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Discuss ways to improve the quality of your dog's life and longevity through proper nutrition and a place for all of your questions and answers about feeding your pooch! Don't furget to check out Dogster's Dog Care Guide Book for information about feeding your dog! Bone Appawtite!
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Romeo Bonito- King Leo Ren- Hoek
Mommy's Little- Guy |
 | | Barked: Fri Mar 16, '07 2:27pm PST | |  | |  | | WASHINGTON - 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.
An unknown number of cats and dogs suffered kidney failure and about 10 died after eating the affected pet food, Menu Foods said in announcing the North American recall. Product testing has not revealed a link explaining the reported cases of illness and death, the company said.
"At this juncture, we're not 100 percent sure what's happened," said Paul Henderson, the company's president and chief executive officer. However, the recalled products were made using wheat gluten purchased from a new supplier, since dropped for another source, spokeswoman Sarah Tuite said. Wheat gluten is a source of protein.
The recall covers the company's "cuts and gravy" style food, which consists of chunks of meat in gravy, sold in cans and small foil pouches between Dec. 3 and March 6 throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
The pet food was sold by stores operated by the Kroger Company, Safeway Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and PetSmart Inc., among others, Henderson said.
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 — http://www.menufoods.com/recall — early Saturday. Consumers with questions can call (866) 463-6738.
The company said it manufacturers for 17 of the top 20 North American retailers. It is also a contract manufacturer for the top branded pet food companies. Its three U.S. and one Canadian factory produce more than 1 billion containers of wet pet food a year. The recall covers pet food made at company plants in Emporia, Kan., and Pennsauken, N.J., Henderson said.
Henderson said the company received an undisclosed number of owner complaints of vomiting and kidney failure in dogs and cats after they had been fed its products. It has tested its products but not found a cause for the sickness.
"To date, the tests have not indicated any problems with the product," Henderson said.
The company alerted the Food and Drug Administration, which already has inspectors in one of the two plants, Henderson said. The FDA was working to nail down brand names covered by the recall, agency spokesman Mike Herndon said.
Menu Foods is majority owned by the Menu Foods Income Fund, based in Ontario, Canada.
Henderson said the recall would cost the company the Canadian equivalent of $26 million to $34 million. |  |  | |  |
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Fudge
How can I be- this cute?
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Lucy - Rest in- Peace, LuLu
Ban the deed,- not the breed! |
| | Barked: Fri Mar 16, '07 4:35pm PST | | | | | | More about "Menu Foods," the Canadian pet food manfacturer that makes the food for Petsmart (Authority, et. al.), Iams, Eukanuba, Walmart, Safeway and Krogers. From Peta's website (yeah, yeah, it's PETA, but it doesn't negate the cruelty and neglect these animals suffer). If you are buying these brands, you are supporting animal testing and cruelty.
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(from http://www.peta.org/feat/iams/menu-index.html)
Ontario-based Menu Foods describes itself as a “leading North American manufacturer of private-label wet pet food products, selling its products to supermarket retailers, mass merchandisers, pet specialty retailers, and other retail and wholesale outlets.” You will, no doubt, recognize some Menu Foods products on your own store shelves. PetSmart’s canned brands—Authority, SophistaCat, and Award—are made by Menu Foods. Safeway’s Safeway Select brand, A&P’s Master Choice, and even Stop & Shop’s canned pet food is made by Menu Foods. Menu Foods sells an astounding 800 million containers of wet pet food per year. If you were to ask any of these stores if they test their pet foods on animals in laboratories, they might say “no,” and they wouldn’t be lying. Unknown to most consumers and perhaps even to the stores themselves is the fact that the actual manufacturer, Menu Foods, does conduct such tests as was shown during PETA’s nine-month investigation into a contract testing laboratory—the same one in which Iams animals were found suffering.
Metabolic Tests
Like Iams and many other “pet” food manufacturers, Menu Foods conducts tests to measure the “metabolic energy” of dog and cat food. Such tests are inherently cruel because they involve severe confinement in stainless-steel metal cages. PETA’s undercover investigation at a testing laboratory with which Menu Foods contracts found countless examples of cruelty and neglect.
During the tests, dogs and cats are forced to live in cold, hard, barren stainless-steel cages with no toys or beds. PETA’s investigator took video footage of animals circling endlessly in their cages, suffering the severe effects of lack of stimulation, exercise, and socialization. Metabolic cages are approximately the size of a cage that your vet might use for animals recovering from surgery. Imagine keeping your companion animal in such a cage day after day, year after year! You wouldn’t do it. But Menu Foods dogs had no choice and virtually no life.
PETA’s investigator called a researcher at Menu Foods and asked if the animals could have some toys but was told, “If you give them toys, they are going to have higher activity and [this] will affect the [metabolic energy] result.” He even went so far as to tell our investigator that the protocol doesn’t call for toys!
These miserable animals were not given adequate exercise, either. The dogs were only “exercised” in the galleyway on wet and often filthy concrete on the days when their feces were not collected for the study, and the cats never received any exercise at all. They were simply stored in small carriers while their cages were cleaned.
read more:
http://www.peta.org/feat/iams/menu-pain.html
List of dog and cat food companies that don’t test on animals:
http://www.iamscruelty.com/notTested.asp | | | | |
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----Jordan--- --
Sweet & gentle- rabble rouser |
| | Barked: Fri Mar 16, '07 5:36pm PST | | | | | | Does anyone else sense an amazing (and strange) amount of reticence on the media's part in saying exactly what the brands are? Usually name brand(s) are in the first sentence of an article when recall events hit the fan... | | | | |
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Fudge
How can I be- this cute?
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| | Barked: Fri Mar 16, '07 5:43pm PST | | | | | | Yeah, Jordan, I had the same feeling. Why are they taking so long to release the brands? Seems weird to announce a recall and then not state what's being recalled until the next day. And it seems like it'd be worse for business this way, since then anyone who has a brand manufactured by Menu Foods is probably going to stop feeding it, even if it turns out later it's not included in the recall.
My guess is that maybe the FDA forced the recall today, but Menu Foods hasn't figured out all of the brands affected yet. But who knows. | | | | |
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Thunder
All right... who- moved the car.
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| | Barked: Fri Mar 16, '07 6:50pm PST | | | | | | So many of these manufacturing companies are reluctant to indicate which products they produce because the "name-brand" and "no-name" products are being made at the same time. If you knew that you could get the exact same stuff in a cheaper brandless package - it's hard to charge more for the "brand".
Therefore, Menu Foods has to be very careful that they do not openly reveal secrets that they do not need to.
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