Pet Food Recall

[chickwhorips]

60 million containers of pet food recalled
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.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17650075/from/ET/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17650075/from/ET/)

[mimitabby]

gosh, i saw that. how creepy. what the heck was in that stuff?

I am hoping that it's not friskies... I feed my cats mostly expensive organic cat food, but i give them a small amount of canned friskies as a treat every day.

[xeney]

Gah! My cats mostly eat dry food, but I always give them canned, and I always buy the same kind, but last week I bought the Safeway store brand. Which is on the list.

[chickwhorips]

what the heck was in that stuff?

no idea, but it makes you wonder.

[KnottedYet]

I feed Stinky-Butt-Dog expensive organic food, but last week I bought him ONE can of Iams, cuz they had it at the grocery store and I was out of dog food.

DANG!!

He ate it, didn't get sick. I don't think I'll do that again, anyway!

[LBTC]

I've read about what's usually in pet food and it is gross. As bad as the ingredients sound, I don't think I've ever seen a recall before! Yikes! Of course, I've read the ingredients on Eukanuba and Iams and I actually think Friskies is better for my cat. Go figure! :eek: So, yes, I hope it's not Friskies, too!

Hugs and butterflies, and extras to all your furry kids that they are safe,
~T~

[smilingcat]

This is a different recall. Second one in about two month or so.

The other one was an e-coli contamination of frozen raw cat food.

Thank you for the information, I will be passing this information to the cat rescue groups I work with. We've fostered maybe 20 or more new born kittens over the years. And found loving home for each one. And yes I do cry when they go to a new loving home which I approve.

http://www.purrfectpartners.com/
http://www.peopleandcats.com

Sincerely,
Shawn

[wannaduacentury]

I had 2 cans of dog food left over and it's Purina, so I hope it's ok. I need to find out which my parents use for their dogs.

[LBTC]

To check which products are being recalled, click here:
http://www.menufoods.com/recall/product_cat.html

Luckily Friskies and Purina are not on the list. :p

Be careful out there everyone!

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~

[mimitabby]

wow, this is terrible. we're talking premium cat food here, not just walmart and other generic brands. Good thing for my kitties that I don't feed pouches!!

[KnottedYet]

Dog food list: http://www.menufoods.com/recall/product_dog.html

We'll be sticking to our expensive organic dog food (they make a canned version, too) or homemade if we want to give our beastie some soft food. There are too many umbrella brands in that list, I'm not sure I could avoid the correct foods.

Sorry, pup! It's turkey burgers and scrambled eggs for you!

I'm just amazed that one company makes all those same foods. Cheap ones and expensive ones. Are they all the same recipe, too?

One of the articles somewhere mentioned the possiblility of contaminated wheat gluten (aka vegetable protien). Maybe dog should be on a celiac diet with me!

Actually, his current dog food doesn't have any grain in it. Maybe I should be eating HIS diet... (uh, no.)

[btchance]

Am I right that it's only the pouches that have been recalled. I feed my cat Special Kitty canned food, mainly because I haven't found anything else she will eat. It looks like only pouches, but I'm worried to feed her the canned, i mean, there's not much difference between the two.

[Eden]

:( :eek: :( :eek:

I feed my kitties one of those foods!!! - and its one of the premium ones. I looked at my food yesterday and it says on the pouch that its made in the US so I wasn't worried, but they must contract out the pouches.

there is very little information on the site about what the effects might be so now I'm worried.....

both of them have been OK

[LBTC]

BT, it sounds to me like the recall was caused by a particular ingredient - wheat gluten. Read the ingredients of your pet food and see if it's in there. This ingredient is not listed on the canned Friskies that my Teddy cat gets. I suspect it is used only in the types of foods that have gravy - I think they use the wheat gluten to thicken the gravy.

Hugs and butterflies,
~T~

[makbike]

If you think you fed your pets one of the recalled foods or you have any questions please contact your vet ASAP. Kidney failure is a terrible thing for any owner to have to watch or any pet to have to go through. If you have any doubt it might be wish to have your vet draw blood for a panel to check kidney function. Peace of mind is a great gift to oneself.

[snapdragen]

So it's only canned and pouched food? Chloe gets NutroMax Natural Choice kibble. Don't tell here there are other kinds of dog food, she thinks kibble is amazing by itself....

[smilingcat]

wheat gluten counts toward the protein content so it could be in the dry food as well.

Check the list on the web site and check with your vet, local pet supply shop etc.

This morning, I was at a grocery store to pick up few things. They were taking Eukanuba and Iams off the shelf. Talked with the mgr but he didn't really want to talk about it. What an $$#@. He wanted to downplay the significance.

Shawn

[riffraffmom]

last month i had to rush my 5 month old kitten to the vet because he became seriously ill. the vet asked me what i was feeding jasper and i told him wet and dry special kitty. my once playful cat was vomiting constantly, drinking excessive water, urinating excessively, and would not play and was crying in pain. we did all types of test on him. he was shaved everywhere. vet told me to stop feeding him special kitty immediately and start him on science diet dry food only. the next day his tests came back vet called immediately from office and told me jasper was in acute renal failure. his blood test showed that his kidneys were 10 times over the normal limit. he said there is not anything we can do and to watch him carefully and if he got worse to call immediately he did not think jasper would make it.. for the next 48 hours we were force feeding jasper by grounding up a special recipe of food in a blender and feeding him with a baby spoon. we even went as far as buying him a water purifier just for animals. well i am happy to say jasper is doing great tonight he is playing and eating and back to his old self. next week he goes back to the vet for another checkup. i am very scared on what he will tell us. the vet told us that kidney failure is irreversable and we would have to see how much damage was done if he made it to the next appointment. he told me the treatments jasper will need in the future could be very costly are the catfood companies going to help us with vet bills for our pets i hope so if anyone else has had this problem please email me. i would really like someone to talk to that is going through this with me.

[chickwhorips]

i am so sorry to hear what you have to go through. glad jasper has made it this far, and hope the future looks bright. big hugs to you and jasper.

[Wahine]

RRMom - That's terrible. I'm sorry you are going through this. I hope Jasper is a miracle kitty and turns out to be just fine. Sorry, I can't offer any advice, just (((((((hugs)))))))).

[Eden]

I hope all goes well for Jasper. My Koji vomited a few times - at the time I attributed it to him eating too fast, but now I know better. He hasn't been any sicker than that thankfully. Shio wasn't affected at all. I went to the pet store this afternoon to find a new food for them. Now I'm really ticked off 1st, because they were selling unsafe food and 2nd, because I feel like they were passing off this cat food (I was buying Nutro) as something that it wasn't - even the pet store (Mud Bay Granary - so its not like I was going to Petco or one of the big box stores) told me it was very high quality - but now I know better. I feel rather decieved and I refuse to patronize any of the brands listed on the recall no matter what type of food, on the recall or not.

My kitties are now getting Ziwi Peak canned food and Avoderm dry food - if anyone knows anything bad about these two brands let me know.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

the vet told us that kidney failure is irreversable and we would have to see how much damage was done if he made it to the next appointment. he told me the treatments jasper will need in the future could be very costly are the catfood companies going to help us with vet bills for our pets i hope so if anyone else has had this problem please email me. i would really like someone to talk to that is going through this with me.

Riffraff,
Our other cat Pearl almost died from kidney failure 3 yers ago. Our vet told us she had never seen a cat survive who had such terrible lab test results. Pearl was drooling bloody mucous, looked like a skeleton, and smelled like a corpse, that's how bad she was. We were just on the verge of putting her to sleep.
After several days of intravenous water drip at the vet's to flush the kidneys, and an anitbiotic series to fight her raw ulcers infections, we took her home and gave her subcutaneous water injections 3x week, then 2x, then 1x, then were able to stop after a year as she improved. You may have to learn to give these shots at home too- they are just under the skin, not in a vein. It's a two person job, but it is do-able.
The longterm trick is to get them to drink more water. Try buying "chunk" tuna packed in spring water, and dump it all into a bowl water and all. Then add another whole cup of water to the whole and mix it- see if your kitty will lap that water, it worked for us. Keep making tuna "broth", keep it in the fridge, and giving her as much as she willl drink several times a day. If she eats some tuna then fine, but it's the water she needs to get better. Open a new can every couple of days and make more water broth. Leave the tuna in the broth container to "brew" until you are ready to make a new batch of tuna water. As to their "regular" bowls of drinkning water, be sure to clean and change them every day, as cats really love FRESH water and don't like day-old water at all for some reason.

I want you to know that Pearl (now 6) actually made a COMPLETE recovery and her kidneys labs tests are pretty normal these days. She came back from the brink of death and is now happy, bouncy and the picture of good health. I am convinced she ate something bad like bad cat food that casued her kidney failure years ago. She had been perfectly fine and suddenly became so ill. I had no idea why at the time, but now I can guess.

[makbike]

"i am very scared on what he will tell us. the vet told us that kidney failure is irreversable and we would have to see how much damage was done if he made it to the next appointment. he told me the treatments jasper will need in the future could be very costly are the catfood companies going to help us with vet bills for our pets i hope so if anyone else has had this problem please email me. i would really like someone to talk to that is going through this with me."

Kidney failure is serious but it is treatable as well. My buddy, Scooter, was diagnosed with kidney disease at the young age of 8. Upon his diagnosis I immediately began giving him sub-q fluids under the direction of my vet. I treated Scooter every day for 8 years for his kidney disease and it was not the kidney failure that ended his incredible journey but cancer. If I could give you any advice it would be to seek a second opinion if your current vet is telling you there is little that can be done. It is true that you can not restore what has been damaged in the the kidneys but you can help the kidneys in several ways - proper diet, fluids, medications, etc. It ran me about $4.00 for a bag of fluids and a bag would last 5 days. It is very important that you have blood work done on your buddy on a regular basis so that you can check the levels of the kidney enzymes. Pay close attention to your buddy for they will also let you know when things are not "right." Watch for vomiting, excessive drinking, excessive urination, licking of lips, lethargy, etc - all signs that things are out of balance. Don't give up hope for kidney disease is treatable. I'm sorry you and your buddy are having to go through ordeal.

[riffraffmom]

thank you all for the advice on jasper. i will be talking to his vet this week when he goes for more test. i thought the vet was a quack last month when he told me it was the cat food. but i took his advice and changed the food jasper was eatting. as i seen jasper improving i told everone i know about what the vet said about the special kitty he was eatting and they throw theirs away and changed their cat food to something else. my moms cat went through just the first stage of vomiting and i told her to change food now don't wait and her cat is doing better. for jaspers water he now has a water fountain with filters that keeps his water fresh and cold constantly. he was very picky on the water he was drinking he wantd poland spring water from the bubbler.i bought the water fountain at pet supply plus for $30.00 and he loves it he loves drinking from the top of it where the water pours out. as you can see we will do anything to make him happy and well. thank you all again for the advice i really appriciate it

[tygab]

This recall is also for dog foods, but since I have two getting-older cats I have a few perspectives to offer on that side, since one has diabetes and the other early stage kidney disease, both of which we've learned about in the last year:

First, cat owners, please read this page & links:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/diet.htm

Most premium brand cat foods stink, plain and simple. And dry foods are even worse. They contain way too much grains (read carbs) and I now feed cheap-o canned Fancy Feast almost exclusively (I feed 3 flavors in particular that are not chunked or grilled style). The cats seem to be doing well on this.

Prior to this I was an exclusively dry Iams feeder, and I thought I was doing good things since it was a well known premium brand. It turns out it very wrong food to be feeding.

We still feed some dry as background food but the cats prefer the wet food now, preferably at "dead mouse temperature." ;)

Here is some kidney specific information:

http://www.netpets.org/cats/reference/info/catkidney.html
and
http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?action=library&act=show&item=003


Again, a high protein, low carb diet is indicated. And lots of fresh, clean water for them to drink. Get a fountain waterer and keep it full and clean!

From what I have learned, it'd be the best to get a grinder and grind up whole portions (bones and all), and many owners with more acute symptoms for either of these diseases in their pets end up doing this. But it's got its drawbacks, as you can imagine...

Fortunately, knock on wood, my two cats are in solid stable health now. But what we feed our pets has, just like in us, a great deal to do with their long term health. Please learn as much as you can and make informed choices!

[makbike]

Tygab:

The felinediabetes forum is a great group of people. I learned so much from them when Scooter was diagnosed with diabetes. Through their support and wealth of knowledge I was able to learn the ins and outs of home testing, the importance of this, how to do curves, etc. I am sure because of this I was able to manage Scooter's diabetes in conjunction with his kidney disease for the final three years of his amazing 17 year journey. More importantly, I was able to insure that Scooter's quality of life remained very, very high. I was also able in turn to share my knowledge and teach clients who utilized the clinic I worked at part-time on how to home test (my bosses were not very happy with this but so be it).

I wish you many, many happy days with your two senior buddies. Please give them a big hug from my gang!

[KnottedYet]

My kitties are now getting Ziwi Peak canned food and Avoderm dry food - if anyone knows anything bad about these two brands let me know.

My dog ate Avoderm kibble for the first years of his life. Great dog food! I needed to get him onto a higher protien diet and moved him to Innova Evo grain-free dog kibble. Also great food!

No doggie farts nor hot-spots nor stinky poopoo on either of those foods. :D

[ccnyc]

Most premium brand cat foods stink, plain and simple. And dry foods are even worse. They contain way too much grains (read carbs) and I now feed cheap-o canned Fancy Feast almost exclusively (I feed 3 flavors in particular that are not chunked or grilled style). The cats seem to be doing well on this.

Prior to this I was an exclusively dry Iams feeder, and I thought I was doing good things since it was a well known premium brand. It turns out it very wrong food to be feeding.

We still feed some dry as background food but the cats prefer the wet food now, preferably at "dead mouse temperature."

What tygab said!

Check out www.holisticat.com for info on healthy feline diets and more.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Most premium brand cat foods stink, plain and simple. And dry foods are even worse. They contain way too much grains (read carbs) and I now feed cheap-o canned Fancy Feast almost exclusively (I feed 3 flavors in particular that are not chunked or grilled style). The cats seem to be doing well on this.


Tygab, do you mean those teensy Fancy feast cans?? I was under the impression those were pretty expensive compared to the slightly larger cans of Friskies and 9Lives, etc. Can youtell me which 3 flavors you are feeding, and why this food in particular?

[KnottedYet]

This is the company that makes StinkyButtDog's food. He eats the Innova line of food, the Innova EVO kibble which has no grains and occaisionally a can of the Innova wet glop as a treat. (more often he gets plain yogurt or cottage cheese or some other "people" food for a treat)

They make cat foods in each of their lines, too. But since I don't have a cat I can't give any opinions on it. The dog food is great.

http://www.naturapet.com/display.php?d=home-tab

I'm not kidding when I say he doesn't fart or get hot spots or have smelly poop with this food. The higher protien in the EVO calmed him down enough that I was able to take him off his 3-pill-a-day chlomipramine habit.

Innova has sample bags of their various foods. Ask at your natural pet food store. I tried SBDog on several different samples of kibble (as treats) and chose the one he liked the best (it was a GOOD treat and he watched intently for me to give him more of that one!) to switch him to.

[tygab]

I feed these flavors:

ocean whitefish and tuna feast
cod, sole, and shrimp feast
savory salmon feast

Partially because they come in a 3 variety pack, and partly because they like these flavors in particular. Some of the others they just lick the gravy off of. There's a pretty detailed food chart and they have a good # of calories derived from protein. I look at the cans and try to get protein of 13% or better. Since the cans are smaller we can feed a whole can. We feed cans 4-5 times per day (2 in the am, 2-3 pm). My husband leaves for work a few hours before I do, and I stay up late & give the last food of the day, to give you an idea of how it goes.

http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/canfood.html

It may not be the cheapest of the canned foods, but it is cheaper than a lot of others.

[LBTC]

I misposted earlier - we feed our Ted cat Fancy Feast too. With his heart condition I needed to find a food that did not have salt that he would still eat. He is incredibly fussy. He has not liked any of the sliced or chunked meals in gravy. He will occasaionally lick the gravy off. We feed him tender beef feast, chicken & liver feast and beef & liver feast. We actually have to go to two stores to get the three flavours. There have been others that he'll eat for awhile and then he just won't anymore.

Oh, yes, and the tiny cans are perfect. He absolutely refuses to eat leftovers!!

Otto, our fat cat, is currently eating the free bag of fancy dry kibble the vet gave him for giving blood. He does still get a pretty good amount of the Fancy Feast from all the times Ted doesn't quite finish.

I used to make all of their food from scratch twice a day with cooked squash and chopped kale and ground beef, stew beef and ground turkey. Sometime when life got terribly busy and we moved and changed careers and our income got reduced and our other expenses went up, we had to get kibble for the dogs. They get a pretty good amount of people food - but never anything with grains - only veggies and meat; and their kibble is supposedly really good, it's called Nutram.

We fed our Yogi dog Nutros for a long time. The rep was terribly surprised to hear that he ended up getting cancer and passed away at a very young age for a border collie. When he was diagnosed was when we moved to the home-made food.

And I've never tried buying the raw food.....never could afford it!

RRMom, please let us know how Jasper's follow up appointment goes. The poor kitty! I'm so glad that he lives with such a caring and loving fur-mom!!

Hugs and healing butterflies,
~T~

[mary9761]

My girls Whiskers and Frisky along myself pass along get well wishes to Jasper. We do only dry food here as it's more cost effective and we use the indoor Purina Cat Chow. They seem to do good, hopefully they don't add the dry foods to the list. I don't know how we'd afford anything else at this point. There are days I'm doing good to buy US fresh people food.
PS: Only my medium hair (Miss Hairball I've been calling her lately) Whiskers will drink water from the bowl. Frisky prefers drinking from the sink or tub faucet. Periodically, they'll get a treat of the water off of a can of tuna when we have any.

[riffraffmom]

hi all just thought i would stop in and see how everyone is doing. still trying to get through to the numbers posted on the websites to the people at menu. i called my local walmart and they were very rude. as of yesterday morning when i called they said they had not heard of anything being wrong with their product special kitty. they said it was fine, that it wasn't on the list. i told her to go back and look at the list that it was on there. she told me not to call back and hung up. i guess i won't go back to that store ever again. walmart in concord nh just lost a costumer. but i guess 1 person won't hurt their profits by not shopping there. here is another picture of my jasper

[KnottedYet]

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-nj--petfoodrecall-qampa0319mar19,0,1350061.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print

EXCUSE ME!?!?! did that article just say that on average one out of six animals tested on the recalled food died? WHAT?!?! They KNOW this food is bad, but they go and feed it to test animals just to be sure?

Why didn't they run toxicology screens instead? Why deliberately feed it to more dogs and cats to see if it kills more animals?

This is soooooo wrong!

When people food is poisonous, doctors don't go and feed the bad food to more people to see if it kills them, too!

[LBTC]

Yikes! That makes me just so .... sad. Poor fellers. :( :mad: :(

Thanks for posting this Knot. I already didn't trust pet food manufacturers.....but I guess more info is always better.

Hugs and healing / protecting butterflies,
~T~

[smilingcat]

This is so horrific. Feed bad food to cats and dogs to see its really BAD??? How could they. So they can decide whether its bad enough to yank from shelves??

I lost my very dear cat Mr. Murphy, back on Dec. 6 from kidney failure. I don't think he was that old. He was a rescue cat from one of the rescue group I work with. We think his kidney failure was due to the commercial cat food. Not bad enough to hurt them short term...

Still this sort of things make me really angry.

I spend lots of my time saving little kittens. Bottle feeding them at 1:00
AM then again at 3:00AM, making sure their water bottle is warm but not too hot. Cleaning them ... Bringing them to my office (at chargrin of my boss) so that they can grow up being healthy kittens for adoption to a nice home. And these **&^ deliberatly feed tainted food to see how many die??

aagghhhh!!!!