What's Killing Our Pets

[Bonkers]

  Interesting report about the possible problems with Diamonds Natural Cat Food. I am wondering if this is an isolated incident or if there have been ill effects reported by others concerning this particular food.

[Hannie]

  Interesting report about the possible problems with Diamonds Natural Cat Food. I am wondering if this is an isolated incident or if there have been ill effects reported by others concerning this particular food.

That's what I'm wondering too.  Was going to let friends know but don't want to start something over one report.  Would seem to me if there was a bad batch, we'd have a lot more reports.  At least you would think so.

I did a search at Consumer Affairs & I couldn't find anything there either.

[Bonkers]

  As was stated in the report by Susan Thixton,  "There are hundreds of possibilities within every home that can cause an illness and perhaps a death of a pet".

  I suppose the only way to find out whether the food was to blame would be for the vet or pet owner to have it tested. Hopefully they will do so and post the results at http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/

[raggiesrule]

And that is part of the problem we face animals are lost and others further endangered whilst we are trying to eliminate things other than the food. That is what we went through with Champion in Australia our cats gradually got sick one at a time and not necessarily all with exactly the same symptoms and we tested and checked and tried to work out what was going on and we are all working in isolation and then gradually as animals are sent to the same specialist centre they relieve there are common issues and start looking for a common cause. One of the clinics then put out a survey and pet lists and that turned up other cases and gave us more information. This all takes months unfortunately and people are spending money on unnecessary testing to eliminate things that have already been eliminated by someone else unknown to them. And in the mean time people are still feeding the food that is causing the damage not knowing what has caused the problem. And then when there is finally enough evidence to point the finger at a food we can't get it off the shelf we have to deal with PFC's and hope they will do a volunteer recall and even if they do there is no requirement on them to notify retail outlets to remove the food.

I do not know the answer as pet food is not always the cause of illness but IMO there needs to be some type of central register so vets can register strange/sudden onset symptoms in animals that have to date been healthy. At least then hopefully common issues can be identified earlier and the poisoning stopped sooner. There will also then be a record of  passed issues so for example in our case the previous issues with irradiated cat food would have been there for the vets to work from.

Jo

[Bonkers]

A central register would be of great help when dealing with illness's caused by the PFI, but IMO it is not the solution.

Untill there is reform in the industry and/or the PFI is held accountable for their actions, this unfortunately is something that will continue to happen.

I believe that pet owners and veterinarians both need to be educated to the fact that illness is not always something that just happens. They need to be made aware that many conditiions may be caused by the food a pet is eating.

Maybe there should be a warning label put on all pet food products stateing to discontinue use if a pet experiences vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy etc........

[raggiesrule]

After what we have been through we will be wanting to rule food out before anything else if we have a sick animal for an unexplained reason from here on in.

Bonkers I agree, a register certainly only deals with identifying patterns of illness, it as you said isn't a solution to the problems with pet food that are caused by lack of truth in labelling, poor ingredients and substitution of ingredients, poor processing practises, lack of batch testing etc.

[Bonkers]

 It is being reported that the FDA is now looking into the reports of sick cats.

 Unfortunately we all know how well the FDA performs in this country. 

 http://www.truthaboutpetfood.com/articles/416/1/Follow-Up-Information-on-Sick-Cats-and-Diamond-Naturals-Cat-Food/Page1.html

[5CatMom]

That's good news.  Hope the FDA finds something for a change.

Owner's shouldn't have to worry and wonder if the next can/bag of food will harm their pets.