Lita Rosita Smith is a client of Meals on Wheels and receives food for herself and her Maltese dog, Bibi, in San Jose, California, on Friday, August 10, 2007. The Meals on Wheels program has started a service called Pets and their Loving Seniors. They provide meals for the elderly, but also bring along pet food when needed for the owners´ animals.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The knock on the door sent Bibi racing in circles, yipping and barking as only a little dog can.

Sky, a parakeet, sought safer ground on the side of her cage as Lita Rosita Smith headed for the door, stopping every few steps as Bibi twirled around her.

It was the delivery from Meals on Wheels, bringing the hot meal that the 87-year-old San Jose, Calif., woman needs to get by. But that's not why Bibi was so excited. Without fail, whoever brings the food also has a few treats for Bibi.

Every weekday for the past 11 years, Health Trust Meals on Wheels has delivered about 300 hot meals daily to house-bound seniors and others who are too ill to go out. But now, the group has started including pet food in its deliveries, after realizing that some seniors, concerned about their animals' well-being, had been feeding their meals to their pets instead.

For many of the seniors, it's a choice between paying for medication, food for themselves or food for their pets.

"This is something Meals on Wheels all over the country have noticed," said Libby Combs, an Americorps-VISTA member who is working for Meals on Wheels at the Health Trust. "About 25 percent of our clients have pets."

Called PALS — Pets and their Loving Seniors — the new service provides enough pet food for a month at a time. Meals on Wheels officials are hoping that, just like with the regular Meals on Wheels program, good Samaritans will sponsor each senior's pet and pay for the food.

Ideally, program officials say, people will sponsor meals for the seniors as well as for their pets — and volunteer to deliver them.

It costs $2,500 a year to sponsor hot meals for one senior, said Renee Kellythorne, director of Meals on Wheels. That includes cold meals delivered on Friday that recipients can stretch into sandwiches on Saturday and Sunday. It only costs about $150 a year to pay for pet food because most of their pets are cats or small dogs.

"Fifty-one of our clients have no friends or family nearby," Kellythorne said. "Sometimes the Meals on Wheels driver is the only person they see all day."

The whole program is based on donations.

Combs, who started the PALS program, is looking to someday team up with animal-rescue groups to pair seniors with pets that need homes.

"They do better with pets," she said. "It gives them a reason to get up. There's just nothing better for them."