Dog Lady Smells A Rat: Poisonous Food

The pet food recall has expanded exponentially. See the latest listing of recalled foods from the FDA. Treats from Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance are the latest suspects.

It all began weeks ago after several pets died of kidney failure. Menu Foods, a Canadian dog and cat food conglomerate that provides pet foods to many supermarket chains, including Wal-Mart, issued a massive recall of its brands. These include such "premium" varieties of dog foods packaged under the Iams, Eukanuba, Nutro and Science Diet labels. Who knew these supposedly high-end brands were all made in the same place? This information alone should be unsettling to pet owners who paid more to buy pet food they thought to be the very best.

At first, the recall covered only a selection of wet foods described as "cuts in gravy." However, as the days went by, more foods and brands were targeted as tainted, including dry Science Diet food for cats and Del Monte treats for dogs. Check the suspect list carefully.

Rat poison seems to be the toxic ingredient, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The poison somehow found its way into the wheat and rice gluten in the foods. This revelation comes after many animals have gotten sick and died. Somehow, the information is cold comfort to those who mourn or who must pay huge vet bills. The whole thing's a mess.

If your dog exhibits the following symptoms, please see a veterinarian: Stops eating, appears tired and lifeless, seems abnormally thirsty, urinates much more than usual, vomits, has diarrhea. You can also report a sick pet on the Pet Connection's Weblog.

To maintain a healthy dog, Dog Lady advises you to check out foods that are not mass produced. Dog Lady does not endorse these canned foods, but she's fed them to her own dog and he's in fine fettle. Evanger

Merrick

Solid Gold

The master of good food and good works, Paul Newman, makes wonderful organic dog food (or so Dog Lady's dog let's her know).

Newman even donates profits to animal charities and the Web site lists all the healthy ingredients.

Dog Lady suspects this Menu Foods recall will profoundly impact the pet food industry, with fingers and lawsuits pointed. Please feed your darling well. Make sure you examine the label and, remember, anything with "undigested poultry parts" or "wheat" or "wheat gluten" -- even if it doesn't contain poison -- will sit like concretized gunk in sweetheart's stomach.

You can always throw out the pet food completely and feed your dog whatever human-grade delectibles it wants (no chocolate, raisins, onions, however). Until this huge scandal erupted in the pet food industry, Dog Lady would never have encouraged this, but now things have inevitably changed. One adorable elderly Lhasa apso is hooked on corn muffins and sausage patties. The diet works miracles.

Posted by Dog Lady at March 19, 2007 03:10 PM