> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rescueconsole.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Pet food pantry > Give pet food to people in your community and keep count: who came, the pets the food was for, what went home, and what a month came to in pounds. A pet food pantry gives food to people who are struggling to feed their pets, so the pets can stay at home. **Pet food pantry** records each visit, the household it was for and their pets, and adds up the pounds given out each month, by food and by site, which is the figure a grant report asks for. The pantry is off until your rescue switches it on. To open it, choose **Other** in the sidebar, then **Pet food pantry**, or search for it by name. | To | You need | | - | - | | Open the page and read it | **See** on People | | Record a visit, add a household, change a household's pets or proof of need, delete a visit, import households | **Change** on People | | Switch the pantry on or off, choose what is kept about people, set its limits, keep the list of foods and partner agencies | **Configure** on People | Permissions are set per role under [Settings → Team & volunteers → Team roles](/settings/team). ## Switching it on Under **Settings → Operations & forms → Pet food pantry**, the **Running a pantry** card holds two choices. Press **Save** to keep them. * **We run a pet food pantry** switches it on. It adds the page, the **Pantry client** role on a person's form, and a ready-made report of pounds given out by month. * **What you keep about the people you serve** decides what a visit records about who it was for. See the next section. Until it is on, the page says **The pet food pantry is switched off**. Somebody with **Configure** on People sees **Switch it on in Settings**; anybody else is told that an admin turns it on in Settings. ## What you keep about the people you serve Some pantries need to know who had what, so limited food is shared fairly. Others ask nobody for a name, because a food line that asks for names is one some people stop coming to. The choice is your rescue's: | Choice | What a visit records | | - | - | | **A household when there is one, a walk-up when there is not** | The household, for the regulars whose pets are on file. Somebody who would rather not give a name is a walk-up: counted, not named. This is where a new pantry starts. | | **Every visit to a named household** | Always a household. A visit cannot be recorded without one. | | **No names at all: counts only** | Never a name. Visits are counted with the pets they were for, and no households are kept: the page has no household picker and no **Households** card, and a household's pets cannot be read or changed. | Changing it later changes what the next visit asks. Nothing already recorded is removed or renamed. ## Limits and proof of need Some pantries share limited food by a rule: so many pounds a month for each pet, so many visits a month, and proof that a household needs the help. Each rule is optional, and none of them stops a visit. A household over a limit is still served: whoever is at the table sees a warning, and decides. Under **Settings → Operations & forms → Pet food pantry**, the **Limits and proof of need** card holds them. Leave a box empty for no limit, then press **Save**. | Rule | What it means | | - | - | | **Pounds a month for each pet, by its size** | **Small**, **Medium**, **Large**, **Extra large** and **No size given**. A household's limit is the sum for the pets it has on the day. A size left empty uses **No size given**, which is most cats. | | **A household's most in a month** | Pounds, whatever its pets add up to. Set on its own, it is every household's limit. | | **Visits a month** | How often a household may come, counted in the calendar month. | | **Ask for proof of need** | Each household's proof is a date it is on file until. A household with none, or with one that has run out, is shown a warning. | The warnings read like **Has had 40 lb this month, of 40 lb.**, **This visit brings them to 45 lb, over their 40 lb.**, **Here 2 times this month; your pantry allows 2.** and **Proof of need ran out on Sep 3, 2026.** They are shown when a household is chosen, as the foods are added, and again after the visit is recorded. ## Partner agencies A partner agency is an organization you give food to in bulk, such as a food bank or another shelter's own pantry. Under **Partner agencies** in the pantry's Settings page, choose one from **Add from your directory** and press **Add**. They come from your [organizations](/organizations/list), so adding one needs **See** on Organizations too. The bin icon stops listing one; what you gave them stays on the record. A visit to a partner agency counts toward your pounds without being a household or a walk-up, and the rule about names does not reach it, because an organization is not a person. The **This month** card lists what went to each under **To partner agencies**. ## The foods you give out Once the pantry is on, **Foods you give out** lists each food the way it is handed out, with what one of it weighs. A visit says how many of each went home, and the pounds add up from there: a 5 lb bag of dry dog food is 5, a 5.5 oz can of cat food is 0.34. Press **Add a food** and fill in: | Field | What it is | | - | - | | What it is called | As it is handed out, such as **Dry dog food, 5 lb bag**. Each name is used once. | | For | **Any animal**, or the species it is for. | | Pounds each | What one weighs, in pounds. | **Edit** changes a food. A visit already recorded keeps the name and pounds it gave the food out under, so changing a weight never rewrites a month you have already reported. A food you no longer stock is not deleted: **Stop giving it out** moves it to **No longer given out**, where it stays so the visits that gave it out still read properly. **Give it out again** brings it back. ## Recording a visit The **Record a visit** card is the distribution table. It needs **Change** on People, and at least