Love Your Pets, But Try To Keep It Simple
Kiko and Kimba threw up a couple of weeks ago after splitting a tiny can of wet cat food purchased at Trader Joe’s. Wet cat food is a rare bribe . . . er, treat that the Dear Friend & Conscience gives them for being such sweet and semi-obedient fur balls.
Mild concern over their upset tummies turned to a near freak-out when the Menu Foods pet food recall hit the news, but we were relieved to see that the stuff that they ate was not on the lengthy list of the 60 million-plus cans and wet pouches being recalled.
While Kiko and Kimba apparently are okay, a lot of other critters haven’t been so fortunate. The toll of dogs and cats who have died of renal failure, are at death’s door or will need expensive therapies if they are to survive because of traces of aminopterin, a rat poisoin, in the products processed by Menu continues to grow.
Hundreds of pets may die as a result, including Zephyr, a cat in British Columbia, and investigators are not ruling out sabotage. (Meanwhile, Menu is now offering to compensate owners for their vet’s bills.)
Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House.
20 Responses to “Love Your Pets, But Try To Keep It Simple”
The most recent developments are that Menu Foods has offered to cover the vet bills of anybody whose pet was injured by their products and the Banfield chain of vet hospitals has reported an extraordinary number of cases of kidney failure in cats—200-250 per week over the last three months.
I think that this story is an important one on a number of counts and will continue to unfold. I’ve been covering it over at my place for the last ten days. My most recent post is here.
Dave:
Thank you for the update and link. I can attest from reading your blog that you are a great animal lover.
Geez, my heart goes out to all the animals and their families that are involved. My family cat died of old age this year (we think it was cancer) and it was rough on all of us, she was thirteen. To have a young, healthy animal die or become seriously ill out of the blue must be horrible. Here’s hoping it doesn’t get too out of control.
My radical friend in DC cares for 10+ cats and she’s upset about what has happened, too. Hopefully the sick tag-alongs won’t materialize with their attempts to poison pet food.
It’s surprising that there haven’t been more cases of renal failure yet, given the toxicity of this substance. I’m afraid there will be a lot more before it’s all over, as some people may still be unaware of the problem and feeding the food, other animals may have the initial signs of illness but not yet serious enough for their owners to have sought veterinary care. There is hope, I guess, that the aminopterin may not have been distributed throughout all of the batches of food produced during that time and that pet owners have been alerted to the recall in time before massive numbers of pets are affected.
Shaun, as a vet who considers myself pretty savvy about nutrition, I have to take issue with your statement about vegetarianism being a healthy alternative for pets. Cats and dogs (esp. cats) have a much higher protein need than humans, and it’s hard enough for people to get enough protein without ingesting meat or animal products. Cats are actually obligate carnivores, while dogs can be fed an omniverous diet or a carefully supplemented vegetarian one.
For cats, a crucial nutrient is taurine (often called an amino acid though technically it’s not). The source in nature is animal protein, and if cats don’t get a relatively high amount of this in their food it will lead to blindness (retinal degeneration) and/or heart failure (cardiomyopathy) which can be fatal. So, if anyone tried to feed a cat a vegetarian diet, it would have to be done through the use of lab derived nutraceutical supplements, which is not going to fit your definition of “keeping it simple”.
Why try to mess with nature in terms of what these animals eat? If anything, the only reason to do that in my mind is for our convenience as pet owners (much easier to buy kibbles than to hunt a carcass for Fido to munch on) or in some cases, to improve on nature (I’m not a proponent of feeding raw foods as some holistics are, because I think we improve on nature when we call on our knowledge and ability to kill microbial contaminents of food through heating it.)
Capitalism comes to China, the evil trial lawyers won’t be able to chase ambulances in Hong Kong.
I hope Anna Nichol Smith didn’t eat any of these pet foods in a drug induced state. Or maybe Howard Stern fed her the cat food ….
CStanley:
I hoped that you would weigh in on this.
Please note that I did not endorse a vegetarian diet for dogs and cats. The DF&C and I would never do such a thing. I did note, as do you, that protein is the key to any diet, and you are quite correct that taurine-deficient diets can cause grave problems in felines.
A question from the DF&C and myself:
One concern that we have always had about our cats (but not about dogs) is that they drink enough water. Is this concern misplaced? I ask because cats seem unusually susceptible to urinary tract problems and I am a great believer in flushing out the plumbing.
Shaun, regarding cats and drinking, you might find these of your interest – “Feline Nutrition” and “The carnivore connection to nutrition in cats” (PDF).
WaPo published a list of the brands put out by Menu Foods this week, if anyone wants to check and see if their brand is on it. We actually had a few cans of one of the affected brands, but luckily, had not been feeding it to our cats. Most people don’t have the time, but homemade food is really the best for our animals.
