Pet owners were worried Saturday that the pet food in their cupboards could be deadly after millions of containers of dog and cat food sold at major retailers across North America were recalled.
Menu Foods — a major manufacturer of dog and cat food sold under Wal-Mart, Safeway, Kroger and other store brands — recalled 60 million containers of wet pet food Friday after reports of kidney failure and deaths.
An unknown number of cats and dogs suffered kidney failure and about 10 died after eating the affected pet food, the company said in announcing the North American recall.
The pet food was sold by stores operated by the Kroger Co., Safeway Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and PetSmart Inc., among others, Henderson said.
Menu Foods said it makes pet foods for 17 of the top 20 North American retailers. It is also a contract manufacturer for the top branded pet food companies, including Procter & Gamble Co.
If you have a pet, if you have friends who have pets, click the link to this article and read through the list of brands at the bottom. It includes damned near every major brand in the US and Canada.
… and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to it.
He also confessed to being the guy who let the dogs out.
Looks like Purina and 9-Lives are ok. Iams and Eukanuba are surprises. You wouldn’t think they’d be relabled store brands. P&G must be pretty embarrassed about that!
OMG! If they kill my pets, I’m gonna sue! Big time! This is not a joke. I’ve seen men beat each other over the death of one man’s dog. And I don’t blame ’em.
Ironically, just last night I had to have one of my cats euthanized for the same condition that warranted this recall, but we were feeding him Purina and have been for some time.
Is anybody else unnerved that America would get so outraged over 10 dead American pets but remain generally indifferent to half a million dead Iraqi humans?
6, you’re right. Heads will roll.
7, no one is indifferent to my Army and Marine friends dying in the middle east (at least, I hope not). But they’re not dying from their food!
We’ve been using Wellness, and problems have started.
You’d think that “the very best” would not be problematic.
Seems the company, probably to increase profits, have been adding brown rice to the cat food w/o saying so on the labels.
“True carnivores” like cats, carbohydrates are very bad.
There’s even a petition online about Wellness http://www.petitiononline.com/NoGrains/petition.html
#1 *LOL*
——–
Never buy cheap food… either for yourself or your pets.
We feed our cats a high quality dry food from Wellnes http://tinyurl.com/36yzo4 with an occasional pouch of Nutro brand food as a treat. We chose Nutro as they claimed to make their own food from natural ingredients. Now we see that I could have been buying just about any pouch and had the same product, for less money.
#1, LoL.
Mike
But isn’t IAMS considered a good brand?
I make my own cat food out of ground chicken and rice four — not because I pamper my cat but because he barfs up anything from the store!
7, no one is indifferent to my Army and Marine friends dying in the middle east (at least, I hope not). But they’re not dying from their food!
Some of the Iraqis are dying from bad water.
I live in the Middle East and haven’t been back to America for a few years so maybe I’m reading the sense of America wrong but I don’t sense a huge outrage in America that something like half a million Iraqis have died due to this war.
I googled it and 10 pets have die so far. That would be a LOW day in Iraq. Watch your headlines tomorrow and see which story gets more featured. I’m not even sure what to think about it, but it is unsettling.
This reminds me of the other blog item: Michael Moore’s “Roger and Me.” In that movie a rabbit gets butchered and a black man gets shot. According to Moore, he’s asked constantly about the rabbit but never about the man.
I realize I should pay closer attention, and will try to – but the problems at Purina were in Venezuela, not the US. We still maintain a (dwindling) edge in our concern for quality control, which has never been seen to be as great a concern anywhere in Latin America as it is in N. America.
Still, given Nestlé’s 5-year-old ownership, in light of their notable absence of social responsibility (think infant formula & Africa) I believe that to boycott Purina now is probably my sole morally defensible choice…
– – – – – – –
#10 – Jägermeister
“Never buy cheap food… either for yourself or your pets.”
I’ve tried to explain this to people all my life. Don’t fucking let stinginess, the handmaiden of greed, determine what you feed yourself or your loved ones – which, obviously, includes one’s pets – or should.
The cliché ‘You are what you eat’ is truer and more important to remember now than ever before.
– – – – – – – – –
#7 – Greg Allen
“Is anybody else unnerved that America would get so outraged over 10 dead American pets but remain generally indifferent to half a million dead Iraqi humans?”
I strongly suspect there’s a lot more pet deaths out there than the 10 reported. I’m certainly not “unnerved” or in any other way bothered or mystified about the reaction. Humans, for their own, ultimately idiotic and egotistical reasons, choose to kill one another. Our pets don’t; they are the only true innocents.
I see nothing wrong for having more compassion for those living creatures who had absolutely zero complicity in their own deaths.
When cats start blowing up other cats in the name of Allah, when dogs commence to imposing their belief systems on other dogs at gunpoint, then they’ll lose a lot of my sympathy too.
“Is anybody else unnerved that America would get so outraged over 10 dead American pets but remain generally indifferent to half a million dead Iraqi humans?”