one food on the list. Choose **A household**, **A walk-up, not named** or **A partner agency**: the page offers the ones your rescue's rule about names allows, and a partner agency once you have one. For a household, type a name or phone number into **Household** and pick them. Somebody new is added with **New household**: a **First name**, and a **Last name** and **Phone** if they will give them, then **Add the household**. They are added to People with the **Pantry client** role. **Change** picks somebody else. **Date** is today unless you change it, and cannot be a day still to come. **Site** is one of your rescue's [locations](/settings/organization#locations), or **No site**; it is offered when your rescue has locations. **Dogs**, **Cats** and **Other pets**. For a household they start as the pets on file for them, and you can change them: a neighbor's dog this month is a fact about this visit, not a new pet of theirs. Choose each food and how many. **Another food** adds a line. The total in pounds is shown as you go, and for a household with a limit, what the month comes to with this visit. Add any **Notes**, then press **Record the visit**. The page says how many pounds went to whom. **Recent visits** lists the latest 50, newest first: the date, the household or **Walk-up**, the site, what went home, the pets it was for and the pounds. A household's name opens their record. With **Change** on People, the bin icon beside a visit deletes it, after you confirm; use it for a visit entered by mistake, and its pounds come off the month. ## Households and their pets A household is a person with the **Pantry client** role. The **Households** card lists them with the pets on file today and the day they were last here, most recent first, and **Find a household** searches by name or phone. A name opens the person's record on its **Roles** tab. There, the **Pet food pantry** section holds: * Any warnings, and this month's visits and pounds against their limit when your pantry sets one. * **Proof of need**: the date it is on file until and what it is, or **none on file**. **Add** or **Change** sets them. The document itself goes on the person's record with their other documents. * **Pets the food is for**: each pet with its kind, size and name if they gave one, and the day it joined the household. **Add a pet** takes the **Kind**, **Name**, **Size**, **How many** (more than one for, say, a colony of outdoor cats) and **Since**. * **Mark gone** for a pet that has died, been rehomed or moved out. It stays listed, crossed through with the day it went, and visits before that day still count it. **Still here** undoes it. The bin icon deletes a pet entered by mistake. * **Visits**: how many and the pounds in all, then the most recent ones. **Record a visit** opens the pantry page with this household already chosen. ### Importing households A pantry that has kept its households in a spreadsheet brings them across under **Settings → Data & customization → Import**, on the **Pantry households** tab. See [importing pantry households](/settings/import#pantry-households). A household's pets are theirs. They are never animals on your rescue's list, and the pantry never changes your intake or outcome counts. When two records turn out to be the same person, [merging them](/people/duplicates) moves the pets and the visits to the one you keep. ## This month, and the report Above the page, four counts for the month so far: **Visits**, **Households** (or **Pets fed**, for a pantry that keeps no names), **Walk-ups** and **Pounds given out**. The **This month** card adds the pounds up by food, by partner agency, and by site when there is more than one. **Pounds by month** opens the ready-made report **Pet food given out by month** in [Reports](/everyday/reports): a bar for each month, split by food. Reports also offers two lists of your own to build from, **Pet food pantry visits** and **Pet food given out**. They are offered once the pantry is on, and stay while it has visits, so a report you saved still opens after it is switched off. ## For Shelter Animals Count Shelter Animals Count's Community Services Database has a line for pet food: under **Support Services**, **Pet Food** counts the animals that received pet food through a pantry in a month, by species and by age. Pet food is a community service, not an intake or an outcome, so it is not in the [national reporting](/animals/national-reporting) file. The **For Shelter Animals Count** card on the pantry page shows a month's figures in their rows and columns: **Species**, **Up to 5 months**, **Adult**, **Age unknown** and **Total**. **Month** offers the last twelve whole months, last month first. Enter the figures in your own Shelter Animals Count portal, in the Community Services Database; RescueConsole sends nothing. How the month is counted, which the card also says under the figures: * **Animals, not visits.** A household that came more than once is counted once: the most dogs, cats and other pets on any of its visits that month. A walk-up has no name to match against another visit, so each walk-up visit counts. * **A partner agency's visit** counts the pets recorded on it, which is often none. * **Other pets by their kind.** A household's other pets are counted as the kinds it has on file. Other pets whose kind is not on file, and every walk-up's other pets, are left out, because Shelter Animals Count counts by species. Fish and exotic / other pets are left out too: Shelter Animals Count has no category for them. * **Age.** A pantry does not record a pet's age, so dogs, cats, rabbits and equines are under **Age unknown**, and every other species is under **Adult**, as Shelter Animals Count asks. ## Mailchimp If your rescue sends its people to [Mailchimp](/integrations/mailchimp), a household whose only role is **Pantry client** is not sent, and **Pantry client** is never sent as a tag. Somebody who is also, say, a donor goes as a donor. This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.