Tag Archives: Pet Food

First, you growl: when your dog’s food is recalled for Salmonella

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I tell the other barfbloggers, people want to hear from others, not just me. Edit the piece – viciously and mercilessly – and it’s all good.

Sure enough, Ashley Chaifetz a PhD student in public policy that Chapman knows, ran a piece in barfblog on April 11, 2013.

Two days later it got picked up by Nancy Shute of NPR; her version goes like this:

(Chaifetz) was more than a little surprised when she got an email from her online pet food purveyor, saying that they’d sold her dry dog_vomitdog food that might be contaminated with salmonella.

Her dog, a corgi-pit bull mix rescue dog named Chloe, had already snarfed her way through half of a 30-pound bag of Natura herring and sweet potato dry food. Uh-oh.

Chaifetz knows the symptoms of foodborne illness in humans, but wasn’t so sure about dogs. The email from the company didn’t clue her in.

Some quick Googling and a call to her veterinarian confirmed that the symptoms are the same in pets: vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy and fever. “She certainly wouldn’t tell me if she had a fever,” Chaifetz says.

Fortunately, Chloe didn’t get sick, and Chaifetz didn’t get sick, either. But other recent outbreaks in pet food have spread to humans, to nasty effect.

Last year, a salmonella outbreak in dry dog food sickened 22 people in North America. Then there was a multiyear salmonella outbreak from 2006 through 2008, with 79 humans falling ill.

What did our food safety policy student learn from her encounter with an outbreak? Two things.

“Salmonella might not be homogenous in the bag,” Chaifetz told The Salt. So even though her dog didn’t get sick, the remaining food could still be contaminated. That bag went in the trash. (The company swiftly sent her a coupon for a replacement bag.)

Fact two: Humans most often get infected from scooping up pet poop — not from handling pet food. “That was a surprise to me, and I’m a person who studies food safety.” (She wrote about her experience for the delightfully titled Barfblog – note from dp, that’s barfblog.com; upper-case is overrated.)

Clearly, diligent hand-washing after pet care is a good idea, even when there isn’t an outbreak.

This latest recall hasn’t infected any people, at least none that the FDA knows of. But it’s been expanded to include cat and ferret foods and treats, so stay tuned.

But poop patrol isn’t the only way that perilous microbes can move from animal to pet. After the 2012 outbreak, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that people most likely were infected from handling their pet’s food.

Our colleague Scott Hensley recalls that not so very long ago, one of his boys considered dog biscuits an ideal snack. Public health experts told him that children under 5 should never handle pet foods or treats.

Guess they meant “or eat them,” either.

 

Federal prisoners in Texas ate meat intended for pets

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Federal prisoners in Texas unknowingly ate pet food due to problems with the resale of meat from an East Texas food company that specializes in fajita meat, according to federal authorities.

The Dallas Morning News reports John Soules Foods, Inc. of Tyler has agreed to pay $392,000 to settle a case brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

It involved raw “beef trimmings” that were intended for pet food cans but ended up being eaten by humans.

The government’s three-year investigation found that the problems occurred in late 2006 and early 2007.

John Soules Foods had problems “getting some of their beef trimmings product to freeze properly,” authorities said.

As a result, the company sold some boxes of those trimmings to a meat broker who agreed to sell it as pet food, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The boxes were not marked as pet food.

That broker violated the agreement and sold the trimmings to another broker for human food. Some of it ended up being sold to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for human consumption.

Raw is risky in food preparation for people and pets

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When I picked Sorenne up at school the other day, the kids were dancing wildly in the sunshine to a Justine Clarke song.

I had at least 10 years of Robert Munch books, Sharon Lois and Bram sing-alongs, and Sesame Street TV.

I’ve been doing it again and besides the Wiggles, the biggest kids’ entertainer in Australia seems to be Justine Clarke.

There’s a free TV channel that runs nothing but kids’ programs, and an episode of Play School from 2005 that was on the other day featured then co-host Justine Clarke cutting up raw meat to feed to the dog and her puppies; mixed with brown rice, because what species can’t get enough Asian fusion cooking in their diet.

Cross-contamination was a problem.

With the on-going outbreak of Salmonella Infantis linked to Diamond Pet Foods that has sickened at least 22 humans, National Public Radio in the U.S. summarized a too cutesy brief about the outbreak with this gem: “If keeping track of recent pet food scares is just too complicated, you could always make your own food for Fido.”

The highlighted link took readers to an April 4, 2007 story from NPR, with the redux title, After pet food scare, could homemade be a help?

Phil Klein, the co-owner of Whiskers Holistic Pet Care and billed as an expert in the field of homemade pet food, shared his advice with host Neal Conan. A couple of experts are below.

“CONAN: Yet we’re always told to feed our pets pet food. How come?

“Mr. KLEIN: Well, let me ask you a question. I’m sure that you’re very, very aware, and I’m sure this enlightened audience is very aware of the Egyptian hieroglyphs on the pyramids in which are depicted dogs and cats of that era. Okay? So we know that dogs and cats are at least 3,500 years old and have not changed materially in basic format since then, correct? Okay, who cooked kibble for dogs for the pharaoh?

