Heard today about disturbing ingredients in commercial pet food

[Beccy]

I was watching a show this afternoon (The Gill Deacon show - seems to be a new sort of local-ish talk show), and one of the topics was making your own pet food. The lady who was on, I'm sorry I did not catch her name, but she has written a book called "Food Pets Die For", had two dogs get sick from a bag of commercial kibble some time ago. Her vet had her switch to a home made recipe for a time, and later when she tried to put them back on the kibble they became sick again. So this lady set out to find out exactly what ingredients are in pet food, and as she was, I am SHOCKED at what she discovered.

First she learned that there are absolutely no regulations about what goes into pet food, only laws about labelling. This did not completely surprise me, and I have always known that the vague term "protein" could mean anything from chicken feathers to beaks. Well it is far worse than that!!!

This person (she lives in London, Ontario) learned from someone in the States, and subsequently that the same thing is happening here in Canada - dead dogs, cats and other animals are collected from vet clinics and sold to brokers, who then send them to rendering plants, where they are turned into everything that other rendered animals are, including pet food!

Am I naive to have never realised this? I find it not only totally repugnant to think that people's pets, that they likely think have been cremated, have actually been turned into dog and cat food, but also disturbing because I would assume that coming from vet clinics (and possibly shelters?) that this would include diseased animals, and those put down with the drug Euthanol!!!

She suggested that people contact their pet food companies and ask EXACTLY what goes into the products, and that if they refuse to answer or hedge the questions, to stop buying the products. (which will be great if they all use this mixture of crap - what choice will that leave?)

We use a well known brand of dog food, and our dogs do well on it, so part of me wants to ignore this, while another part of me is definitely wanting to know what does go into it.

Hope I do not upset anyone by posting this, but I am so astounded to learn this, and thought others may also want to be aware.

 

[frekles93]

[SIZE=14pt]One thing you said is completly ILLEAGLE to do and the vets can be FINED or their licenses pulled. The only way that any animal it to be "disposed" of that has been Euthanized is to bury or cremate. Any animal that is eaten after death this way COULD DIE and/or become very sick. Vets that "sell" can be turned in. This is very iresponible of the vets to do this. I would check with state regulations with the disposal of these animals.[/SIZE]

April

 

[Beccy]

Well that would be my concern too. If a large animal is euthanized they recommend deep burial to prevent other animals eating contaminated meat, but with dogs and cats, I have no idea after hearing this, how they make certain that animals that have been injected are kept seperate from those that have not been, as the small animal vet we deal with has only one freezer for this purpose that I know of, and obviously the person contracted to dispose of the bodies would have no idea which was which. Would it not make sense that a large proportion of the animals disposed of by a vet clinic would be contaminated in this way?

 

[Beccy]

I just asked my husband if he has ever heard of this, and he said yes he has some time ago. (probably never said anything to me because he knew how I would react!)

Still I am having a hard time comprehending that this could be true. Did a search on the topic and came across this.

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/petfood1.html

Interesting reading...

part of the page is an article (supposedly) by a DVM, and states:

"Condemned livestock carcasses treated with these chemicals can become meat and bone meal for the pet food industry. Because rendering facilities are not government-controlled, any animal carcasses can be rendered - even dogs and cats. As Eileen Layne of the CVMA told the Chronicle, "When you read pet food labels, and it says "meat and bone meal", that's what it is: cooked and converted animals, including some dogs and cats."

Some of these dead pets - those euthanised by veterinarians - already contain pentobarbital before treatment with the denaturing process. According to University of Minnesota researchers, the sodium pentobarbital used to euthanise pets "survives rendering without undergoing degradation"."

 

[CLC Stables]

Just be careful on what you say...........I see a lot of "someone told me, who heard from" and things like that. Yes this does happen. But it is NOT happening to the extent that you think. This used to be the earlier practices, but regulations are cracking down.

 

[Beccy]

Just be careful on what you say...........I see a lot of "someone told me, who heard from" and things like that. Yes this does happen. But it is NOT happening to the extent that you think. This used to be the earlier practices, but regulations are cracking down.

And what exactly did I say that could offend anyone except the companies who produce this garbage? I saw this reported on a program today and was genuinely shocked, and if it goes on at all, to whatever extent, then I am appalled.

I am not using any pet food company names, renderer's names, or anyone's name for that matter!

As far as what April said, I did not in any way suggest that vets "sell" dog and cat carcasses, I said they are collected and sold to brokers. As far as I know, vets pay a service for disposal of these bodies, and what is done with them after that is beyond their control. I am not pointing a finger at vets here either.

When you go a bit deeper into the issue, it would appear that there is also contamination of remains at these rendering plants, that includes chemicals of all sorts and plastics etc. from cattle ear tags and plastic off discarded meat from grocery stores.

I care what my pets eat, forgive me for thinking others might be concerned!!!

edited to add: p.s....I meant to ask what regulations are cracking down??? My understanding is that there are no regulations about what goes into pet food.

