She thinks the molar is bad, possibly chipped, and most likely needs to be removed. So we got an estimate: $325.00 – $450.00. I guess it’s not too bad, but we rarely have this much money to spend on anything. But if it’s needed, we’ll make it work.

Of course, I’m worried about him having surgery and having a seizure, but I guess we’ll cross that road when we come to it.

She did give us antibiotics for him – Keflex (Cephalexin) – and so far so good on not having a seizure. he has been rubbing and scratching at that side of his face too, so either the swelling is bothering him, or the antibiotics are already doing their job and it’s getting better…I dunno.

Either way, I sure hope we can keep the seizures at bay during this issue!

I follow a page called The Truth About Pet Food that lists the pet food recalls and other things of that nature.

Today’s article is about how the pet food manufacturers are now treating recalls and pet deaths in a different manner – Silence.

The 2007 pet food recall taught Pet Food and the FDA something BIG.  The 2007 pet food recall taught Pet Food and the FDA that Pet Parents go a little ballistic over news of a pet food recall.  It’s been referred to as ‘pet food hysteria’.  Instead of just going on as usual, panicked ‘hysterical’ Pet Parents turned to blogging and Tweeting about a tainted pet food.  We (pet parents) want to learn everything we can and want to share every bit of pet food news the best way we can hoping to save the life of our or someone else’s pet.  This blogging and Tweeting told Pet Food and the FDA pet parents have lost trust in pet foods and have serious doubts of the effectiveness of the FDA.  The apparent new method of handling pet food recalls, is not handling them at all.  The new recalls are silent.

Did you know there have been 3 recalls or recall-esque events in the past few months besides the one I blogged about earlier this month? Probably not. The FDA does not have the authority to authorize that pet food manufacturers issue recalls. Read this blurb:

Why was there not a prompt FDA recall press release of these pet foods?  Why were these products (and many others of late) ‘withdrawn’ from store shelves instead of publically and promptly recalled?  What is the difference between a pet food withdrawal and a pet food recall?

The FDA provided me the following explanation to the difference between a pet food withdrawal and a pet food recall…
"FDA does not have statutory authority to require manufacturers to initiate pet food recalls. Therefore, the initiation of such recalls on the part of manufacturers or importers is voluntary.

Please see the following for additional information on recalls: http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm049070.htm
Recalls classified as Class I require a press release which is typically issued by the firm. FDA posts those releases at http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/default.htm.
Companies have conducted recalls that were not classified as Class I and issued press releases which is their prerogative but only Class I classified recalls require a press release."

The original blog post http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/480/1/The-Silent-Killer-of-Pets/Page1.html goes into a bit more detail on the FDA…it’s worth taking the time to read the entire article.

It goes on to say this:

There is a GAPING HOLE in the pet food withdrawal and recall system that everyone of authority seems to be ignoring; Notification of pet owners.  Ya know…the people that purchased the pet food…they’re called CUSTOMERS!  Customers and their pets are falling into this GAPING HOLE and no one seems to care. 

Thanks to the Internet and a world of concerned pet parents, news of pet food withdrawals does get out sooner or later…but I have to wonder how many times has the news of a suspect pet food arrived too late?  How many pets have fallen into the GAPING HOLE?  One sick pet due to NOT INFORMING A PET OWNER is too many.

OMG this is SO true! Without the companies letting US, the pet owners, know, how the heck are we supposed to know WHAT is going on in our pets’ food? How do we know we’re not feeding out pets tainted, moldy, contaminated, TOXIC foods? We put our trust into these companies thinking they know what they’re doing! And then they don’t have the decency to INFORM us??? That is OUTRAGEOUS!

Be mad people, be outraged. DEMAND change! The Truth About Pet Food has a suggestion to take action:

Let’s take matters into our own hands and ask (ok, perhaps demand nicely) Pet Food Companies initiate a notification system for pet food withdrawals and silent recalls!  This isn’t brain surgery…this is a very simple system that can Save the lives of Pets!  Perhaps your pet!

Please take a few minutes, copy a letter and email it to your Pet Food Company.  Click Here for the very simple instructions.

I am going to do this myself this weekend. This is just crazy and I’m tired of it. No pet owner should have to go through losing a pet because of the food they chose to feed their pets. And no commercial or premium food seems to be safe anymore. I’ve lost ALL faith in the entire industry.

