Southern States in Elizabethtown, the Hardin County Cattlemen’s Association, Hardin County Farm Bureau and Farm Credit Services are donating 2,000 pounds of dog and cat food to the Animal Refuge Center, a no-kill shelter in Vine Grove. This is the second year the organizations have made such a donation.

Representatives from the groups helped Penny Edwards, manager of the refuge center, load 500 pounds of Southern States brand cat and dog food onto a trailer Tuesday that she hitched to the back of the shelter’s Ford Explorer. The rest will be provided to the shelter as needed.

Edwards said the donation is probably the largest donation to the shelter that comes from Hardin County and goes a long way toward feeding between 100 and 150 cats and 14 dogs housed there.

The organizations donated food to the shelter last year following state legislation setting up the Livestock Care Standards Commission to set minimum care standards for livestock.

Roger Nesbitt, spokesman for Kentucky Farm Bureau, said the donation is meant to support a worthy cause and show the public farmers care about animals.

Nesbitt said some activist groups and livestock care laws passed recently in other states make it appear there is widespread abuse in the industry, rather than only some poor examples.

“It has created a misconception that there’s widespread abuse, and that’s simply not true,” he said. “It really hurts farmers because they pick up the newspaper and read that the public is beginning to believe that they’re mistreating their cows or chickens or whatever.”

Nesbitt said counties across the state are making donations, taking members of the public on farm field trips and doing whatever  they can think of to undermine the misconception that they mistreat their animals.

He said it doesn’t make sense for farmers to abuse their animals because livestock is their livelihood.

Chuck Crutcher, a cattle farmer and director of the county Cattlemen’s Association and the county Farm Bureau, said he takes the best possible care of his cows.

He said besides showing the public farmers care about animals, many farmers have cats and dogs and support the shelter’s mission.
Edwards said animals tend to stay at the shelter for a long time because it’s a no-kill shelter, and eating a steady diet of the same food is good for the animals’ systems.

The donation mixed with other food probably will last the shelter about nine months and cut down on the money the shelter will have to spend, Edwards said.

“It makes you feel good because people actually believe in the work you’re doing, and they want to support it,” she said.

The center accepts all types of pet food. Donations can be made by calling 877-6064 or dropping items off at the shelter at 185 Basham Trail.

Amber Coulter can be reached at (270) 505-1746 or acoulter@thenewsenterprise.com