My sympathies to anyone who has lost a cat or dog in this manner. We are extremely close to our cats Scooter and Lucky, and would be bereft if something like this were to occur to either, having previously lost other cats to illness.
My heart goes out to the critters and their humans. Many years ago, my beloved elderly Siamese went into acute renal failure, probably from something she found and ate while outdoors – but she and I were both very very lucky: she recovered after dialysis (she did eventually die of kidney disease, a few years later). To lose a pet to deliberate poisoning is horrible enough; to think that someone, somewhere, deliberately did this to hundreds, maybe thousands, of animals is beyond evil.
I’m glad that it looks like this poisoning will be intensely investigated. However the toxin got into pet food supply, I’m wondering if it could just as easily have gotten into the human one.
BTW some of the stories that commenters have left on my posts on this story have been really heart-rending. I think this story has the potential to rock the multi-billion dollar pet food industry.
Dave:
The stories are indeed heart rending, but that does not translate into changing a multi-billion dollar industry.
Insofar as I know, the Menu Foods recall is an exception, not the rule.
How do you think an industry beholden to shareholders and Wall Street more than the owners of the consumers of its products would or should change?
Shaun,
The links provided by Mariko are helpful on the question of water intake. Cats fed dry food simply are not going to have the same level of water ingestion as cats that eat canned or moist or homemade meat based diets. Most cats will not suffer any urinary problems even if they eat a steady diet of dry foods though (my two cats eat almost exclusive dry diets, and one of them is now 17 years old and going strong; the only urination issues we’ve had involved behavioral elimination problems, not physical ones).
For cats that do experience problems or owners who are determined to prevent FLUTD (basically a recurrent inflammatory bladder condition, cause not really known but it is often associated with crystal formation in urine and strongly concentrated urine, which irritate the bladder lining), canned foods are preferable. Short of that, I’ve also had owners experiment with ways to increase water intake by trying different water dishes (some cats like shallow saucers, others like a deep dish filled to the brim, most do not like deep dishes that aren’t filled because they don’t like to put their faces into a deep dish). Some cats like water with a bit of broth or water from tuna added (must change frequently and should also provide separate fresh plain water) while others are tempted by running water. I’ve had a few owners who find they can entice their cats by running the bathroom tap each time they’re in the bathroom, and there are also some commercially available water fountains to recirculate and keep the water flowing for cats with this preference.
So, you’re right about flushing the plumbing, but there’s really only so much you can do. BTW, do I need a legal disclaimer for offering professional advice?
Shaun, did you check this post of mine? It gives a quick take on the business situation for Menu Foods and its vendors. The reasons I think that there may be significant fallout from this are:
1. Menu Foods is an important vendor to a number of top retailers.
2. Menu Foods was on somewhat shaky ground before this recall.
3. This recall and the subsequent lawsuits will be costly for MF and its customers.
4. The reactions I’m hearing from people are that they’re generalizing from the recall of one product class to more product classes from the affected vendors (I don’t happen to think that’s fair but there it is).
5. At the margins people thinking about going to a BARF diet will and some people will also change from the affected retailers to those who weren’t Menu Foods customers.
6. The stock market is already reflecting some of those expectations.
I’ve interviewed a number of vets all over the country on this story and several of them have made remarks along this line. YMMV
CS- My cats drink enough water, but I’ll still have to try your tuna water hint- as they go nuts when someone opens up a can, and we’ve been just throwing it out. Thanks!:)
CStanley:
We too sometimes give our kitties tuna water. There do not seem to be water dish issues. They drink from a 14-inch wide bowl that is 2 1/2 inches at the deepest. The water is filtered and changed frequently. Kimba also drinks from the toilet and tub.
Dave:
Your reporting does make the case that this is a huge recall, but again it is an exception.
Again, how do you think this will change the industry once the dust settles?
This is so alarming to me. I have 2 cats and a dog. I bought some Science Diet before I saw the list and after the food was pulled in thinking they would not be tainted. Thankfully it was not one.
I am so relieved my pets are eating and have forever, foods not on the list. They pretty much escaped so far but, I keep watching.
I don’t think it will change the behavior of the industry but I think it has the potential to shake up market shares.
Kim,
No thanks necessary; hope your kitties thank you for it though!
Shaun,
Sounds like you are doing a good job providing for your cats. Also, in my earlier comment I didn’t mean to imply that you did endorse vegetarianism for cats, I just thought that people should be aware that it is actually quite an unnatural diet for them.
Dave Schuler:
I just got a chance to check out your blog articles on this; excellent reporting on some of the aspects that haven’t been widely circulated (the Menu foods pet deaths during palatability testing, for example, and the Banfield reporting on increased incidence of renal failure cases during this time period). Keep up the good work on getting some of the lesser known facts out there.