Article in its entirety: http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/480/1/The-Silent-Killer-of-Pets/Page1.html

http://www.wysong.net/recall.php

Where I got the information: http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/469/1/Wysong-Dog-Food-Recall/Page1.html

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This next little bit is terrifying! I’m so glad we no longer use these products on our dogs! Yikes!!

A veterinarian presented with a peculiar case of a poodle stuck in its crate last week traced the problem to the pet’s spot-on flea treatment.

Residue from the product Advantage, which was applied between the poodle’s shoulders, somehow came in contact with the plastic base of the animal’s crate, dissolving the plastic and causing it to adhere to the dog’s belly.

When the dog wouldn’t come out of its crate the next morning, its concerned owner brought the dog, crate and all, to Dr. Tej Dhaliwal of North Town Veterinary Hospital in Ontario, Canada. Following two hours of sleuthing, Dhaliwal concluded that benzyl alcohol, an inactive ingredient in Advantage, was to blame.

Bayer Animal Health, maker of Advantage, acknowledged that the flea treatment was the likely culprit and offered to pay the owner’s veterinary bill, compensate him for loss of salary and replace the crate, Dhaliwal said.

Bob Walker, a spokesman for Bayer in the United States, confirmed that Advantage contains benzyl alcohol, which reacts with certain plastics. He said he consulted with colleagues in veterinary services and was told, “We know it can happen, but we’ve never seen it.”

Walker said a lead veterinarian in the department thought that most of the veterinary community was aware of the potential for the product to react with plastic. Walker said that he personally had not heard of such a thing before. He added, “My counsel would be, if you’re not aware, you need to be aware.”

For more information: http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/472/1/Spot-On-Flea-Treatment-melts-Plastic-Crate-to-Dog/Page1.html

http://news.vin.com/vinnews.aspx?articleId=14061

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This next article showed up in my inbox just this morning.

The ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center (APCC) reviewed 200,000 cases from the past two years and produced no examples of lead poisoning from pet toys. According to Dr. Sharon Gwaltney-Brant, ASPCA Vice President and Medical Director of the APCC, younger dogs, just like children, are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, but most studies reveal only tiny amounts of lead in pet toys—not a grave risk for acute or chronic lead poisoning in dogs.

“Just because it’s ‘detectable’ doesn’t necessarily make it hazardous,” says Dr. Gwaltney-Brant. “Even oxygen is toxic at the right concentration.”

Amazing…there are no regulations for the amount of anything when it comes to our pets. We need these laws changed. Now.

Here’s the full article: http://www.aspca.org/news/national/10-16-09.html

The article also touches on rawhide and the risks of that. I am going to look for a good rawhide article. That’s another huge no no!

Here’s one: http://www.millennium-ark.net/News_Files/INFO_Files/rawhide.chew.warning.html

Moving right along…now I should probably put some explanation about how yeah, yeah, I still like the New Kids…whatever. I still like the freaking New Kids! I follow them all on Twitter, I listen to their new album in my car constantly, and had I been able to, I would have gone to their concert last night at DTE!!! What of it?? lol AND, I would have been dancing, screaming, squealing and crying like a little girl!! So what? So I like the New Kids…so, I also like P!nk, and Eminem, and Paramore…I’ve written before that my music taste is all over the place. I like what I like…what can I say.

Anyway, here’s a little video of what I and anyone else who wasn’t there…missed. A little tribute to Michael Jackson! I know my sister would have appreciated this with me!

It is SWEET…and it was HOTT here yesterday so those guys had to be DYING! How nice of them to do this tribute…I don’t care what anyone says. I loved MJ back in the day, and yeah he got a little weird and wonky, but he was and always will be “The King of Pop”. RIP Michael.

I was off work today because I didn’t feel well yesterday (and with the swine and Legionnaires’ in my city, one can’t be too cautious!) so I also took today off, since I can’t afford more unpaid time. It was such a nice day…not too hot, but hot enough…out that we decided to give the pups a bath outside! So it wasn’t too long before we had a couple of drowned rats on our hands. LOL

Topaz got a good brushing after the bath and we tried with Onyx, but she’s not as cooperative when it comes to the brush and water! She loves to swim in the lake, but a bath? forget it! She’s out.

