Many stores are reporting a drop of as much as 25% in pet food sales since the most recent pet food recall. Many pet owners are turning to their own kitchens to try to keep their pet safe. There are many good books on the market today to help you learn to feed your dog a homemade diet. Dog Food Secrets, Healthy Food For Your Dog, and Real Dogs Don't Eat Kibble to name a few.
The very same product that has lead to the nations largest pet food recall in history has been found to be used illegally by at least one US manufacturer of ingredients used for animal feed. The FDA alerted animal feed manufacturers that ingredients containing melamine and related compounds were found in products made by Tembec BTLSR Inc. of Toledo, Ohio, and used by Uniscope Inc. of Johnstown, Colo. . Officials said the melamine and related compounds were used to bind feed pellets for cattle, sheep and goats, or fish and shrimp.
So who can you trust?
Get the whole story : Dog Food Secrets
June 7, 2007
Wal-Mart has recalled a single batch of 55-pound bags of Ol' Roy Complete Nutrion dog food is being recalled. The dog food was produced at a plant in Manassas and distributed to 69 Wal-Mart stores in several states including Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Ohio. Forty of the stores are in Virginia.
Affected bags have the code 04 0735 1 and a "best by" date of April 13, 2008. Doane Pet Care is a division of the privately held, McLean-based Mars Inc. manufacturer of candy and pet foods.
June 6, 2007
ExperTox Inc., an independent lab in Deer Park, Texas, was looking for cyanuric acid and melamine in various brands of pet food submitted by worried pet owners and manufacturers, and "acetaminophen just popped up," according to Donna Coneley, Lab Operations Manager. "It definitely was a surprise to find that in several samples." The medication was found most often with cyanuric acid, a chemical used in pool chlorination, Coneley said. Varying levels of melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, also were found among the hundreds of samples ExperTox tested, she said.
The contaminants were found in foods that are not among the more than 150 brands recalled since March 16, Coneley said. The highest level of acetaminophen (2 milligrams per gram of dog food) was found in a dog food sample submitted by a manufacturer, she said. Coneley declined to identify the company but said its officials were given the results "well over a month ago."
The FDA first learned of the acetaminophen findings after concerned pet owners posted lab reports on the Internet. That company should have -- but did not -- notify the FDA.
The FDA is investigating the labs findings. "We're very interested in being able to test these samples ourselves to determine the levels of those contaminants," said FDA spokesman Doug Arbesfeld. "What's significant is these things are there. They don't belong there."
NO RECALL HAS BEEN ISSUED AT THIS TIME!
Keep Your Dog SAFE!
Dog Food Secrets contains many great recipes for homemade dog foods!
Even some pet food companies are admitting that they don't always know what is in the pet food that they sell or even where it came from. So all of this time that you thought there was some kind of mystery meat in your pets food, you may have been right.
The melamine laced wheat flour that was found to have killed and sickened thousands of pets was intentionally used by many manufacturers in China to increase the readings of the tests for protein content in its products. Apparently, this practice has been going on for years, not just in pet food ingredients but counterfeiting in general has been common practice in China for decades where food safety and export regulations are lax.
It's not just the Chinese that we need to worry about. The US buyers did not check the Chinese companies manufacturing plants or operations. It has been said that they found each other on a Google search and that's as far as the inquiries into their operations went. The manufacturers appeared to have met their product standards and that seemed to be enough.
And then their are the manufacturers in this country who had no idea where the "wheat gluten" and "rice protein" (or other ingredients) that they were using in their products even came from since they got their ingredients from a US company (Wilbur-Ellis).
It just seems as though the mighty dollar seems to be taking precedent over the safety and health of our beloved pets. Feeding your dog a homemade diet just seems to make more and more sense!
Try this vet approved NEW RECIPE!!
Low Salt and Mineral Dog Food
5 ounces ground beef
1 7/8 cups instant rice, cooked
1/4 cup all-bran cereal
1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon salt substitute
1/2 teaspoon Calcium carbonate (Tums tablet or ground egg shells).
1 adult vitamin-mineral supplement (Centrum).
Bake, fry or microwave beef and do not drain fat.
Mix with all other ingredients except for the vitamin-mineral supplement.
Mix well and serve immediately.
Feed the daily vitamin-mineral supplement with the meal, give as a pill or pulverize and mix thoroughly mix with food before feeding.
Refrigerate any unused portions. Discard unused food after 3 days.
This recipe will make enough food to feed a 40lb. dog for a day.
More recipes can be found at: Healthy Food For Dogs - 245 Homemade Recipes
