Posted on 03/28/2007 6:39:42 PM PDT by Shannon
That's why I posted the ichmo site; I don't trust the companies. Remember when this story first broke, the reports were that 9 cats had died. People thought that wasn't so bad. Yeh, right, until they realized it was 9 cats that Menu Foods gave the questionable food to. Meaning their own test cats died. And it still took them two weeks to issue the recall.
I'm almost afraid to ask but what happened with Durango?
You won't find these foods at grocery stores and hardware stores. They are to be found at pet food specialty stores and, often, at upscale pet stores (I cannot remember finding them at one of the big pet store chains).
P.S. I did not have to worry when the initial reports came out, a call to the manufacturer of my dogs' food assured me that they don't deal with mass manufacturers and their quality controls are much too rigid for pets to be hurt by their products.
The whole thing has had me thinking too... I think my girls will be going on the raw diet here eventually... Need to do some more research though...
Iams and Nutro generally ~are~ considered to be premium foods. They aren't cheap grocery store brands.
That is true about Nutro, but I cannot recall Iams stating on their bags that they use human-grade meats and other ingredients.
I fed Iams Eukanuba for years, I consider them to be one of the best.
The issue is our vulnerability whenever anything is mass produced nationwide or even worldwide... one mishap at any of the plants where even one tiny ingredient is produced puts so many at risk. It's the way our whole food distribution is these days... Not just pet food. Doesn't matter what brand you use, unless they produce every ingredient themselves in small batches. And then the only safety is that one producer can't affect very many if they have their own mishap.
My darling was put to sleep on Monday and I am so outraged about this whole issue.
SOmething is working, just got a mail note from a gal who went to that blog site and she warned her friend about Royal Canine and they are thanking me profusely.
If I can save one dogs life and not have people go through this terrible ordeal, it has been worth it to me.
I just got off the phone with Senator Ensigns office, I asked for him and him being a vet also to have it investigated, hope they follow through.
Totally irrelevent "study" from a totally irrelevent source.
But in any case, I need to make a few comments, as if it were true:
"Boy, apparently my NOT-finicky cat knew something when he refused to eat Iams I desparately had to buy him."
"Wow, there ARE advantages to having an allergic dog, what with her IVD food being very rare and special, only sold through certain vets!"
Ah, but you can get them all at the big chains! Nowadays, the only "good" foods are at specialty tiny local stores and vets only.
Science Diet in the '80s along with Iams and NutroMax were considered a top-end food, and you didn't buy them at groceries; and big pet chains didn't exist. Not anymore. Now the hoi-poloi tell us these brands aren't good enough. ;-) Science Diet in particular is treated with ALOT of disdain. I'm not sure why.
When the first reports came out of problems with the wet food all I heard was that 9 cats died. They just left out that those cats were the test cats owned by Menu Foods. That was't a "study" either. Within a couple weeks the numbers really started to grow.
My sole point in posting the info was to alert people to the possibility of a problem. Considering how long it took Menu Foods to issue a recall on wet foods I'll be the last one to trust them when it comes to dry foods.
We are very upset, thank you for your kindness.
A worker at PetCo told me that "Iams" was NOT a premium brand. He specifically called it a grocery-store brand. I have fed my cats Iams for almost eight years, and always thought of Iams as "premium". If you take a look at my posts above in this thread, you will see that my cats are not acting like their normal selves. I bought a new bag of Iams Original dry on Saturday, and since late Sunday, or early Monday they have been very lethargic. I went to PetCo this morning and bought two small bags of Neutrio (sp?), and ProPlan. I removed all Iams, so I will know in a day or so if the Iams was bad. I believe it is bad.
"I understand what you're saying but the info on that site isn't a "study". It's info gathered from people reporting problems."
That's why I put it in quotes; sarcasm. ;-)
As far as being suspicious of Menu, I think you said 2 weeks after the cats died they reported it, you may have to consider what they were looking into as a result of those deaths. They may have gone back to make sure they didn't have something else screwy going on that made them die. That's a control check; checking the situation without pell-mell sounding the alarm and getting the nation in a tizzy for nothing. For all we know, they could have died from a poison someone in the lab dropped in those cats' feeders. No sense bankrupting your company (as hysteria would cause) over something that isn't.
Not saying there is not nefarious stuff going on. But you don't know the whole story, much less the whole process of how they go about testing and checking. This has never happened before with them (that I know), so consider the history.
Iams WAS a premium brand. See my post above.
It just seems our spoiled-rotten country keeps raising the bar of "premium".
Iams has only begun selling in groceries for maybe 10 years. Before that, no. Only in pet places.
When the store person at PetCo told it was NOT premium I was shocked. Today was the first day I had ever heard anyone say that. Iams is all my cats have ever eaten, and once I feel comfortable with the current supply being fully tested, I will go back to it for the future.
I believe it's just the Mighty Dog pouches. Here's what they have on their site
http://www.mightydog.com/voluntarypouchwithdrawal.aspx
I really hope your animals are fine... but from a practical standpoint, Nutro and Purina products were also among the brand affected by this recall. And the 'worker at PetCo' is not exactly a highly qualified opinion. I'm not being flippant about the worry, I'd like to know what all foods are affected because I also feed Nutro dry.
I'll never trust IAMS or Eukanuba again. When this was reported they put nothing on their site to warn us. No lot numbers to check. Not even an email. Every day they failed to warn us put our pets in danger. That indicates to me all they were concerned with was their bottom line & CYA.
Yikes, and we thought we were safe with dry kibbles!
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