“CONAN: I didn’t see any checkerboard patterns on any of the obelisks.

“Mr. KLEIN: Okay, my next thing is – our paradigm truly – at Whiskers Holistic Pet Care, our paradigm is how did the dog or cat live in the wild 150 years ago, very specifically in that timeframe. That was before we screwed up our soil so badly so that the nutrients in the ingredients that the dogs and the cats ate in the wild were much more dense than they are, currently.
Be that as it may, if you go into those woods, you find me the trees in which live the Keebler elves cooking kibble, or find me a can opener hanging from a bush.”

Nature can be nasty, brutish and short.

And cross-contamination isn’t child’s play, with pet food or human food.

Salmonella in dog food sickens 14, came from SC plant with toxic mold problem in 2005

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Fourteen people in at least nine states have been sickened by salmonella after handling tainted dog food from a South Carolina plant that a few years ago produced food contaminated by toxic mold that killed dozens of dogs, federal officials said Friday.

At least five people were hospitalized because of the dog food, which was made by Diamond Pet Foods at its plant in Gaston, S.C., the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

“People who became ill, the thing that was common among them was that they had fed their pets Diamond Pet Foods,” said CDC spokeswoman Lola Russell.

People can get salmonella by handling infected dog food, then not washing their hands before eating or handling their own food, health officials said.

The South Carolina plant temporarily was shut down April 8. Diamond Pet Foods has issued four rounds of recalls for food made at the plant, located outside of Columbia, S.C., between Dec. 9 and April 7. The latest recalls were announced Friday.

In 2005, a toxic mold called aflatoxin ended up in food made at the same Diamond Pet Foods plant in South Carolina and dozens of dogs died. The company offered a $3.1 million settlement. The Food and Drug Administration determined the deadly fungus likely got into the plant when it failed to test 12 shipments of corn.

The recall covers a number of pet food brands made at the Gaston plant, including Canidae, Natural Balance, Apex, Kirkland, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul, Country Value, Diamond, Diamond Naturals, Premium Edge, Professional, 4Health and Taste of the Wild.

Randy Phebus and I talked about contaminated pet food and the risks to pets and humans in Sept. 2008.

Concern with humans; FDA starts testing pet food for salmonella

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has begun a year-long nationwide effort to test pet food for salmonella contamination, but the key concern is not the health of dogs and cats — it’s of their owners.

FDA investigators began in October taking samples of dry pet food, pet treats and diet supplements from distributors, wholesalers and retailers like PetSmart, PetCo, WalMart, Costco, Sam’s Club and Target.

People turning to dog food for nourishment is "an urban legend," said Duane Ekedahl, president of the Pet Food Institute, but the FDA said in a memorandum released this week that it is "particularly concerned about salmonella being transmitted to humans through pet foods, pet treats and supplements for pets that are intended to be fed to animals in homes, where they are likely to be directly handled or ingested by humans."

The agency pointed to CDC data that show 70 people got sick from January 2006 through December 2007 in connection with salmonella-tainted dry dog food produced in Pennsylvania.

About $8 billion worth of dry dog food, $2 billion worth of dog treats, $3.7 billion worth of dry cat food and $427 million worth of cat treats were sold in the U.S. last year, according to Euromonitor International, a market research company.

From the achieves: Doug Powell and Randy Phebus talk about salmonella in pet food in 2008.

Report offers tips to protect pets from salmonella—raw food, bulk-bin treats discouraged

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Food safety Frank was walking around the vet college with me yesterday and we ran into my research pal, Dr. Kate Stenske KuKanich.

It took about 10 seconds and they were into a full discussion of pet food safety, the role of pets as carriers of salmonella, and how infections cycle throughout the home.

Wal-Mart is asking more of its pet food suppliers; that’s good.

Dr. Kate wrote a report for the June 1, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA), laying out recommendations for pet owners on how to avoid Salmonella infection in pets; that’s good too.

From the AVMA press release that went out last night:

The report, written by Kate S. KuKanich, DVM, Ph.D., DACVIM, details the circumstances under which Salmonella organisms are most often ingested and includes a history of Salmonella outbreaks associated with pet food and treats. In addition, it offers recommendations on how pet owners can minimize the risk of Salmonella infection for both their pets and families.

Recommendations include:
Avoiding raw food diets for pets.
Purchasing individually packaged pig ears, rather than buying them from bulk bins.
Checking the packaging of pet food products to ensure that they are in good condition prior to purchase; returning products to the store if they appear tainted, discolored, or malodorous.
Storing pet foods, treats, and nutritional products in accordance with label instructions, preferably in a cool, dry environment.
Saving the original pet food packaging material, including the date code and product code of all food products, for product identification in case of food contamination.
Discouraging children, the elderly, and immunosuppressed people from handling pet food and treats.
Washing hands with soap and water before and after handling pet food, treats, and nutritional products.
Using a clean scoop to dispense pet food into bowls.
Washing water and food bowls used by pets, as well as feeding scoops, routinely with hot soapy water in a sink other than in the kitchen or bathroom.
Avoiding feeding pets in the kitchen.

I like working with smart people.
 

Pet food porn

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With an appeal to the simplistic, Barbara Laino says, “We know processed foods are wrong for us. It has to be wrong for them. If you can feed yourself healthily and your children, then you can feed your pets healthily, too. It really isn’t that hard.”

Laino is talking about the standard recipe she uses to feed her Alaskan malamute, another dog and three cats in her house for around 10 days: grind 40 pounds of pasture-raised chicken necks with another 20 pounds of chicken giblets. To this, she adds five pounds of carrots, a whole cabbage and several other fruits, all from the organic fields of Midsummer Farm, Ms. Laino’s farm in Warwick, N.Y. Finally, she blends the mix with herbs and supplements.

She tells the New York Times in a piece of pet food porn that she wants for her pets what she wants for herself: a healthy diet of unprocessed organic foods. And now she teaches others.

Cesar Millan, host of the television show “The Dog Whisperer,” says, “The dog has always been a mirror of the human style of life. Organic has become a new fashion, a new style of living.”

Cesar got the lifestyle bit right, because that is all it is; as for microbiological safety, the cross-contamination risks alone in the food prep sound daunting.

Nancy K. Cook, the vice president at the Pet Food Institute, a trade association for commercial pet food makers, cautions pet owners that it is hard to create a balanced diet at home, since dogs and cats have specific nutritional requirements.

Joseph J. Wakshlag, a clinical nutritionist at the Baker Institute for Animal Health at Cornell University, said that if pets are not fed the correct balance of proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins, they can experience several health disorders, including anemia, broken bones and loss of teeth from lack of calcium.

Korinn Saker, a clinical nutritionist at the College of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University, who treats animals at the school’s teaching hospital, said she was not against people cooking for their pets, but that if it was not done correctly, the consequences could be harmful.

She has seen several dogs with adverse effects from unbalanced homemade pet food diets, including a German shepherd puppy “who was walking on its elbows because it had no strength in its bones,” she said. The dog, it turned out, was not getting enough calcium.

Dr. Saker, asked to analyze the recipe from Ms. Laino’s workshop, found that it was lacking in a number of nutrients recommended by the Association of American Feed Control Officials.

Ms. Laino said she rejects the standards recommended by the feed association, and suggested that her recipe might be richer in certain nutrients because the ingredients are organic.

Hucksterism is alive and well for Barbara Laino and the N.Y. Times.
 

Sadie, Salmonella and humans eating pet food

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Sadie saved my marriage.

That’s dramatic but I have a flair for drama.

Sadie was about 10 weeks old when I found her one Saturday morning under our vehicle.

Amy and I had recently moved into our Kansas compound, we had some people over, things didn’t go well, we had a, uh, dispute, and the next morning things were still festering. I packed my knapsack, which always has everything important, and was headed out the door for a long, long walk.

I found this pup under the truck.

I’d seen her running around in our yard about 5 a.m. but didn’t think much of it.

Now, the whimpering pup was glued to my heel.

Sadie had been well-cared for but ultimately abandoned, a not-uncommon occurrence in a student and military town. We took her in and realized our quarrels weren’t all that terminal.

Former Kansas State president Jon Wefald loved the story of Sadie. I would often see him around campus, walking our two dogs after accompanying Amy to her office, and he would always ask about the story of Sadie.

One time, there was an outbreak of Salmonella in pet food going on and a bunch of humans had gotten ill as well. The Pres asked how humans could get sick from pet food, and I explained about cross-contamination, and that some people ate pet food.

He didn’t believe me.

So here is a video of Jessica Pilot sampling human grade dog food. Some people do eat pet food.
 

BARF sucks, barfblog doesn’t; raw pet food recalled

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barfblog is a reasonably OK name for a blog. At the time we didn’t know we’d be going up in Google searches against BARF – the ridiculously inaccurately named biologically appropriate raw food diet for pets.

Salmonella doesn’t discriminate. The Oregonian reports that Nature’s Variety, headquartered in Lincoln, Neb., is pulling its chicken formula raw frozen diet for both dogs and cats. The chicken was sold in retail stores nationwide and online.

The company said it received a customer complaint about a particular batch after its pet developed digestive problems. The call prompted a salmonella test, which turned up positive in another batch of the food.

Maybe the company should have more routine testing of its products rather than waiting for pets to start barfing. And make those results public.
 

Jon and Kate plus 8: Dirty hands edition

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Last night Amy and I tuned into the finale of Jon and Kate plus 8, hoping Jon’s rumored making out with college chicks would be addressed. It was not.

There were a few moments of footage where the Gosselin kids filled the doggie bowls with pet food. The little helpers were eagerly scooping the food and handling the bowls, and didn’t appear to wash their hands.

Pet food can become contaminated with Salmonella, so Kate should ensure her kiddies are washing their hands after handling pet food or treats.