Your right, this shouldn’t be about dead pets. There are allot of fixed income people surviving day to day by eating pet food. How many of those people has this stuff killed. Does anyone care; why, doesn’t the media report this?
#11 According to the article at CNN, Nutro brand is on the list.
It’s an eye-opener about the pet food business, alright. I wonder if anyone will ever again be willing to pay inflated prices for Iams or those othere “quality” brands. I won’t – repackaging bulk pet food as “premium” is a major breach of trust.
I read Pedro’s link from Venezuela (#3) and the story says Purina never did really report what caused its problem of aflatoxin getting into the pet food. I hope Menu Foods will do better than that.
Sadly, it ain;t gonna be just 10. In the course of errands around town – since I Posted this – I’ve already met one friend whose previously healthy cat succumbed, yesterday, to apparent kidney failure. This is happening all over the country.
To be fair, TJG, it’s not always, with pet or human vittles, a matter of repackaging… sometimes it’s just that to keep brand loyalty, when you enter a more generic, lower-price market (like a dog-food co. that only has the facilities for making dry food expanding their product line to canned) that you job out production to a company that already specializes in that line. But it is incumbent upon the company farming out the production to enforce it’s own QA standards, and it sure seems like that wasn’t done here…
#13
We’ve got an acquaintance who serves her family expired food. The thing is that she and her husband are well-off, but they still look for the cheapest food they can find. It beats me…
mmm…. lets have apes for pets instead of cats and dogs….and then train them to do simple chores… and then …
Ed, thanks for posting this. I just returned from a wierd weekend in Los Alamos to read this and discover I have some of this food in the pantry. You might have saved on of my animals. So thanks much.
#20,
We’ve got an acquaintance who serves her family expired food. The thing is that she and her husband are well-off, but they still look for the cheapest food they can find. It beats me…
Comment by Jägermeister — 3/18/2007 @ 11:08 am
I think most people would be startled to find out just how much labeling goes on out there.
Back in the 1980s, Chevrolet built cars for Toyota.
All those OTC drugs? All those different brands? Yup, just a couple of plants mixing it all up with different labels.
The Dollar General brand of dry gravy dog food looks identical to the Gravy Train name brand. Gee, I wonder who made them?
Did those Birds Eye frozen peas come out of the same plant as the store brand? Surely you didn’t think the store brand are made in their own plant.
The same with gasoline and most motor oils.
And your well off friends? Did you ever wonder how they got to be well off?
I caught this story immediatly after it first popped up yesterday morning….I emailed everyone in all my online groups to warn them(approx. 350 people) I have had 123 responses since then, all of whom had either cat or dog food on the list. 2 people have lost their cats in the last week who ate this tainted food. Someone is going to pay dearly.
I have 3 dogs, there are another 11 dogs and 5 cats with my Mom and Dad, and 3 brothers. None of us feed our guys commercial pet foods. My Mom makes lamb, beef, and chicken *meatloaf*, with rice and corn. Freezes it, and when she cooks it, she slices it just like meatloaf for the pets….it’s pretty good stuff 🙂
First, courts have pretty steadily found that pets are ‘possessions’ and court actions are extremely limited. Even when one of the flea remedy medications (spot on) a cheaper one was sickening and killing cats and dogs by the dozens, the courts refused to hear the cases, and he company is still in business, and doing well. Pets have very little traction in courts. Watch, this will pass over, with no regard to the “loss” or the “pain and suffering” of pets and owners.
There are ONLY FIVE major pet food companies….and all of them make dozens of brands. They market the same foods, just squished out in different shapes for the whole market spectrum.
Lauren: Purina isn’t going to be above making pet food that inadvertently kills pets, they’ve had a few bad mishaps with livestock food in the past.
Don’t assume that any pet food is going to be “safe”. It is not really a controlled substance. Pet food uses “not for human grade” animals (sickly), used protein derived from meat rendered from pound pets (no really, protein is protein, and pound animals are cheap. The barrels are picked up weekly.) They make pet food from chicken beaks, feathers and sick and dead animals. The wheat protein, soy and whatever else can be from what they sweep off the floor of grain mills.
In fact, any thing and everything that is a byproduct of human food can also become part of pet food — rotten, moldy. Doesnt’ matter. as they cook at high temperatures to “chop the proteins” so the animals stomach will just pass it through. To make this unsightly mess something that an animal would eat, they spray it with rancid fats from fast food restaurants (that are treated to keep them from getting more rancid and to alter the odor). Why do you think Fido goes after that food….because it’s sprayed with grease from MacDonald’s French Fries, of course!
In this case, evidently, some wheat protein must have been moldy and/or contaminated with some industrial junk…and sold to the plant. Whoops. There are a lot of toxins that cats are sensitive to. Heck, since the pet food makers buy whatever is cheap, and from a multitude of suppliers…..who knows what devils concoction is being mixed up. One thing is for certain….it’s garbage in, garbage out. And, you can TELL the amount of filler….because animals fed homemade pet foods don’t excrete anywhere near as much!!!
Try reading a can of cat food or dog food, or dry food….just look at the ingredients. I KNOW they SAY it’s all whole chicken (beaks and feet and feathers) and they say it’s full of fresh vegetables (usually the dry pulp only) and they put pretty pictures of vegetables and chickens and cows and sheep on the label..there are no controls on what is really in it. In fact, it’s a sales pitch!!! .
The reality: the foods vary from batch to the next it may be a totally different product (only cooked to death, extruded and dyed to look like the previous batch). Pet food is CHEAP to create. It uses garbage, and is sold for a huge profit. Who does it hurt? Our animals.
It ends up costing us a lot, too. Animal cancers are way up. Dogs with bloat (look it up if you don’t know what it is) is way up, an epidemic, actually. Skin diseases and conditions are skyrocketing. We’re killing our dogs and cats with this junk. And, the joke is, the Pet Food Association promotes the myth that you cannot make your own food, or prepare nutritious petfood yourself…you need some mad scientist in a white lab coat to “carefully prepare the right mix”. This is such nonsense.
Make your own pet foods….safe yourself a lot of heartache. Give dogs table scraps and mix in the “show dog diet” — 1/3 filler (noodles, grain, rice) 1/3 protein 1/3 vegetables….
As for cats….they need 3/4 protein, the rest a mix of vegetables and filler. And, once a week mix in clam juice (it helps round out their diets). Liver and other internal organs..are great for cats, as is the occasional scrap of raw beef.
8: you kinda made his point; he was referring to Americans not noticing the dead Iraqi civilians, and then you referred to noticing our soldiers deaths. You didn’t reference the Iraqi dead. They’re still unnoticable, even tho there are 150,000 to 600,000 dead to our soldiers’ 3400. Had to say.
I say buy a whole chicken, boil or bake, d-bone and make our own food till this whole situation is over and done with. I am opposed to the war in Iraq, and it does not surprise me that the FDA does not have their act together. Look how many drugs they have approved and then only later to find out they cause deaths and other disease, and we are a country who is more preoccupied with developing a drug for penis problems that promoting research to stop the dreaded cancer and parkinsons disease, not to mention alsheimers and so many others. Additionally, if you start researching this, you will find that the FDA was already talking about this warning two months ago, but not until two days ago did it make the national news. After living in this world 1/2 century, I am embarassed by the political undertone and effect of everything now even dog and cat food. How sick is this country anyway?
My dog was just diagnosed with severe diabetes just 2 weeks ago. Came on suddently. I think there is a connection. What do you think?
We had two cats die after eating purina products both of Kidney failure they both died 3-5 days after eating the products. We always feed dry food but got a free sample in cat litter and gave it to them. We brought our cats in 2 days after since they both would not eat and lost weight. They were fine prior to this. We were told after numerous tests and high bills that they were dying.
I feel so sorry for the people who have lost their pets due to tainted dog and cat food put out by Menu Pet Foods. It was wrong for Menu to delay in warning the public about this danger. They were totally irresponsible and should be carefully watched for any future problems. All producers of pet food whould carefully check any products which come in from a foreign country. ( In these cases China) who have lower restrictions and regulations on their production methods. I have known of Senior Citizens who have resorted to eating pet food in order to stretch their Social Security checks. That would really be a wake up call for the pet food companies who could face murder charges!
This is horrible.I am so scared that a special treat for my babies may make them sick.So far they are ok.But I do not know the brand of food they ate,the cans were tossed after they were opened.ONly know they came from Family Dollar.
As far as pets meaning more than people,,,,to me Hell yes they do.They are my family,the only family I have.
I really do not care about who blows up who anymore but I do care about losing one of my babies very very much.
The number of animals being reported as dying due to this tainted food would appear to represent the number of animals that died in Menu Foods own labs after they started getting reports there was a problem and BEFORE they announced there was a problem publicly.
My heart goes out to those of you who have been forced to make tough decisions these past few weeks and have had to say goodbye to your beloved pets. I know the true number is in the thousands if not tens of thousands and can only watch in disbelief as people keep repeating it was only 10 animals. When it comes to tainted food – one death is too many be it human or animal.
We fed our cat several of the products on the tainted list and while her death was back in November, we are left wondering, could her health have been impacted too.
Were she alive today we would be making our own food for her rather than relying on the convenience of a can that may be filled with rat poision. With that in mind, I started a website to share some recipes for cat and dog food; it’s called nocans.com. It might be a good idea while the truth is still yet untold to consider feeding our pets food we cook ourselves from ingredients we can pronounce.
This is all so heartbeaking, i have been using cans of heaven knows
what and Eukanuba dry food, but fortunately lately small flat packs, as well as cans from a very small company in Australia called Nature’s Way, thank heavens not the packs from the US!
Tomorrow no more dry food and my two precious dogs wil have to
learn to love my Kellog’s breakfast food …
Is there no animal lobby to help regulate this disgusting trade…
think of elderly people with no access to computers who find their
beloved pets suddenly dead, and people with low incomes…
Something must be done!!
Our love for our pets is really true love.
Roberta