 

[Triggy&Blue&Daisy Too]

I do recall there was a big flap about this issue back in 2002 and the FDA did investigate but didn't find the euthanasia drugs were the result of euthanized rendered dogs and cats but from euthanized horses and cattle. The levels were not considered significant enough to cause harm (they said) however, I do not feed my dogs commercial dog food as a result of those findings especially after my Basset died from lymphoma and had many cysts and tumors removed all his life. I feel it was the result of feeding him commercial dog food, even though it was the premium type that was supposed to promote health not make him sick. Whether they have curbed the practice (unlikey) or not I think your warning is still valuable.

 

[disneyhorse]

Hmmm very interesting.

I am a vegetarian, so a dead animal is a dead animal to me no matter what type it is. If you eat a cow you might as well eat a horse or a cat.

It doesn't bother me what type of animal is ground up for my cats and dogs. I just care about the nutritional quality and yes, perhaps the traces of drugs that are in that food.

I usually buy premium food for my pets that is supposedly ''human grade'' and my pets look good on it and are very healthy, so that's that.

Andrea

 

[JO~*]

I remember when I was a kid of about 10 or so my uncle worked for a rendering plant and he and his family lived next door to the plant. Geez I can still smell it. :new_shocked:

Well kids being kids (about 40 years ago) my cousin and I would go play at the plant on the weekends.

I won't go into detail about what kind of things we saw while playing, lets just say it was ok to drop off animals during off hours and there would be everything from baby chicks to pets and everything in between.. Anyway, I can remember seeing really big piles of blood and bone meal and vats of who only knows what that had been cooked and left to sit all weekend .

My uncle said they made all kinds of things out of the animal by products from make up to soap and feed ect. That rendering plant has long since shut its doors and I don't know what kind of practices rendering plants use today. I hope that they are more health conscience than they use to be.

When I worked for the vets office one of my jobs was to bury the pets that had been put to sleep, there was a special place out at the dump to do this. Having to do the pet burial detail was one of the reasons I quit working at the vets. Now they cremate the pets.

Gosh, this all sounds so just plain gruesome I'm not sure I even want to post it.

Well I guess since I took the time to write it I will post it. Although I’m not sure why.

 

[ForMyACDs]

I can guarantee that all pets left at our clinic for disposal regardless of whether they are euthanized or not are not "collected" by a rendering company. All these pets are sent to a cremation service.

The same thing goes for the horses. Either they are buried at the farm or picked up by a cremation service. We make sure arrangements have been made to have a hole dug or cremation performed before the vet will even come out for a euthanasia. In fact, I don't know of any vets in the area that send these animals to a rendering service.

 

[Robin1]

When I was young I didn't think anything of feeding Purina Dog Chow. Then I purchased two Akitas that being Akitas were allergic to everything, so I started reading lables. I have to say in this situation ignorance is bliss. Even when on a VERY tight budget when I try to cut back on costs I read the labels and end up spending more on the dogs and cats than me.

:

There was a meat processing plant here in AZ years ago, they may still be here just in a different location. This was for HUMAN concumption. It was widely known that NOTHING got across the lot. Dogs, cats, rats, anything they could shoot or catch ended up in your ground beef. :smileypuke:

Robin

 

[Beccy]

I can guarantee that all pets left at our clinic for disposal regardless of whether they are euthanized or not are not "collected" by a rendering company. All these pets are sent to a cremation service.

The same thing goes for the horses. Either they are buried at the farm or picked up by a cremation service. We make sure arrangements have been made to have a hole dug or cremation performed before the vet will even come out for a euthanasia. In fact, I don't know of any vets in the area that send these animals to a rendering service.

Again, I did not suggest that vets "sell" to renderers. I believe they pay a service to have the bodies disposed of. I do know that deadstock removal services take large animals for rendering, but personally have no knowledge of what happens to small animals - again, I am just repeating what was said on this program.

I do find it difficult to believe however, that if rendering plants pay for carcasses, that services collecting these bodies would not take this route rather than pay to dispose of them in other ways. And how would the vet clinics be the wiser? They have done what they are required to do, then it is out of their hands.

What about the pets euthanized at shelters? Where are all the incinerators that take care of all these thousands of bodies weekly?

What was stated on this program, is that a service collects the bodies from vets and shelters. The SERVICE, not the vets, sells them to a broker (in Ontario apparently this is in Peterborough) and then they are in turn sold to a rendering plant (in this case they mentioned one in another province)

Also, we have had to bury two large horses (one that passed away from old age, and one old mare that had to be euthanized), and a pony that had cancer. We know someone with a backhoe, who does deep burial for us, pretty much as fast as we need it, but I know that sometimes people are not able to arrange burial or removal in a hurry, and have never heard of any vet refusing to do a euthanasia when it was required (often in an emergency situation) until disposal arrangements are made.

I would love to believe that this does not really happen, but I tend to believe it does, and I am genuinely concerned about what kind of contaminants are getting into what I put in my pet's food bowls.

