Purina is recalling "Mighty Dog" 5.3 oz pouches. I think this is the only product they are recalling right now.

 Quote: Keleah Schmaltz

Did anyone ever figure out if dry food may be affeted also? I'd really like to know b/c I feed Nutro/Nutro Max dry kibble to both my 16 mo old GSD and my 6 mo old lab pup. Need to know, cause they are running out and until I switch over to complete raw, need more kibble.

I have not heard one way or the other on kibble as of yet. I feed raw, but my family feeds dry and I am not too happy that there are no mentions of it...... It would be nice to know

Carol,

The original article says "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 from Dec. 3 to March 6." So I would say kibble is not covered by this recall.

Rich

 Quote: rich pallechio

Carol,

The original article says "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 from Dec. 3 to March 6." So I would say kibble is not covered by this recall.

Rich

I'd say that you're right, Rich.

At least, so far, that's what we're told.

OTOH, the Leerburg list of better kibbles contains not one name involved in the recall. I would take the opportunity to forward that list to people I know who are not ready for raw..... and at least maybe trigger a switch from Purina, Hills, Science Diet, and Eukanuba to a food with good ingredients.

http://www.leerburg.com/all-natural%20kibble.htm

And since the list includes THK, who knows what kind of revolution might be started!

I sent this to who I know and hopefully they switch. Thanks guys.
I think I have mom and dad convinced to feed at least THK and ground meat and I will get them a list of supplements they need.
Babysteps, babysteps.....

For what it's worth, here's what I learned at work today.

We were innundated with phone calls about the recall...mostly from owners who have fed the dry food, not the wet...but everyone is scared.

There is some thought that there could be too much Vitamin D in the affected foods which can hyper-elevate the calcium levels causing renal failure. This is ONLY a guess since, again, no one knows what is going.

Since there is so much uncertainty about all of this, even for the vets, we've been advising anyone who is worried about their pet to have a blood test run. In the case where an animal is ill we are advising 2 blood tests be run.

1. An in-house chem 6 (for vets who have in-house testing equipment) which will give results in less than an hour.

2. An ionized calcium blood test which is sent to the outside lab. This second test is for a sick animal.

The in-house results can let your vet know quickly what is going on, overall, with your animal. However, sometimes the in-house results will not accurately read the calcium level in a sick animal which is why the ionized calcium blood test would be needed.

I hope I've repeated all of this correctly...it's a bad sign when even the vets are feeling perplexed and in the dark

I had not seen my vet for a while and when I saw himlast I told him" hey by the way I have been feeding Raw now for a while" He was very interested in it, I thought to myself now that's a vet with an open mind..
Too many think they know best and refuse to ask questions..
I'm hoping my vet swtiches his dogs to raw..we'll se when I see him next..
Now I wonder if he really will look into it .

"According to the FDA, Menu Foods received the first of six complaints about kidney failure in pets on February 20.

Seven days later, the company began an internal taste test of its food. A cat in the study exhibited signs of kidney failure and died on March 2.

The FDA said at least seven, and perhaps all, of the 10 deaths, were linked to this tasting trial.

Those trial-related deaths were out of a larger group of between 40 and 50 animals who were fed the product, Sundlof said."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070319/wl_canada_nm/canada_petfood_recall_col_6

Thats a 20% death rate from the food.

All of us rawers should not pat ourselves on the back too much - most of us add supplements to our dogs diets - vits, glucosme, etc. We could purchase something that is contaminated also.

Although after finding my GS eating a rabbit that had clearly been dead for more than a couple of days, I am not sure exactly what could kill him.

Here is another article. The exact numbers are a little different than in David's, but when you do the math the death rate still comes out very high.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/308221_petfoodrecall20.html

I do pat myself on the back, for one I don't do supplements other then fish oil.So I say pat yourself on the back for offering Raw diet to your pets! It takes effort ,commitment and extra $$ at times but we manage and care about our pets.I don't see the problem for the rawers to pat themselves on the back for offering better foods to our pets...
And I want to add that the majority of people that feed kibbles do not research the kibble they pick, that's a fact.They hear so and so are feeding Iams or what ever so hey lets feed it to.Do you think they research for one moment what is in the package?
The rawers research all the time, and try to improve the variety of meats they can use and prey animal that suits best all the time..