I heard that Canidae may have been bought out by Diamond.  This may explain their recent formula changes.

Can anyone confirm that Diamond produces Taste of the Wild?  TIA.

I never heard any comfirmation from the people who know the collie breeder.  I have been feeding All Life Stages dry and some chicken canned for a while now and my setters seem to be doing quite well...thank goodness.

Thank you for your responses!

I am a dog owner.  A friend of the family has a cat in severe renal failure.  The cat was eating Fancy Feast.  I believe I have read complaints about this to date unrecalled food but I cannot find a source.  Any suggestions?  Also, what are folks with renal failure cats feeding now?  It seems to be difficult to balance high quality protein with low phosphorous for these patients.  TIA. 

I have chronic renal failure and have been on the kidney transplant list for years.  I have been stable so I see my nephrologist once every 3 or 4 months.  Today I had one of those routine appointments.  My nephrologist told me that they are already talking about conducting toxicity tests on melamine.  My social worker also told me he was hesitant to go home to eat his chicken dinner.  My dialysis nurse has a stockpile of food to feed her cats but knows it will shortly run out.  For the thousands and thousands of Americans in chronic renal failure, a small exposure to melamine could prove fatal.  Watching my diet has always been a priority.  Now it seems a matter of life or death.  Perhaps it would be prudent to chat with local kidneyassociations?     

My order arrived in perfect order this afternoon.

I placed an order with petfooddirect last week.  Because I have not yet receiced it, I tried to phone them thos morning.  There was no answer.

I responded to Canidae with the following:

Thank you for your response.  I did not, however, hear of the two dead collies from the Internet.  Rather a friend who knows a friend of the owner telephoned me to tell me.  She has stated that Canidae tested positive for melamine.  I believe people would be much more comfortable if you were to test each batch as I know at least one other manufacturer is now doing and be more specific on your web page.
 
Again, thank you for responding.
 
Sincerely, 
 
Annette M. Carricato, V.M.D.
Kaliber English Setters
hometown.aol.com/kaliberknl/profindex.htm

Their response was:

Annette,
We are actually first in line for the Melamine test kits when they become available, so we can test each batch ourselves, even though we have never used the ingredients that are in question.
Thank you,
Team Canidae

Here is the response I received today:

Dear Annette,


Although forums are great places to share ideas and story's, sometimes facts can be misconstrued with "rumors". We found out about the collie breeder in question weeks ago from an e-mail from her friend, and have been following her blogs and phone calls to our retailers. We have been doing everything possible to assist the collie breeder in question with this horrible unfortunate situation. We contacted the collie breeder in question, she didn't contact us.  We have e-mailed her specific questions to assist her find the cause of her pets deaths and received no correspondence backs. We have called her vet numerous times with no calls back. We hate to to defend our actions but thought it necessary as CANIDAE is about doing the right thing, all the time. Unfortunately, no matter what we say people will try to find loop holes in our verbiage. You obviously have viewed the customers who have tested CANIDAE on their own, only to find the results negative. CANIDAE has never tested positive for Melamine, nor has CANIDAE ever used the suspected ingredients. CANIDAE's main concern is to provide the best products possible to your pets.
    Sincerely,
    Team Canidae

I recieved a response from Canidae today.  Does anyone know if it is legal to post it here or must I paraphrase it?

Someone wrote:  "She spoke about how other pet food companies are trying to mislead people and spread things that aren't true."

Please be assured I have no ties to any pet food company.  In fact, I am a retired small animal veterinarian.

My friends's friend said results came back Friday night.

My friend's friend said the collie breeder is too distraught to talk right now.  But she plans to post to the boards as soon as she feels better.  She said that there is a list where foods that have tested positive for melamine but not (yet?) been recalled and she will post there.  Does anyone know what the url is for such a list?  I have been unable to find it.

The friend who informed me knew I had decided to switch to Canidae and was concerned for my dogs when she heard the news from her friend.  My friend is a simple pet owner but she is quite bright and detail oriented.  She is an accountant ;-) She has a sheltie puppy and that puppy's breeder told her that a friend of hers who breeds collies lost two dogs.  She came home to find one dog dead and one dying.  The second dog did not make the trip to her vet's office.  They decided to test the food.  I specifically asked her if she was certain that it was melamine and she said yes.  I agree - any melamine is too much.  But I doubt the FDA agrees.  Like so many others, I chose Canidae for many reasons.  The most important one was that I thought it would be at a very low risk of contamination.  I wrote to ask the company but have had no response from them.  My friend is in another part of the state of Pennsylvania so we have been chatting long distance.  I will ask her to find out the collie breeder's name.  I am still feeding my four setters some Canidae and have not seen any obvious signs of disease even though two are geriatrics.  I was wondering why Teric chose to test the Canidae.  Was there a specific reason or were you just being ultra safe?  I am very sorry if I have alarmed anyone for no good reason.       

Would you please say what you have heard about chinese rawhide?  Also, does anyone now how to find out exactly  where a rawhide product comes from???