FDA Confirms Probe of NUTRO Pet Food Deaths, Illnesses

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has confirmed that the agency is investigating NUTRO pet food, following a series of unexplained illnesses and deaths. Consumers have been complaining for more than two years that their pets have become ill after eating NUTRO products; many have recovered when they were switched to other foods. The company has steadfastly denied that its food is to blame.

 

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/04/nutro_foia.html

Almost immediately afterwards in one of the forums, the link below was posted:
http://www.wxyz.com/news/story/FDA-No-Investigation-into-NUTRO-Pet-Food/hOoE48nKOkORqDNodwN3EQ.cspx

In the comments on that page, this link was posted…which is Nutro’s response:
http://www.nutroproducts.com/quality_facts.html (it’s in the 2nd Q)

Of course, I got emails back from people who “have been feeding Nutro to their dogs for X amount of years and have never had a problem”. Good for them.

When we lost our cats in the Menu Foods recall of 2006, we had been feeding the same food for however many months and then – boom – the cat got sick and we lost him a month later.

That’s all it takes, folks.

When is the FDA going to get some control over pet food? When are they going to stop getting crappy ingrediants from God knows where and have us feeding them to our pets? When is this madness going to stop??? If real human food had killed the amount of animals that have been killed in the past few recalls, it would be ALL over the news…HUGE investigations, lawsuits would be going on. But because these are ANIMALS and NOT people…the reaction is much, much smaller and all of the hype dies down after a while.

It’s BULLSHIT! It really is.

People ask me why we feed raw…well, not only do we have a special needs pup, but I don’t think I could feed my dog commercial pet foods. I’m even leery of the natural foods anymore! I hate that we have to feed the cats commercial food. I hate worse that it’s a “grocery store” brand and not premium. But we have 4 stinking cats and it’s too much money to feed them premium foods. But I swear to God, let there be ONE recall of the brand we feed them and I’ll work something else out. I’ll make their food if I have to.

I’m not losing another animal to a pet food recall…not as long as I can afford to help it!

There’s a video on this page…check it out. it’s about half way down the page.
http://www.ilovemydogfood.com/

So back to Nutro…personally, we don’t feed it and we never will. I say buyer beware. But that’s really with any pet food anymore. Who knows what’s REALLY in the bags?

So…since I can’t do my webmaster duties for the APSFA, and I’m totally avoiding cleaning the nasty kitchen, I’ve been working on some layouts.

On the Scrapmatters blog, they have “Template Tuesdays” and they were talking about nicknames and posted a template freebie. I couldn’t wait to use that and what a cool idea because all of our animals go by their nicknames more than they do their real names!

I did Malcolm aka “Mooshy’s” for the template challenge:

Credits:
Template by Sya @ scrapmatters
Papers & Elements by Thao Cosgrove @ Scrap Girls

Then I did Alex aka “Fanna’s” next:

Credits:
Template by Sya @ scrapmatters
Papers & Elements from ABC Run kit by Digitreats or add on kits by various

And then I made Onyx aka “Missy Girl’s”:

Credits:
Template by Sya @ scrapmatters
Papers & Elements by Kay Miller Designs

Here is Razzle aka “Yidda’s” page:

Credits:
Template by Sya @ scrapmatters
Papers & Elemets from Felty Cat & Dog kits by Calico Designs
Alpha by Misschifis @ scrapmatters
Kitty tag by Major Tigger Scraps

Here’s Topaz aka “Puppa’s” page:

Credits:
Template by Sya @ scrapmatters
Papers & Elements by Kay Miller Designs

And finally, here’s Jellybean aka “Beans” page. I wanted to make her page all girly because she is SUCH a little prissy girl. I am convinced all girl cats are this way because of her. haha

Credits:
Template by Sya @ scrapmatters
Most Paper & Elements by Jessica Edwards (glitter also)

I tried to use different pictures in these layouts because I know that I’ve been using some of the same ones over and over. You’d think with over 5 gigs of pictures on my husband and my’s picture site, I could find some different pictures to use! lol But I have my favorites!

So basically I spent the day digiscrapping! lol…actually, I did a few other things…but mainly I scrapped. It relaxes me.

I need to look up the credits for all of these and then post them. I also need to go back and post credits for the other ones that are missing them. I’ll work on that.