I might also add that the same "meat and bone meal" from these rendering plants, is used in chicken feed, which obviously in turn gets into the human food chain.

 

[twister]

I don't know about the program and whether what they said is true, I do know that the human food chain is very contaminated. I moved to our farm 5 years ago and in this area there are a lot of "factory farms" for chickens, pigs and beef cattle. In the case of the chickens the chicks are brought in to a closed system building (there are usually 2 stories of chickens maybe 120,000) all crammed together and they are fed growth hormones and antibiotics with their feed for 42 days, then the truck picks them up for processing, if they are not picked up on the 42nd day they start dying from heart attacks, what does that tell you of the effect that has on humans. The cattle have implants in their ears which releases growth hormones into their body on a daily basis to produce more meat faster. The pigs are fed the same way and are kept in a closed system building too, one of the pig farms down the road often used to leave their deadstock (and there were a lot) on the driveway for pickup until the neighbours started complaining. I think this has a lot to do with the obesity problems in our society, the size of children these days and although I don't have any stats to prove it the reason there is so much add and allergies in kids these days. My husband and I after we realized this have strived to use organic and free range meat, we raise our own lambs and vegetables. our own eggs and we are going to start raising our own chickens. So I would not be surprized to find out that pet food is the same way, after all if they do it to humans why not animals. The whole thing makes me sick.

I know farmers have to make a living but it is the big chains that really drive this and they are the ones who make the money. Just my own, not so humble opinion anyway.

Yvonne

 

[justjinx]

I lived in another state for awile and worked for a large poultry company. I worked in the lab, analyzing feed and ingredients. One of the ingredients was actually a combination of bones, feathers and blood from the butchered chickens that was cooked in vats and put back into the feed for a protein source. This was 25 years ago but i would guess the same thing still happens. jennifer :saludando:

 

[rabbitsfizz]

It is exactly this sort of thing that allowed BSE to start- can you believe that they were rendering sheep (in which it happens as scrapie but harms no-one who is not a sheep) and feeding the result to cows in which it mutated into BSE???

Until commercial whaling was stopped by all countries who have half a brain and any sense of moral decency (whales obviously have a far larger brain then either the Japanese or the Norwegian governments put together) it was allowable to use whale meat (it is a mammal and thus "meat") into pet food without declaring it.

That one nearly destroyed Pedigree Pet foods when it came out so maybe you need to be asking "WHAT is in this???" Loudly??

I do not feed any proprietary brand food or tinned feeds so I know exactly what I am feeding.

I would not want to eat kibble - I would not want to eat the same thing every day- so I do not feed it.

 

[Shari]

That is, sadly, nothing new. And it is not only cat and dog food they do that too. Horse, cow,sheep, goat...what ever. Doesn't matter.

I always read the labels and be willing to pay for the better made stuff that clearly has all meat or protein labeled. Like my cat, she only gets food that has Chicken, Fish or Turkey meat on the label along with other clear ingredients. And the meat is not scrap meat, feathers, feet or what ever... either....is the stuff people eat. Am very picky about my animals and families food.

 

[shminifancier]

I lived in another state for awhile and worked for a large poultry company. I worked in the lab, analyzing feed and ingredients. One of the ingredients was actually a combination of bones, feathers and blood from the butchered chickens that was cooked in vats and put back into the feed for a protein source. This was 25 years ago but i would guess the same thing still happens. jennifer :saludando:

You are somewhat correct. The feathers are cooked in huge pressure cookers and the "meal" then is like flour. These are feathers from chickens and turkeys, The Feather meal is then mixed into turkey feed and fed back to the turkeys~!.

This is what is not correct The Bones, and "other" things (Ofer) along with Blood is then Cooked in huge cookers, and when it comes out of the cookers it looks somewhat like a cake batter~!. THIS then is frozen and sold to the Different dog food company's. When I worked for this "Pet Food" place we had a huge contract with Alpo dog food~!!

And if you will really read the dog food and or cat food ingredients. It says "More Meat Protein" Not more meat but meat protein. And guess what that is? BLOOD which is VERY high in Protein is added to UP the protein level. Yes meat protein is the blood form the animal or "meat" from that animal.

I worked for nearly a year at this plant as it was in my home town and everybody at one time worked here~!!- The owners of that plant was was New York and had these "Pet Food" plants all over the USA. with 2 in Texas.

At 7AM I would dump 55 gal barrels of this chicken blood in the cookers. And after a years time I decided to "Go Back To School" and study a trade~!! Which I did and I was a Head Auto mechanic for many years.~ :bgrin

 

[Beccy]

I would not want to eat kibble - I would not want to eat the same thing every day- so I do not feed it.

I have always said that, it must be horrible for dogs with the fantastic sense of smell they have, to have to smell all the good things we eat and then have dry kibble every day. We like to add stuff to our dogfood so it is more interesting for them.

However if I take out the kibble, what is a healthy, nutritious and affordable replacement, for a person who has nine dogs, sizes up to and including an Irish Wolfhound? :no: