Samisite Webmaster Community Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Critter Central => Topic started by: SafariWoman on March 16, 2007, 09:10:13 PM
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To all of my pet loving friends … or if you know of anyone who has pets pass it on – the complete list of foods is supposed to be available here tomorrow – Saturday – and here is a phone number as well.
“Menu Foods did not immediately provide a full list of brand names and lot numbers covered by the recall, saying they would be posted on its Web site - www.menufoods.com/recall - early Saturday. Consumers with questions can call (866) 463-6738.
Read what’s currently known about it here - http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4637752.html
And You can also search here for news stories as it unfolds
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http://news.google.com/news?q=dog%20food%20recall&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn
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I just read another news story that is including Proctor and Gamble products so lets don't rule out Regular Brand foods yet! My dog ate a foil pack of the described food a few days ago and got super sick from it -- and it was Iams - don't know if it's related or just her system but supposedly they sell to 17 out of 20 major Pet food manufacturers so finding all the foods it ends up in will be difficult.
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Now this: P&G announced Friday the recall of specific 3 oz., 5.5 oz., 6 oz. and 13.2 oz. canned and 3 oz. and 5.3 oz. foil pouch cat and dog wet food products made by Menu Foods but sold under the Iams and Eukanuba brands.
That's what my dog ate! :'(
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Hope your pet is ok!
Good gracious! I will need to pass this info on to my boss. She has multiple cats and dogs and often serves moist food.
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Thanks for the warning.
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Thanks Sam - she seems to be doing a little better - she is 18 and that makes anything more difficult for her. And no problem Etienne! I really care about animals and people and this could be really harmful to pets if not a true heart breaker for their owners. My mom's cat, also 18, is sick too but we don't know yet if it's related.
What is really suspicious is that P&G is removing those two products but yet they are not specifically mentioned on the manufacturer's site. I wonder if they get their products from them in a different manner or why it isn't listed in general. Obviously P&G must feel there is a danger involving their products and my dog did eat Iams and get sick immediately. So under these circumstances, I will be suspicious of all similar products at this time and not buy any of them.
I hope the word gets around in time to save lots of pets.
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Thanks for the warning.
We only use MeowMix and they seem to be ok.
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The cat that lives with me was eight years old when she moved in, and was already having problems with her teeth. So by vet's advice, she's never had anything but dry food - I guess in this case, that's been a good thing.
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Mine are on dry and as a treat once in a while, I give them Tender Vittles when I find it in a store. Two of my three will knock you down to get to the pouch of TV! YUMMMMY goodies. The other has no sense of smell (bad nasal cavity) so will only eat what looks like his ordinary food..specific size/shape.
I feel so sorry for the families that thought they were doing right by their pets!
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I saw kitty pictures on your site SAM - those are some cuties :-D My dog is such a finicky eater and I had just discovered a few weeks ago that by adding about a quarter of the pack to her dry food she scarfed it down. So that was lucky that I didn't give her the whole foil container of it because she really got sick as it was. She is a toughie though and today doing better still. I feel so lucky - that would have just been terrible after she has lived 18 years to end her life just from eating poisonous dog food.
Sorry if I posted too much on it but no one I knew heard of it and I kept thinking - what if it saves just one pet! - I am a worry wart sometimes.
:-[
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Sorry if I posted too much on it but no one I knew heard of it and I kept thinking - what if it saves just one pet! - I am a worry wart sometimes.
A friend of mine phoned last night (while I was online, so I got her message after I disconnected) to tell me about it, and said she'd been calling everyone she knew who had pets because very little had been said about it on the news. Thanks to my earthlink "news crawl" I knew about it very early yesterday morning. My first thought was "it will only be moist food," but then when I read that it was the wheat gluten that was the problem... well, that could be in anything - dry or moist. So it certainly doesn't hurt to get the word out. (This is a friend who's adamantly refused to get an internet connection - a few more things like this and she might succumb.)
...Especially glad to hear that your 18-year-old is doing better. You must have kept her very healthy over the years for her to weather it.
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I hadn't heard about the wheat gluten - wow - on another board I am on someone posted the following - I only read the first link and that was enough to make me rethink the whole pet food situation. I am considering making her dog food now - she likes meat - and I think I can find other healthy ingredients to blend with it .. definitely worth the research.
Here's a good look at what your pets are eating.
http://www.homestead.com/vonhapsburg/petfood.html
http://www.judyshealthcafe.com/articles/cancer.html
http://www.flintriverranch.org/petfoodarticles.html
Just a few articles.
oh she is something alright! the vets are amazed she is still so active and strong and healthy :-) i am going to go have have kidney levels checked though she might need some denosyl. Oh my, what we go through for our beloved furry friends!
A picture of Tara at an old web site hehe http://www.lava.net/~wanda/SchipperkeAloha.html
sadly today my mom thinks her 18 yr old cat is passing so prayers for her and Oscar would be appreciated.
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actually it was this article that i read and its a real eye opener .. http://www.flintriverranch.org/petfoodarticles.html
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Tara's cute!!
My mother's best friend has been having MAJOR problems with her dog for the past 3 weeks and has not been able to pin down any cause...The vet now thinks it is related to this food issue.... :unsure: Hope not!!
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Thanks Sami! She is my baby! :hearts: I am feeling like since there isn't a ton of regulation on pet food products that any animal food that might have those by products or wheat glutten in it could be suspect. I truly hope everything will be ok for your friend's mom's cat! That Denosyl is an all natural product that substancially helped my dog's kidney count in the past in case you might want to pass that on since the foods are affecting the kidneys. It is expensive - but our pets are worth it!
Good luck to her too -- my mom's cat is some how hanginig in there and if he is still with us in the morning he goes to the vet and I guess that will be the moment of truth and his fate is in God's hands.
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oh and TG - tracking important breaking and little reported news is one of the best reasons to have the Internet as well as researching health issues and any information we might need. If I weren't on line, I could not know or make decisions about a lot of important things in my life - from legal decisions to health decisions. I almost can't imagine what life would be like without it. I hope your friend will come to understand what a valuable and near necessary tool it is for keeping up with the way things are in modern life.
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Oscar is with God now - I think he is at peace - I just pray my mom will be at peace with it too. She seems like she is doing ok considering.
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Sorry to hear about Oscar.
We lost our 19 year old cat a few years ago
it is so hard be without them.
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Awe thanks!!!! Sorry about your cat too -- they sure do make impressions on our hearts don't they.
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I'm so sorry your news. Give your mom a hug for me.
(I gave my own Oscar an extra hug tonight which just made him squirm :P)
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Oh thanks Sam, I will do that - my little bratty dog got so much extra loving last night and today already too. Is your cat actually named Oscar?
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Yup. My youngest is Oscar, born in April 2002. :hearts:
He was named after a cat I wanted to adopt years ago that had TONS of personality! (We ended up with a different cat that day). Oscar is as amusing as his namesake.
(http://www.samisite.com/471902c0.jpg)
This shot was from 2004. I should grab a newer one but this is how he looks every night. He's laying on my printer cart (printer on pull out shelf below) while I am at the computer. This is the favorite window in the house, with a bird bath only 8 feet from the window, squirrels, birds and lizards entertain non-stop. The printer is directly behind my chair so when he wants attention, he just reaches across my chair and taps me.
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AWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! :D how cute! My mom sort of inherited her Oscar when it's rightful owner moved away and told her - He loves you more than us so you can have him if you want him. The name came with him - but I always thought it was a really cute name - one I almost never hear anywhere.
Mut be something special about kitties named Oscar! He sounds really lovable. My mom's Oscar was street cat for years until she finally won him over to be a house cat and slowly he became very lovable too.
Thanks for sharing Sam. :yes:
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One of our new rescues is also named Oscar and is a trouble maker LOL
You can see him on my site under Don and Amy
He is a Norwegion Forest cat and weighs 17 pounds but we love him :hearts:
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I can't think of anything else to say even though I repeat myself AWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! He reminds me of a kitty I used to have named Smokey. Cali Girl is cute too. Is your site all about rescued animals? Very nice site - who wouldn't want to look at all those cutie pies.
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Your Oscar is beautiful! Love that dusty gray color!
My Oscar is the peacemaker. The house is happier with him in it. I had two adult females that did not get along when a pregnant feral stray ("scaredy cat") showed up. I corralled her and the tiny kittens within a day of their birth and put them on my covered screen porch for safety. My cats were blocked from any access with the kittens until one day when Oscar got up under the sheet that covered my sliding glass door. He spent the day mooning over my old Calico, Spaz. When they finally met it was LOVE. :hearts: He adores her. They get along because Spaz is QUEEN and he is her adoring subject. Though she will be 16 on April 1, 2007 and looks like a canteloupe with legs, Spaz runs (waddles) and jumps while playing and wrestling with Oscar, and is far more active and bright-eyed because of him. He instigates all kinds of mischief and Spaz will decide if he is allowed to do it or not! If she tells him no (a particular nasty meow from her) he stops.... Ex: When he used to get on the buffet, Spaz will tell him to get down and he IMMEDIATELY and he would! So funny! I adore my little Oscar. His temperment is comical and loving. He is definitely a MOMMAS BOY... When I finally lose Spaz, Oscar will have a really rough time.
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Most of the members pets on my site are rescues.
But the site is just a place for people to show off their pets.
And I try to show what kind of pets you can find at a shelter.
In fact I have photos on our shelters site showing the pet of the week going back to 2002.
And thats how we got our cats. We went there to take photos and the next thing I know,
Amy says here this one is yours and I will take the calico :hearts:
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My mom sort of inherited her Oscar when it's rightful owner moved away... The name came with him...
That's kind of what happened with Houdini, too - not a name I would pick, but she's had it for 8 years so I'm not about to change it. It's been giving me a start every time "Houdini poisoned?" comes across my news crawl this morning. :ss-shocked:
When a co-worker of mine and her husband both retired, they were going to be spending most of the time traveling in their RV. They took a dog and one cat with them, but didn't think Houdini would take to the lifestyle very well. Because I've always lived in apartments, I hadn't been able to have a pet since I was a kid, but the management at my current place had started allowing pets early last year, so I offered to take Houdini. I told the management about it last summer when the retirement was being planned. When the retirement actually happened and Houdini moved in last November, I told the management she'd arrived, and the response was, "What?! You can't have a cat!" (Seems they had decided to revert to the old policy without saying anything.) They finally relented because I've lived here for so long - I wanted them to admit they'd told me I could have her, but, oh, well, we'll take what we can get.
Here's a picture I would never show anyone but pet lovers ;) - but it's the only time I've been able to get her eye colors right, with yellow on the outside and black in the middle (and, yes, that's the bench I sit on when I'm at my computer, which happens to have room for both of us - they know where to find us, don't they? :P):
(http://www.frodolivesin.us/new/1d5bf4f0.jpg)
I grew up with dogs, and this is my first experience with a cat, so I'm learning a lot.
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ETA: I've read the nice posts about my website - but I decided to post in this thread first and have used up all my time (looking at pictures), so I'll have to get to those later.
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Houdini looks happy on your bench! Thanks for sharing her story.
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Oh wow what a cutie - it is hard to capture pets eyes correctly - my dog has little dark eyes and no close ups show them correctly even with the red eye reduction on lol Great story - I think many pets adopt their humans just as much as it is the other way around, My moms cat was a classic example of that - She didn't like cats that much and never had one before.
Today this is one of many news related items regarding the pet foods and what is scary is that they are not ruling out that this might not be in human foods as well so we might all want to take a good look at the ingredients on packaged foods for a bit..
http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/23/news/companies/pet_food/?postversion=2007032318
It has been determined that my mom's cat probably did not die of this poisoning however I am personally still thinking it could be related.. how much control really goes on with the tracking of food ingredients? - I mean if it might be in human foods who is to say...