We used to give our dogs rawhide, but since going raw they only get marrow bones or dried trachea to chew on.

Here’s a little snippet of the article:

Rawhide, that chewy treat available in almost all pet stores (and some grocery stores, I have noticed) is a hotly debated dog treat, one of the most common treats in the pet industry. Is it safe? What are the issues? Let’s explore.

How Rawhide is Made
Rawhide is the dried out raw hide of an animal. Rawhide chews are usually made from bulls, pigs, cows and sometimes horses. The hides are obtained from slaughterhouses, as they are a by-product, un-edible for humans. The hide is scraped of all meat, hair and fat. Originally, Native Americans used rawhide as a material in cabin and boat construction becauseSkinning a Pig of its extreme durability.

Here’s the link to the whole article: http://www.cupofdog.com/2008/08/05/rawhide-danger-in-disguise/ I think the article is worth a read.

Rawhide can be dangerous. Be careful and if you chose to give it to your pooch(es) please don’t do so unsupervised.

Here’s a link to some alternatives to rawhide for chewing: http://www.k9rawdiet.com/Treats-for-Chewing-c-5.html

We don’t feed this to our dogs any longer, but my mom feeds Mickey their canned food (that’s really all he’ll eat) and so I still try to keep up with the recalls and what’s going on in the pet food world.

This really concerns me because we lost two cats to the Diamond recall of 2006 and frankly, I just will never trust any brand made by Diamond again.

So I emailed Canidae…and here was my response from them.

http://www.canidae.com/new-formulas.html
Dear Heidi,

Please click on the above link, we have updated our site to insure all your questions are answered about our newly improved formulas. Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom of that page.

Due to overwhelming customer support and increased demand on our products, we have been faced with unique production capacity challenges. Our growing customer support and demand has pushed for increased capacity, therefore we have outsourced additional production from Diamond Pet Foods. Our customers demand and deserve no less than the highest quality safe ingredients, as well as state of the art consistent manufacturing. Outsourcing additional production from Diamond comes not without first carefully instating and accepting only the strictest testing protocols, as well as mandating stringent operating procedures to ensure the highest quality products possible at every level of production. We are very happy with this relationship and the high quality formulations we are able to bring to you. Expect Excellence!

Our quality of raw material as well as quality control has actually increased not decreased. Yes we have diversified our complex carbohydrates as rice continues to climb and high quality availability decreases. Our products are better than ever and more consistent. Yes we have cut costs on shipping rates as fuel continues to go through the roof. To ship pet food from one location is no longer cost effective. Our economy is facing some challenging times and we are being proactive in offering you the highest quality products, yet affordable enough for our consumers to purchase. We are not sure about other companies and their plans for change or their reasons in the past, however we feel we are being open and honest about our changes. We are getting alot of positive feedback from our customers that are actually feeding their pets our improved formulas.

We thank thank you for your comments, and hope your pets are able to receive the benefits of our products.

Personally, I still wouldn’t trust them. But that’s me and it’s really a personal preference.

Added 8/11/08.…many people have come to my blog to read this post so I thought I’d also include a list of foods that are made by Diamond. I copied this list from a dog forum I participate at and so I cannot account for it’s accuracy. But thought it was worth adding.

• Kirkland is made by Schell and Kampeter who also is dba for Diamond. (imo pretty sneeky way of not coming right out and saying what foods Diamond does make)
• TOTW
• Solid Golid
• Country Value
• Diamond
• Professional
• Natural Balance
• Artemis
• Chicken Soup for the Soul
• Canidae
• Nutra
• Premium Edge
• Menu foods makes canned Nutro

Like I said, I cannot account for the accuracy of this list. I hope that a food like Artemis is not made by Diamond, but I have no clue and cannot say. I’ll have to look into it.

Here’s a site that has a good list of many foods and their ingredients: The Best Dry Dog Foods

http://www.naturesvariety.com/tryit

Just sign up and you’ll immediately receive a coupon for buy one package of raw, get one free (medallions).

We can’t feed it to Topaz because it has rosemary in it, but Onyx will enjoy it!

Also, watch the Honest Kitchen blog because they have coupons all the time and do giveaways and stuff. I just won 5 of the travel size packages for free and before that they sent me 6 samples (one for each animal)!!