If you’re looking for a Siberian Husky, here’s your rescue! Check out Tails of the Tundra Siberian Husky Rescue, Inc.

Talk about a busy group! These Dogsters really get out! Their schedule includes a regatta next month, 2007 Wags and Whiskers Walkathon in Yorktown, NY and enough other events to keep any furparent busy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Itchmo Forum readers have organized a postcard blitz for this Saturday, April 28th, to bring to light the under-reporting of dogs murdered and hurt by the recent recalled foods. If you have sadly been a pet parent with pets affected, please consider participating.

My Pet Counts! Postcard Blitz

We are calling on all pet owners, parents, guardians who have lost a pet due to contaminated pet food or had a pet become ill to join us in a post card blitz to demonstrate the full scope of this pet food recall disaster.

Read the rest of this entry »

Isn’t it interesting how MenuPet (or should we say Procter & Gamble) wants to offload the blame and lawsuits to a supplier? MenuPet wants to blame ChemNutra (and possibly another supplier) for selling them tainted products. Oooo, puup little MenuPet. It just can’t manage to run its own tests on incoming supplies. That might take too long or add another penny to the cost of a ton of product. Poor, poor little MenuPet.

Okay you money-grubbing MenuPet (and Proctor & Gamble overseers), you made the money and now you have to suffer the consequences. Look, even drug dealers know better than to buy supples without testing. Just watch any big drug movie. The drug importers always have a scene where someone tests the products. Don’t tell me the MenuPet managers are not as smart as drug traffickers!

I’m not saying to let ChemNutra off the hook. Oh no! They probably made a lot of money selling cheap, tainted food stuffs to MenuPet and whoever else. These guys deserve just as much censure and punishment as the MenuPet toadies. How about revoking ChemNutra’s license to import food? And don’t stop at ChemNutra. Revoke the license of any other company that sold tainted food.

We’re talking about food here! Any company that knowingly, or should know, they are selling tainted food does not need to be in business! And don’t claim you didn’t know. Its YOUR job to know! You should be testing EVERY load of food coming into North America.

Our pets gave their lives in this food recall 9/11. This is a wake-up call to us all. If we don’t heed the warnings and act appropriately, their deaths and our future deaths will have been for nothing.

Thanks to USA Today for this news.

FDA raids company that imported tainted wheat gluten

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration conducted a search of the Las Vegas offices of ChemNutra, supplier of the ingredient suspected in the contamination of recalled dog and cat food, the company said Friday.

ChemNutra said it had been informed the company could be held accountable because it imported the melamine-adulterated wheat gluten used in the tainted pet food even though the company had no knowledge its supplier in China had introduced melamine into the product.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to USAToday for this article.

China admits tainted food link
By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

BEIJING — Chinese authorities acknowledged for the first time that ingredients exported to make pet food contained a prohibited chemical, stepping up their probe of two Chinese companies’ roles in one of the USA’s largest animal-food recalls.
While pledging cooperation with U.S. authorities investigating the recall, the Chinese government in a statement Thursday also disputed that the chemical — melamine, which is used to make plastic — was responsible for harming pets.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Nika for barking this blog entry in from Itchmo. I checked the Blue Buffalo site but the recall is not posted there as of this moment. When I called Blue Buffalo’s consumer line I got a long message stating this recall notice.

BREAKING NEWS: Blue Buffalo Recalls All Canned Dog and Cat Food, As Well As Treats

Blue Buffalo just announced another expansion of the recall covering:

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Canada Free Press for this insightful article.

Poisoned pet food scare:
ChemNutra sliding off radar screen?
By Judi McLeod

Even with no conclusive answers from the Food and Drug Association (FDA) on which particular poison is sickening what respectable veterinarian associations claim could be “thousands” of pets, ChemNutra, the U.S. company that imported the tainted wheat gluten from China seems to have disappeared off the radar screen.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to the PetSitUSA blog for this breaking recall news. Also, check out the Pet Connection blog for a more in-depth information on this recall.

I just got off the phone with Costco and American Nutrition. Both have confirmed that Kirkland Brand Signature canned food has been recalled. At this point I do not know exactly which canned foods are involved. Melamine has been confirmed in in at least some of their wet food. I’m waiting for more information and will post it here as soon as I get it.

Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that too many pet food companies trusted untrustworthy food manufacturers to make their products. It looks like we’re in the middle of an American Nutrition recall similar to what we saw with Menu Pet. What does this say that two of the apparently most-used producers used sub-par foods? Sure makes me feel that we need extensive overhauls of the system AND pet parents need to demand that the brands they but actually be made in factories the companies personally oversee.

Thanks to Itchmo for publicizing this recall.

Here’s the announcement from the Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul site.

Diamond Pet Foods has announced it is withdrawing a limited number of canned products manufactured by American Nutrition. This action is limited to three specific canned products: Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul Kitten Formula 5.5 oz. cans, and Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul Puppy Formula 13 oz. cans, and Diamond Lamb & Rice Formula for Dogs 13 oz. cans.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hold onto your pet food bowls; it looks like we may be entering another round of recalls. Several pet food companies are accusing American Nutrition, a packager like Menu Pet, of adding rice protein concentrate to their products without telling them. This may be another long recall day.

Here’s a novel idea. What if so-called pet food companies actually produced their own food? You know, as in had a factory, oversaw the quality, that sort of thing? Otherwise, how can ANY of us trust the food they brand and sell? We can’t. Heck, according to this and the other recent recalls, the people who pay to have this stuff canned or packaged can’t trust the people they pay to produce it. So how can we trust Natural Balance or any other company that has no real control over their packaging process?

As for me, if I find out that a company is not the packager of its own food or treats, I am making a point of avoiding those products, no matter who says they are okay. The bottom line to pet food companies — make it yourself or I cross you off the list of what I give my furbabies.

Thanks to Nika for barking this in and Itchmo for covering it.

Here is the announcement from the Natural Balance site.

Breaking Voluntary Recall News:
Thursday, April 26th, 2007

Our canned food manufacturer, American Nutrition, from Ogden Utah, just informed us that they are recalling all canned products made in their plant that contain rice protein concentrate. American Nutrition continued by telling us that they added this ingredient to four of our canned products without our knowledge or consent. The four products involved are:

Read the rest of this entry »

Chenango Valley Pet Foods Issues Voluntarily Nationwide Recall of Certain Pet Foods

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — April 26, 2007 — Chenango Valley Pet Foods is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and voluntarily recalling pet foods manufactured with a certain shipment of rice protein concentrate. The company was informed by Wilbur-Ellis that the rice protein concentrate shipped to Chenango Valley Pet Foods may be contaminated with melamine, and instructed Chenango Valley Pet Foods to recall any pet foods manufactured with the rice protein concentrate. Melamine is an industrial chemical used to make plastics and fertilizers that may lead to illness or fatalities in animals if consumed.

Read the rest of this entry »