A vet technician that I know said it is good to know this because now vets can treat the cause not just the symptoms so maybe it will save more lives. The reported 16 deaths related to it is totally bogus because he said they lost 5 pets over last weekend due to it and that is just one location in the country.
This has been nice getting to know about each other's pets. I used to be "The crazy cat lady" lol When we had three cats and two of them had a litter ( although we had been told the female was fixed !) and then my kids brought me abandoned kitties they found in a box. Then two other stray type cats showed up at our door and suddenly I had 13 cats! It was quite the experience. I found them all good homes and kept two after that.
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ps Sami - I just realized that we don't have any kitty puppy smileys! ????? :idea:
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Trudy my heart did a double take when I saw the photo of Houdini
the spitting image of our dear departed Boo Boo
(http://www.thepetscorner.com/img/pcdar/dar05.jpg)
Boo Boo "The Boss"1985 - 2004
I know what you mean, its very hard to get a good photo of a black cat.
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http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=75dd0c94-e283-428c-8b9f-6c1ba9b43b6a&k=43390
where is the USA news?
my dog is still sick - now has paralysis in one leg
prayers please typing one handed as i am holding her
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In a news conference, FDA officials said that the apparently melamine-contaminated wheat gluten also was shipped to a company that manufactures dry pet food, but they would not name the company.
i found this here
http://www.spokesmanreview.com/ap/story.asp?AP_ID=D8O6MF701
dry food may be affected - do they really know what is going on?
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I saw Hills Science Diet this morning on the news has the contaminated material in ONE of its dry foods only available from a vet. So far, none of their over the counter stuff has been mentioned.
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oh my gosh _ I need to find that article - my mom's cat was eating a vet hills cat food product. As I mentioned at first- I am not trusting anything yet & making my dogs food.
I just got back from the emergency room with her and her vitals are mostly normal - except high liver and protein counts- but sadly he suspects she has a tumor probably cancerous and he specifically mentioned a brain tumor. I will be researching what to do for those high readings now and holding out hope the sudden back leg paralysis is not due to a tumor. Some diseases were also ruled out. The bad food at least did not do kidney damage.
I found a holistic vet here that practices both traditional and holistic veterinary techniques - and after I talk to her regular vet about the symptoms and tests I believe she will go there at least to check it out. I guess it's easy to see what my priorities are! :yes:
While carrying her today, I slipped on a wet floor and fell - hurting myself pretty badly and somehow managed to keep her in my arms :o I don't think I broke anything but this has been a rough day!
Oh Wait - I think we are supposed to be talking about web sites in here ! :)
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I hope you are ok!!!
ps Sami - I just realized that we don't have any kitty puppy smileys!
How about these?
:calico: :dogwalksm: :catsmilie: :catss: :dogwagging: :tinycatblack: :tinydogblack:
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woof woof meow!! = way cool! :boogie:
Can a smiley be made from this Sam? I found it at a free gif site. h~~p://kurakuma.voicegateway.com/SchipRainbowLite.gif ? I have never been in a forum with a schip smiley before lol..
Thanks for those they are cute :D
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oh and thanks for the well wishes Sam - I am hobbling around and I HAD to take a pain pill :yuck: I will probably really pay for it tomorrow - but I think I will be ok. :yes:
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Can a smiley be made from this Sam? I found it at a free gif site. h~~p://kurakuma.voicegateway.com/SchipRainbowLite.gif ? I have never been in a forum with a schip smiley before lol..
Don't have time to work up any fancy animation right now but I did make a simple bark ani...or if a solid image will do, you can check your PM for a couple based on your image... See if one of them floats your boat...
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Wanda chose her schip and it is now in the post popup choices. He's rather large but smaller and you loose integrity.
:schip:
For mods and experts, you will find another barking version in our codes. ;)
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Thanks Sam again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! where are our codes? I hope I have reason to use a barking one sometime. (The next time she barks!) She got a little better report from her regular vet over the ER vet, but her condition is still uncertain - still I have reasons for more hope now. I would love to see a barking or non barking schip anytime! :hearts:
Its funny, the Schips big for in here and so small in the world - but that reflects my dog's attitude well - she thinks she is big. After carrying her around all day I am glad that she is small! - but she felt big by the end of the day :yes:
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Melamine is a Toxic Poison
How many times do we need to read and hear this before we "get it?" that Melamine is a toxic poison. Put that in your favorite search engine and see how many hundreds of thousands of references comes up. I haven't had melamine in my kitchen for over twenty years for the same reason. No melamine skillets, bowls, microwave trays, cookie sheets - nothing. Why? I knew then it was poisonous so why use something toxic that is chemically manufactured when stainless steel, aluminum and glass are either so much better or at least as good as an item made of melamine. Oh it's cheaper, you say? Consider the cost of your health, your pet's health, and possibly your very life and figure if the dollar you saved is really worth that much these days.
Melamine is a toxic poison, so why not at least get rid of it in your kitchen for starters. I won't pick on it's other applications like for surfacing boats, in building materials and for rat poison. No, I guess if we have to have a chemical compound that pollutes from the moment manufacturing begins it is OK for those purposes. ( I guess ) But we don't need it around our food, so lets all just start by eliminating it there for our own safety. Do we really need to think about it or research it further or can we all JUST DO IT before it is too late and someone else gets sick, develops cancer or dies from it?!
That is, unless you really LIKE poison in your cake and your pizza.
( My blog today - just thought I would share)
By the way - Thanks so much E1 for all the good thoughts and prayers and well wishes for Tara :schip: She says grrrrrrrr grrrrr and sends her thanks too - She is doing a little better today - and being a good patient. :hearts: I feel encouraged and am researchng lower protein human grade organic pet foods and liver boosters and such. If she hangs in there she will have a better diet than mine! lol Not that any food can be completely trusted these days I guess.
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...and for rat poison.
Ah... Does that explain the confusion between the New York people detecting rat poison and the Canadian people detecting Melamine?
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Yeah I wondered about that too ... & I forgot to mention melamine plates, glasses and cups lol
that stuff is bad but cooking with it is worse than serving on it according to the studies I have read the heat and the way it chips off allows it to seep into the food.
funny how some studies say oh no no its safe! :ss-shocked:
the dollar is a powerful thing in our world
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I have 3 melamine mixing bowls that were my grandmothers. I LOVE them! No staining, and hold up MUCH better than the plastic ones I had years ago. No chips, cracks.
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Sam! :ss-shocked: lol is it the solid melamine or the kind with the brown coating on it? its the brown coating thats the worst.. it leaches into foods the solid kind if it isn't heated is supposedly safe - & I say supposedly according to various studies
the old style is better quality than anything made over the last twenty years or so
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no coating. :D
I have 3 sizes of this bowl. (http://www.samisite.com/download/melamine.jpg) and will not be giving them up! They are TERRIFIC. (ebay is a great resource isn't it? Someone in Canada has a single bowl up for sale so I grabbed the picture for reference)
My grandmother used to even microwave the one bowl to melt butters, cheeses, etc and there are no distortions. Much better bowls than I had before. And I smile when I use them because I know she did.
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I imagine the benefits of the happiness and joy of using them far out weighs any danger in the way you are using them. :yes: I had a set of lightweight melamine dishes for the boat and was using them for heating things in the microwave as well as serving because of their light weight and sturdiness for a few years after I basically cut out using Melamine and Teflon - until I read a whole bunch of other scientific articles about it - and then I just figured with alternatives - why take the risk.
I also have what I call plastic phobia!! rofl I bet I have less plastic in my life than anyone I know. ( I'm a weirdo :-[) Anything that is a petroleum oil based product - I avoid like the plague unless it's the only choice that works. With hundreds of items containing plastic - including clothes - its hard to avoid entirely. But I try! :kickdancing:
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Back on topic.......
Unfortunately, tonight I discovered that one of my three cats urinated outside the litter box.
NONE of my animals does that. This is a first.
I hope one is not developing a urinary problem!!!
Not even sure how I will track who has the problem!
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Oh Sam I am sorry that is often a sign of several different things -- so I hope you can figure out which one it is as they might need a vet trip. Good Luck and I hope its nothing serious. :hearts: :calico:
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New Manufacturer added to pet food recall http://www.sunshinemills.com/press_release.html
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:schipbark:
Yay - she barked - when I left her outside on her chain for a minute past when she was done!! woohoo :kickdancing: She is still hobbling around and not well but what a good sign her spirits are up and that she is feeling so much better.
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a summary from another forum
Click on the links below for details from the manufacturers of brands, flavors and production batches affected by the recall.
http://menufoods.com/recall/product_cat.html (http://menufoods.com/recall/product_cat.html)
http://menufoods.com/recall/product_dog.html (http://menufoods.com/recall/product_dog.html)
http://www.delmonte.com/petfoodrecall.html (http://www.delmonte.com/petfoodrecall.html)
http://www.hillspet.com/menu_foods/Menu_Foods_03302007_en_US.htm (http://www.hillspet.com/menu_foods/Menu_Foods_03302007_en_US.htm)
http://www.purina.com/Company/Press/2007/MightyDog.aspx (http://www.purina.com/Company/Press/2007/MightyDog.aspx)
http://www.sunshinemills.com/press_release.html (http://www.sunshinemills.com/press_release.html)
Sam, I hope your kitty is ok and I'm glad Tara is better.
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I am at my mother's house for the night so I won't know if there are more problems til tomorrow. :(
BUT at least I am comforted by this statement:
Importantly, no Purina brand dry pet foods are affected by the recall – including ALPO Prime Cuts dry. In addition, no other Purina dog food products, no Purina cat food products, Purina treat products or Purina Veterinary Diet products are included in this recall, nor have been impacted by the contaminated wheat gluten supply.
About a year ago, I switched from Hills feline w/d dry (is on the recall list) to Purina One dry (a few of them that I mix together). With the wetting, I was afraid that I had an affected cat. But feel better knowing that Purina says the dry foods are ok. :clapping: My oldest cat just turned 16, is obese and is probably the culprit of the wet throw rug... If it happens again I WILL take her to the vet to be checked out. :luck: that it is nothing important. Will let you know when I know.
Glad to hear the dog is barking again and feeling better. Hope you get over your flu too!
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Jim, Thats a good list up there - this is the only place I have seen it put together online. It would be good if news sources would do that. A bark is a sign of encouragement but there are other signs that she is clearly not out of the woods yet. :unsure: :(
Sam, I am finding lots of wonderful holistic things for animals that I am going to try with Tara, some things work for me so its worth a try and I hate giving her more medicine which is always toxic. I saw some for urinary tract fortification If you interested it's out there or I can share what I've found.
Thanks for the well wishes, I am feeling better :)
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more news on the pet food contamination.
Jim
China Factory linked to tainted food bulldozed
The owner of the factory in China had the place bulldozed before the FDA inspectors arrived.
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=petfood10&date=20070511&query=china+factory
(http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=petfood10&date=20070511&query=china+factory)
Factory linked to tainted food found closed
By Don Lee and Abigail Goldman
Los Angeles Times
XUZHOU, China -- Before Mao Lijun's business exported tainted wheat products that may have killed U.S. pets, his factory sickened people and plants around here for years.
Farmers in this poor rural area 400 miles northwest of Shanghai had complained to local government officials since 2004 that Mao's factory was spewing noxious fumes that made their eyes tear up and the poplar trees nearby shed their leaves prematurely. Yet no one stopped Mao's company from churning out bags of food powders and belching smoke -- until one day last month when, in the middle of the night, bulldozers tore down the facility.
It wasn't authorities that finally acted: Mao himself razed the brick factory -- days before the investigators from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration arrived in China on a mission to track down the source of the tainted pet food ingredients.
U.S. inspectors said Thursday the suspect facilities had been hastily closed down.
"There is nothing to be found. They are essentially shut down and not operating," said Walter Batts, deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) office of international programs.
In the end, Chinese authorities caught up with Mao and arrested him. And Tuesday, after weeks of denials, China acknowledged that Mao's company and another Chinese business had illegally exported wheat and rice products spiked with melamine, a chemical used in making plastics and fertilizers. That chemical is banned in U.S. foods. in the U.S.
China's quality watchdog agency said the businesses had added melamine to the food ingredients "in a bid to meet the contractual demand for the amount of protein in the products." Melamine can make animal feed appear to have more protein than it actually does.
Besides turning up in pet food, melamine has been found in feed for thousands of hogs and millions of chickens in the United States. The FDA said Tuesday that melamine-contaminated foods also were fed to fish raised for human consumption. But in each case, U.S. officials said there was little risk to human health.
The number of U.S. fish hatcheries and farms known to have received the tainted feed rose sharply Thursday, with U.S. officials reporting about 60, up from 13 known Wednesday. That 60 included 23 in Oregon. The rest of the feed was shipped mostly to other Northwest states.
The FDA also said that although the tainted Chinese products were labeled as wheat gluten and rice protein, they were actually ordinary wheat flour -- with melamine and related nitrogen-rich compounds.
Melamine producers in China have said that melamine scrap, a cheaper form of the chemical, has been widely sold to entrepreneurs who use it to fool farmers into thinking that they were getting higher-nutrient animal feeds. Among the apparent buyers of melamine scrap were Mao, head of Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development, and Binzhou Futian Biology Technology.
Liu Zhaoyi, 64, a farmer who lives next to Mao's now-demolished factory, recalled seeing globs of white and yellowish scrap, which may have included melamine, piled in the yard behind the plant. One season after rains, Liu said, water with residue from the compound flowed into his family's cornfields and killed the crops.
Few people in town, which has a large food-manufacturing industry, seemed to know what Mao's factory made.
An Environment Protection Bureau official in Pei county, which is a part of Xuzhou, said one of his colleagues had visited Mao's facility in recent years when it was processing yeast and wheat. The inspection did not turn up any serious violations, and neighbors were told to complain to a court or another agency.
In recent days, Mao's company removed wheat gluten from the product offerings on its Web site. It also deleted something called ESB protein powder.
Xuzhou Anying had advertised the powder as its "latest researched, developed and produced" item and touted it as "a new way to solve the problem of shortage of protein resource." Several people with experience in China's food industry say such powders are invariably made with melamine.
Researchers believe another compound -- cyanuric acid -- also may have been added to the pet-food ingredients by Chinese firms or formed as a byproduct. Combined with melamine, cyanuric acid can form crystals and blocking kidney function in some animals.
China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said Tuesday that Xuzhou Anying and Binzhou Futian had evaded quality checks by labeling their products as exports not subject to inspection.
Farmer Liu said it was a shame officials failed to heed earlier complaints. "If they had done more, this company won't have such a big problem."
The Seattle Times staff, The Washington Post and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
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wo! Thats quite the story. I wonder what will ever happen to the guy for this heinous crime? I also read that the CFO of Menu Foods sold his stock ( dumped is what some reports say ) at the end of February. He claims it is a coincidence. ??? What is alsoconcerning me is how much of this story we are not being told and that the public may never know. Thanks for that update Jim. I continue to feel my dog holistic natural human grade food and she has put on weight is healing up after her injury and is acting years younger because I can tell she just feels better. My friend who is a vet assistant tole me they are still getting record numbers of animals with renal failure that they believe is still related to foods. Glad this story hasn't slipped into the old news file. We need answers.
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Thanks for posting that. I had not seen it anywhere else.
Maybe something good will come out of all the misery associated with the pet foods.
Maybe more caution will be used in both pet and human food prep... at least for a little while. :luck: