Archive for March, 2007

A woman says she became violently ill after eating some of her dog’s food.

It’s a case that could be related to the tainted pet food that has killed several dogs and cat’s and sickened dozens more across in Canada and the United States.

Elaine Larabie tells the Ottawa Citizen that for three days she suffered symptoms that included loss of appetite, vomiting, foaming at the mouth and trouble urinating. She went to an emergency room on Tuesday and is now awaiting test results from blood work.

After noticing her dog, Missy, wasn’t eating, Larabie said she took bites of Iams pet food in order to trick the terrier into thinking it was people food.

The ploy worked and the mealtime routine continued for about two weeks until both dog and master became sick on March 17.

It wasn’t until she saw a TV news story about the Menu Foods recall that she became aware of a possible connection.

Last week, the Toronto-area company recalled 60 million cans and pouches of food made under 95 different brand names.

On Sunday, Menu Foods asked retailers to immediately remove all affected varieties of the company’s wet pet food regardless of the date code.

The company said the request was made amid concerns that some recalled lots of “Cuts and Gravy” style wet pet food were still on store shelves.

The company said in a release Sunday there is no known risk from items not on the recall list, but an “abundance of caution” was called for.

An environmental group said Tuesday it had captured a “monster” toad the size of a small dog.

With a body the size of a football and weighing nearly 2 pounds, the toad is among the largest specimens ever captured in Australia, according to Frogwatch coordinator Graeme Sawyer.

“It’s huge, to put it mildly,” he said. “The biggest toads are usually females but this one was a rampant male … I would hate to meet his big sister.”

Frogwatch, which is dedicated to wiping out a toxic toad species that has killed countless Australian animals, picked up the 15-inch-long cane toad during a raid on a pond outside the northern city of Darwin late Monday.

Cane toads were imported from South America during the 1930s in a failed attempt to control beetles on Australia’s northern sugar cane plantations. The poisonous toads have proven fatal to Australia’s delicate ecosystems, killing millions of native animals from snakes to the small crocodiles that eat them.

As part of its so-called “Toad Buster” project, Frogwatch conducts regular raids on local water holes, blinding the toads with bright lights then scooping them up by the dozen.

“We kill them with carbon dioxide gas, stockpile them in a big freezer and then put them through a liquid fertilizer process” that renders the toads nontoxic, Sawyer said.

“It turns out to be sensational fertilizer,” he added.

The world’s tallest man has married a woman who is more than 2 feet shorter than him, a Chinese newspaper reported Wednesday.

Bao Xishun, a 7-foot-9 herdsman from Inner Mongolia, married 5-foot-6 saleswoman Xia Shujian several days ago, the Beijing New reported.

Bao’s 28-year-old bride is half his age and hailed from his hometown of Chifeng even though marriage advertisements were sent around the world, it said.

“After a long and careful selection, the effort has been finally paid off,” the newspaper said.

Bao was confirmed last year by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s tallest person.

He was in the news in December after he used his long arms to save two dolphins by pulling out plastic from their stomachs.

The dolphins got sick after nibbling on plastic from the edge of their pool at an aquarium in Liaoning province. Attempts to use surgical instruments to remove the plastic failed because the dolphins’ stomachs contracted in response to the instruments, Chinese media reported.

Safe food list removed due to this email from “petsitusa”.

Thank you for the link but that’s NOT what I asked you to do. Please REMOVE the entire list from your blog. If you want to reference the list at all,
ONLY reference it by link. This list is a result of our research and we are
keeping it current. We do not want incomplete versions of it on other
websites.

Thank you,
Therese Kopiwoda

I thought that the more websites that mirrored the list, the better….but hey, what do I know!

After even more pet deaths, menu foods has increased their pet food recall to include ALL of their food products due to concerns that tainted products are still being sold. Menu Foods is the parent company for well-known brands such as IAMS and Eukanuba.

Pet Connection has had nearly 2,000 pets added to their deceased database.

There are some symptoms that you need to watch out for if you have given your pets any of the recalled foods over the past few weeks.

If you have a pet who has eaten any of the recalled foods — even if there are no symptoms — call your veterinarian and arrange for a simple blood test. As we’ve said before, you’ll be buying yourself peace of mind, and maybe saving your pet’s life. If your pet is sick — vomiting, increased thirst, increase or lack of urination, lethargy, bad breath, diarrhea or lack of appetite — you have an emergency situation, and your pet needs a vet now.

If you have a pet who has been made sick or killed by tainted food, you need to ask your veterinarian to report to your state’s veterinarian, who will then report to the FDA. The FDA also has consumer complaint lines set up, and you should call on your own in addition.

Take a few minutes as well to report your pet’s information into the Pet Connection data base. They are trying to track the scope of the problem.

You might be asking yourself, “How can I help?”. There are a couple of things you can do actually.

1. If you know a pet-lover who isn’t likely to have Internet access, be sure that person knows about the recall. You know the sweet elderly widow who has a couple of cats and no computer? The one who doesn’t read the newspaper anymore because she doesn’t see so well? Go say hello, and ask if she knows. Offer to help her check labels, if you have to. Help her get new food, if that’s what it takes. We have to look after one another.
2. If you see recalled product on a store shelf, insist on talking to a store manager. Be polite and persistent. If you are sure the product is on the recall list and the manager refuses to pull it, tell the manager you’re calling the media. And then do. Get that product off the shelves.

What makes this even scarier, in my opinion, is the fact that this could happen with people food also. Unless you buy your beef straight from the local slaughterhouse, who knows where it has came from….especially if you buy the hamburger that comes in a 5 pound tube. That stuff has always been scary anyway.

Just watch yourself folks, and keep an eye on your pets.

Best Wishes.