Then They Came For The Dogs
Yesterday, I emerged from the bedroom at 7:45 AM, which is, sadly, turning into my usual time. Regina had been up for an hour, monitoring the Internets for impeding signs of the apocalpyse. As usual, she'd found one.
"I have some news that you're not going to like," she said.
"Please don't tell me it has anything to do with his school."
"It doesn't."
"Thank God."
"Look at this," she said.
It was the website for Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Pet Foods. And it contained a warning: "We are receiving consumer complaints regarding the Venison & Brown Rice Dry Dog Food, and Venison & Green Pea Dry Cat Foods. We do not know what is wrong with the food at this time, but we have heard that animals are vomiting and experiencing kidney problems..."
"Isn't Natural Balance what we feed the dogs?" I said.
"It was," she said.
We had, for months, been giving them the exact brands that were being recalled. Regina backed off on the brand early, after she got an early warning from a Petco checkout employee about the recall. The company is claiming that no other products were affected. And the dogs seemto be in tip-top health. But Regina did some investigation. Natural Balance says that they don't have anything to do with Menu Foods, the corporation that has inadvertently killed thousands of housecats worldwide. But did they share ingredients, suppliers, processing facilities? Why are our pets all suddenly experiencing kidney failure?
By 11 AM, it was determined that our dogs would go on a raw-food diet whose acronym , BARF, brought irony to a transcendent level. By 3 PM, Regina had decided instead on an independent brand of dog food that didn't contain corn or corn by-products. Meanwhile, her continued monitoring of important pet-owner bulletin boards led her to discover that cats and dogs all over Austin, Texas, in particular, were getting sick.
She sent out an email last night to our pet-owning friends in Austin. This morning, a friend wrote back saying, in effect, "I was wondering why my cats were vomiting last night." Meanwhile, Regina has grown suspicious. Hercules has been drinking more water than usual lately, and he's been peeing more often, and for longer. That's one of the symptoms, she says...And she wonders if the world's pet-food supply has somehow been sabotaged, industrially.
Pet Holocaust 2007 continues.
Comments
Neal makes me sound like a crazy dog lady, but our cat perished from tainted food, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let our dogs go, too.
To clarify, we have been feeding our dogs the exact formula that has been recalled. NB claims that only one batch is tainted, though they're recalling ALL the Venison dry food for cats and dogs. So I am monitoring the dogs for any health concerns, though most relayed stories suggest an acute onset of vomiting and kidney issues. We are now using Canidae Lamb. I'm wary of all pet food companies now, but I feel unqualified to make my own.
On certain pet blogs, some individuals claim to have been contacted by NB and told they have found melamine in the food, but who knows if these are reliable sources. Some sources claim that the venison is "bad" or tainted (it's from New Zealand). Austin has had several cases and seems to be the location of much of the tainted batch. However, don't assume that if you're not in Austin, it won't affect you.
For those who don't know, Natural Balance is a high-end premium, organic food with no ties to Menu Foods. Many, many people have switched to NB over the last month after the last recall - their sales were WAY up. And now this.
The recall is for DRY Natural Balance Venison for dogs and Venison and Peas for cats.
Posted by: Regina | April 17, 2007 1:48 PM
It’s melamine, from the rice which is bought from an American company
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/2007-04-17-premium-pet-food-recalled_N.htm
Posted by: Regina | April 17, 2007 2:47 PM
We've had good luck with Innova, another premium/natural brand, for our dog (dry puppy food, about to start switching her to the adult version).
Posted by: Kevin | April 17, 2007 2:51 PM
I only feed my dog from old bags of Chuck Wagon I found in the basement of our house when we moved in eight years ago. Add water, makes its own gravy.
If she's good, she gets the occasional hobo, although the few I can find these days are generally stringy.
Posted by: PhillyD | April 17, 2007 3:44 PM
"Batch" my ass. I'd do the same thing.
Posted by: Tim | April 17, 2007 3:48 PM
What if they just...you know...put food in pet food? Instead of extracts and concentrates? Am I completely crazy here? (Rhetorical question. Obviously I am a stark raving lunatic for asking such a thing.)
Posted by: David | April 17, 2007 6:34 PM
NB venison wet food is recalled now, as well. Never-mind I'v been continuing to feed out dogs the wet food b/c the NB website assured us that no other foods were involved - just dry venison. The wet venison cat food is still okay. Oh yeah, I'm believing that BS.
In still more incredible news, NB changed their formulas (including adding rice gluten to cat food that claims it contains "no rice") recently. The recent batches with the new formulas are the poisonous ones. They all contain the new rice gluten. By law they have SIX MONTHS to change their labels. So allergy ridden cats whose owners thought they were feeding them rice-free food, may actually have been poisoning them with tainted rice gluten.
I''m gonna go outside now & catch a skunk to feed my dogs.
Posted by: Regina | April 17, 2007 7:43 PM
Hope your little guys hang in there!
Posted by: Kris | April 18, 2007 12:01 AM
More recalls coming soon...
From the Sacramento Bee article:
Local veterinarians who’ve tracked kidney ailments nationwide have tentatively identified five more foods, not at this point under any recall, that they plan to have tested as soon as possible.
The Veterinary Information Network, used by about 16,000 of the estimated 35,000 U.S. veterinarians, noticed the five foods kept recurring in vet-described disease reports, said Paul Pion, the Davis vet who co-founded the service. Pion said it would be premature to name the foods.
This is via Itchmo
It looks like this is only going to get worse. I'm taking our dogs in on Thurs to have their kidney's tested.
Posted by: Regina | April 18, 2007 3:10 PM
More recalls coming soon...
From the Sacramento Bee article:
Local veterinarians who’ve tracked kidney ailments nationwide have tentatively identified five more foods, not at this point under any recall, that they plan to have tested as soon as possible.
The Veterinary Information Network, used by about 16,000 of the estimated 35,000 U.S. veterinarians, noticed the five foods kept recurring in vet-described disease reports, said Paul Pion, the Davis vet who co-founded the service. Pion said it would be premature to name the foods.
This is via Itchmo
It looks like this is only going to get worse. I'm taking our dogs in on Thurs to have their kidney's tested.
Posted by: Regina | April 18, 2007 3:10 PM
I seem to have inadvertently lucked into a dog food that hasn't been recalled. Of course now that I've put that in writing...
Posted by: ttrentham | April 18, 2007 3:11 PM
Go to Itchmo to check foods that are still "Okay" of course, that can change in the blink of an eye.
So far Canidae is still good. The company has been very responsive to my concerns. We'll see....
Posted by: Regina | April 18, 2007 7:12 PM
From this morning:
Previously, the chemical was found to contaminate wheat gluten used by at least six other pet food and treat manufacturers. Both ingredients were imported from China, though by different companies and from different manufacturers.
Like I said, "batch" my ass.
And lo and behold, we can place much of the blame on Bush-man:
The Associated Press studied the records and found that between 2003 and 2006 the Food and Drug Administration conducted 47 percent fewer safety inspections. FDA field offices have 12 percent fewer employees. Safety tests for food produced in the United States have gone down by three quarters—have almost ground to a halt—in the previous year alone.
From http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/e_coli_conservatives
Posted by: Tim | April 19, 2007 8:42 AM
i hope your dogs are okay.
i think organic is the answer. i haven't even switched to eating organic much myself, but seeing that a third protein source from china, corn gluten, had poisoned some dogs, my kitten is eating "newman's own" organic cat food until... well, i don't want to be a xenophobe, but maybe until purina stops buying ingredients from china.
Posted by: jami | April 23, 2007 8:44 PM