This has been a terrible couple months for pet owners and the pet food industry. It started with the initial recall in March- clients coming into veterinary offices with pets in renal failure, mentioning something about a pet food recall. “What?” asked the vets, wondering why they weren’t made aware of it so they could ask the right questions. That is how it started, and it still hasn’t stopped.
Vets found out the same way everyone else did- through CNN, the nightly news. There is no national database of veterinarians that can be alerted of a massive problem like this, so we rely on word of mouth, or maybe contact from the pet food representatives who were, in this case, silent. First it was aminopterin, then later, melamine. People who fed their pets “premium” foods and thought they were safe, found out that some varieties of Ol’Roy and Eukanuba were made side by side in the same plant, from the same tainted ingredient.
People switched to dry, and thought they were safe. Then Hills m/d was recalled. People switched to super-premium foods, ones without wheat gluten, and thought they were safe. Then Natural Balance announced rice protein concentrate was contaminated with melamine and pulled several brands of their food off the shelves. Are we safe now? How about now? What will tomorrow bring? It hasn’t stopped YET, and even yesterday Royal Canin USA added multiple prescription and over the counter diets to the recall. The widening is getting broader and more alarming each day. The latest theory is that melamine was deliberately introduced in order to artificially inflate the protein concentration in these products imported from China, bringing the debacle to a new, horrifying level.
This recall has shaken this industry badly. When you look at the statistics, the pet food supply is even now safer than the human food supply. With home cooking at a very low level, food borne illness was and continues to be a very rare problem with pets. One of the things that bothers me the most about this is how little trust we can have now in this industry. The suppliers may have lied to the producers like Menu Foods (if indeed this was a deliberate contamination.) The producers waited for a good month before revealing that they knew there was a problem. Some pet food companies, scared of revealing a link to Menu after the story broke, hid from pet stores the fact that they used Menu in some of their production lines. Some of the pet food companies themselves were unaware of the source of their products, as happened with Royal Canin Canada. There was not just one failure here, there were failures on the part of EACH and every member of the chain here, and that is what is truly mind blowing.
So now what?
If you continue to feed your pet commercial food, you are still making a good choice. The number of confirmed deaths represents 0.005% of the US pet population, or 1 in 100 million. The companies are more vigilant than ever right now about the safety of their foods. You can switch your foods up to dilute the risk of any one food being contaminated.
You can choose to home cook. This is a challenging, time consuming proposition, especially in the long term. It is highly advised to consult with a veterinary nutritionist if you are choosing to do this, as finding the right amounts of additives can be tricky and requires specific weight related calculations. BalanceIt is one example of a reputable online source for recipes. UC Davis also offers services to clients and veterinarians- call (530) 752-1393 for more details. It is not recommended to follow any home cooked diet more than a month or two without follow up with your veterinarian to make sure your pet is receiving adequate balanced nutrition. Nutritionists report about 1-3 in 100 pets eating homemade foods do end up with imbalances or problems, so the risk is real. You also run into the risk of food poisoning that is the same you face yourself. It can be done, especially if you are vigilant and motivated, but just be aware that it is actually still safer to stick with commercial food unless you are going to follow all the involved recommendations and do it correctly. Raw diets are a subset of this group of foods, but going into detail is beyond the scope of this article at this time.
For More Information:
FDA Pet Food recall list
Sign up for FDA e-mail alerts
Recall List at Itchmo
Recall Info at Howl911
jesvet
Thank you for writing about this. As I figure it, pets and humans have a bargain. We bring them into our home, promise them love and safety. In turn, they trust us with their lives and give us unconditional love. It is really difficult to know that we can’t keep them safe and that someone is deliberately making them sick. I imagine vets are just as, if not more, frustrated.