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Loading...Dobby’s Closet: Need One in Your Town?
Lynne Walker knows the sting of being homeless. She knows the isolation, the despair that comes from needing help and being invisible or worse yet, scorned, simply for being poor. There were days when Lynne didn’t know how she could make it another day, she was drowning, but her chocolate lab mix Tobi was strong enough for both of them.
“When I was suicidal and low and had no income … she helped me through the loneliness,” Walker said in a recent interview. “If you look at life through the eyes of dogs, they’re so happy, happy, happy. My dog saved me. That’s how most homeless people feel.”
Although Tobi has since passed away, Lynne, with her Chihuahua named Dobby, set out to help other homeless and poor pet owners in East County, Oregon and they zeroed in on families with cats.
“Dobby’s Closet” is an informal experiment started by Lynne earlier this year through JOIN, an agency that “connects the homeless to homes” and has maintained a companion animal food pantry at their current location on NE 81st Avenue in Portland, Oregon for the last few years.
“Unlike the dogs that we see accompanying their homeless human companions on street corners, cats are hidden homeless pets, living in cars with families transitioning through homelessness,” Lynne explains. “And unlike dogs, cats tend to have specific food preferences and cat food is in short supply throughout the Portland metro region.”
Walker was on a dog food delivery to Human Solutions’ Daybreak Family Shelter when she met a family with four cats living in a car in the parking lot and in need of litter and food. That encounter motivated her to do something for not just one family, but for many.
Dobby’s Closet now hosts a canned cat food drive at the local farmer’s market, Gresham city hall and a veterinary office among other places. The drive acts as a memorial to Tobi, who passed away last April after twelve years of companionship. Lynne decided that, instead of giving in to the urge to adopt another animal right away, she would spend ninety days actively mourning her loss by conducting the cat food drive.
Her grieving period over, Walker recently searched the Oregon Humane Society website “Adoptable Dogs” page for a new companion to share the apartment she’d carefully selected to meet the mobility challenges of her aging Tobi. At the humane society, Lynne met Snoop, returned to the shelter after ten years as an outdoor dog with one family. Snoop had been waiting nearly three months for a new home. His video asked whether there wasn’t someone out there who could “make his golden years golden.” Walker knew that, having done so for Tobi, she was prepared to meet the needs of another elderly dog and with little Dobby’s approval, brought Snoop home on Sunday, August 5.
And the four cats from the car at the shelter parking lot? East County is a small community. Lynne learned from a visitor to the Gresham Farmers Market that the entire family, pussycats included, was safely housed and they are all doing just fine.
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Read more: Dobby's Closet, Lynne Walker, pet food pantry
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Absolutely and let`s get started..........
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132 comments
+ add your ownI wish every person will be like Lynn with big heart !! There is to many animal abusers and i hate them i have german shepherd and cat i love my animals sooo much !!
Thank you for all that you do for the animals Lynn! God bless you!
What a great idea!
It is good to help animals when they are so eager to please us.
Jane H I don't know where you are but your church sounds great;that is what shoul be
I give pet food to our local food bank.
Being homeless doesn't make you any less of a human being, with all the rights that come with it. Yes, owning an animal is harder when homeless, but sometimes that animal is the only ray of sunshine in that person's life. I gladly give to people with their animals, but I give food, not money.
Good luck, I hope it goes all well.
I know what it feels like to be alone and suicidal and it's true that your companion animal is the biggest source of strength their is...after all if you're not there to look after them, feed them, keep them safe who is? It might be the only reason to live but it's a good enough reason.
Oops, I meant "Dobby's Closet." You probably knew that.
Cheers!
All these comments are wonderful... but Summer F's every word might have come out of my own mouth. HOW DARE people say you should give up your pets when you're down and out and need assistance. Don't they know that your beloved pets are the ONLY things that've gotten you through, kept you sane and kept you hanging on... and if you should lose them, that would be the last straw. You've been slowly swirling round and round in the toilet of life. Lose the pets and down you'd go, into the blackness, and that would be the end of it.
Hooray for Lynn Walker and Debby's Closet. I hope many more "Debby's Closets" will be forthcoming.
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