What

You may want to reconsider what brands you feed your dog after reading this! Courtesy of the API (Animal Protection Institute's)

Last spring API and the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights (AVAR) developed a survey to answer that question.

Most veterinarians who responded share API's concerns about the quality of commercial pet food and its influence on companion animal health.

Respondents to the survey rated nutrition as having a moderate to strong influence on a number of health problems in dogs and cats. Developmental bone disease in dogs and lower urinary tract disease in cats were also seen as being strongly influenced by nutrition.

"Clinical experience tells me many medical problems are caused by commercial diets"' offered one vet. Another commented, "I believe that the incredibly poor quality of commercial pet foods is largely responsible for the continued increase in chronic, degenerative diseases in dogs and cats".

More than 90% of veterinarians responding to the survey said they have concerns about pet foods. "If the American public knew what went into their dog's and cat's commercial food, you'd see some major changes in purchasing choices".

"Ingredients not fit for human consumption- how can these be good for our pets?" asked on veterinarian.

Greater than two-thirds of the vets said they didn't think pet food companies provide adequate information about their products.

We HIGHLY recommend you read www.api4animals.org and also check their link under "What's Hot" section.

Although you won't find it on any pet-food label, many brands of pet food contain dog and cat remains. Each year, millions of dead dogs and cats are processed along with billions of pounds of other animal materials by companies known as renders.
The finished products - tallow and meat meals serve as raw material for thousands of items that include cosmetics and pet food.
The National Animal Control Association estimates that U.S. animal shelters annually kill 13 million household pets. It's statistics show that 30% of these pets are buries, 30% are cremated and 40% - or about 5.2 million - are sent to rendering
factories.

"When you read pet-food labels and it says meat meal, that's what it is - cooked and converted animals, including some dogs and cats," said Eileen Layne, of the California Veterinary Medical Association.

"Thousands and thousands of pounds of dogs and cats are picked up and brought here everyday," said one employee of Sacramento Rendering. "The small animals are a big part of the company," confirmed an ex-employee. The two estimated that
the company rendered somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 pounds of dogs and cats a day out of a total 250,000 to 500,000 pounds of cattle, poultry, butcher scrap and other materials.

California law states that rendered dogs and cats must be labeled as "dry rendered tankage," but is often sold out of state labeled as "meat and bone meal." "For years we sold Ralston Purina meat meal and they had dogs and cats in their product for years and didn't know it until somebody squawked," said a rendering plant executive. Ralston Purina apparently tried to avoid using dog and cat meat thereafter, but, said the executive, "I don't recall any other pet food manufacturer saying they wouldn't buy it."

Allman Report

What's getting into your pets?
Part 1
Reporter: Jamie Allman, News 4 | Allman Report

(KMOV) -- There is no doubt that our pets are very important to us. What we feed them may be just as important. What is inside that food, though, may not be what you think. This installment of the Allman Report has some surprising information about what may be in the food you're feeding your dogs and cats.

Their names are Blacky, Scoop, Puffy, and Diamond. Some are just a few years or a few months old. They are mostly dogs and a couple of cats.

"It's the most undesirable part of our job," says one city pound worker.

This sunny morning in the city pound is the last day of their lives. It is a cruel but necessary routine played out every morning at the pound. A dozen or more former pets are put to death because no one wants them -- alive that is.

Unwanted by their owners, their bodies are in high demand. Loaded into a city refuse truck, they are taken five miles across the river to Illinois to a rendering plant in Millstadt. Along with dead cows and road kill, they will be piled into a vat and boiled, turned into raw tankage or protein.

We were asked to leave the property before we could ask where it all eventually goes. But it soon became evident as a tanker truck made its way into the plant to be filled. The truck was from a southern Missouri company, its mission spelled out on the tank itself: "serving the pet food industry."

"It may be objectionable. People may not want to know what goes in there," says Don Aird of the Food and Drug Administration.

But the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees pet food ingredients, allows dead dogs and cats in pet food, saying disease or the drugs used to sedate the animals dissipates through cooking.

"Well, we don't believe it's going to cause problems for the animals. If we did, we would not allow it to happen," Aird says.

However, the Pet Food Institute, which represents major pet food labels such as Purina and Alpo, says it strictly forbids member companies from using materials from dead companion animals in pet food.

As for other pet food companies, well, there's no requirement they divulge exactly what's in their product or where they get the raw ingredients. The Food and Drug Administration says legally, it's none of your business.

"That's what keeps the prices down and I think it keeps the health down," says Dr. Christine Crosley, a veterinarian.

Crosley insists companion animal parts are unhealthy as are the other things allowed in pet food like scraps from slaughter houses, ground up chicken beaks and feathers, and recycled grease from Chinese restaurants and fried chicken stands.

"It is food. I guess it's food by definition. It goes in the mouth and out the other end. But, it's not nutritious," she says.

Crosley advocates feeding your pets what you eat. Some of her clients swear by it.

"So we started steaming vegetables for her and brown rice and chicken broth. She didn't leave any dandruff residue and her skin wasn't dry anymore and she wasn't always scratching at herself," says Karen Heyden, a pet owner.

If you do choose commercial pet food, Crosley suggests you reject food with animal by products or bone meal or meat meal in them and choose foods that have natural products in them.
"Flash frozen green beans and half of a good dry food. That's much better than this package," Crosley says.

None of the pet food companies we talked to would sit down and be interviewed for this story. The company that owns the truck you saw at the rendering plant refuses to tell us who buys from them. We talked about other things you could feed your dogs, but remember cats are carnivores and feeding them just vegetables and grains will not be good for them. Foods containing real fish and other meats are recommended.

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