Nestle Purina recalls dry cat food for salmonella

June 27, 2011

Purina is recalling some of their dry cat food due to possible salmonella contamination.

Nestle Purina PetCare Company (NPPC) is voluntarily recalling approximately 870 bags of dry cat food shipped to Colorado, Idaho and Oregon.  This is being done as a precautionary measure, as the product has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella.  Only the following products with both the “Best By” date and production codes shown are included in this voluntary recall:

Bag Size
“Best By” Date & Production Code*
Bag UPC Code

Cat Chow Naturals Dry Cat Food
6.3 lb.
AUG 2012  10331083 13
17800  11320

Friskies Grillers Blend Dry Cat Food
3.15 lb.
AUG 2012  10381083  06
50000  08450

Friskies Grillers Blend Dry Cat Food
16 lb.
AUG 2012  10381083  06
50000  57578

The bags of dry cat food in this recall were distributed in error in February, 2011 to a small number of customers in Colorado, Idaho and Oregon, which may have further distributed the product to other Western states.   There have been no consumer complaints and no reports of illness.

No additional Purina cat or dog products are involved.  Only products which match the “Best By” date and production codes above are involved.

You’ll find the press release here, but for the life of me, I can’t find anything about the recall on the Purina website. If you find it, please post a link below.

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Veterinary decisions: How much should we push?

My approach to helping pet owners make decisions about their pet’s care can be summed up in one word: options.

Depending on the situation at hand, I try to provide as many options as I can, and give owners the information (and time, if I can) to make an informed decision that they will feel comfortable about when all is said and done. In some cases, the options may realistically be limited to two, or perhaps three if we get creative and start bending the rules.  In others, I can sometimes come up with five or six pretty realistic paths we can toss around.

I try to come up with options that will meet with most budgets (from the near-destitute to the wealthy) and most views on pet ownership. Like it or not, we see people who don’t value their pets as much as I do, and I have to serve the owner’s as well as the pet’s interests.  There’s no point in my demanding an MRI for someone who either can’t pay for it or thinks it’s a crazy thing to do. I still discuss it, but I don’t hold their feet to the fire.

Along with the options, I will usually offer up a recommendation for what I see as the best course of action. Sometimes, all the options are equally good, or equally crappy, and sometimes the one I see as best also has the biggest price tag (but not always). I have found that this combo of delivering options with a recommendation thrown in the mix seems to hit the right note of satisfying my conscience that I am doing right by the pet and the owners.

Human and veterinary medicine used to ascribe to a more paternalistic way of doing things; the doctor was always right, the doctor told you what to do, and the doctor usually drove the bus, wore the bossypants and made the decisions. No so anymore.

For human and animal patients alike, the age of the empowered patient and owner is here. People are educated about their health and the health of their pets, and rightly want to be a part of the decision-making process. I celebrate this, and find that discussions with educated and smart people are one of the joys of practice. We develop a plan together, and we all take pride in it if it works and we all take the lumps if it doesn’t. I get to bask in a little bit of the glow when things come out well, and I have a partner in crime if they don’t.

My options/recommendation scenario doesn’t always work, though. In order for it to work, the people on the other side of the exam table have to be able to actually make a decision when the time comes.  There is a segment of the pet-owning public that gets stuck in an endless Möbius strip of uncertainty, obsession about blame or flat-out fear, and is unable to give me a go/no-go on any decision.  I am not sure if this is the same contingent that really does want the decision pre-formed and handed to them, a lá 1950s-era Marcus Welby-style medicine or not.

In these cases, we may spend time in the exam room coming up with our two or ten options, but be met with blank stares and silence when it comes down to picking one. When I gently try and get an opinion from them about which direction they feel is right, in some cases nothing comes of it.  Prodding or being insistent is not my style, and I think rarely bears fruit; the discussion usually just degenerates at that point and we don’t get anywhere.

I am sometimes met with angst (“I don’t know what to do!”), anger (“You’re the doctor; which is the best?”) or, more often than not, just crickets.  We just sit there staring at each other.

I will usually give the family some time alone to discuss things, and then come back to answer questions and see if we can pick a path forward. Sometimes a little gentle power-of-suggestion stuff will work wonders, as in “I’ll give you some time to talk this over, and then when I come back you can let me know which way to proceed.”

What’s your take on this? Are there times when you just wish the doctor would make the call for you? Are there times when none of the options are attractive to you, and all the options suck? Have there been times when you felt a doctor did not give you all the options and merely made the decisions for you?

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Foreign objects – they’re everywhere!

June 28, 2011

What do rubber squeaky toys, shiny jewelry, and potting soil all have in common?

They are all foreign objects that various species of exotic pets commonly ingest. These are just a few items that we see exotic animals inappropriately consume. Even everyday objects found in our homes, like carpeting, towels, and plastic bags can be easily ingested by exotic species. These objects can cause life-threatening gastrointestinal obstructions that often require surgery to resolve.

So what can exotic pet owners do? While no one can guarantee that his or her pet will always be safe from ingesting foreign objects, there are certainly some precautions pet owners can take:

Pet-proof your animal’s enclosure. Scour the areas your pets frequent, and be sure to pick up any small, loose objects or dangling materials like string, ribbon, or wires that call out to pets to be chewed on.Never let your bird, small mammal (rabbit, ferret, rodent, or other species), or even your reptile, out of its cage unsupervised, even for a minute. That’s all it takes to gulp down or bite off a bit of foreign material.Be sure your pet’s cage or other enclosure locks securely and is escape-proof. Exotic pets are very clever and manage to get out of even seemingly secure places.Never leave tempting human food items or any kind of medication out within the reach of your exotic pets. Even if you think they won’t eat it, they might. It’s not worth the risk.Don’t assume that all pet “toys” are safe; many of these toys are made from potentially toxic materials (like lead) or have pieces that can be bitten or broken off, swallowed, or ingested. Carefully inspect any toys you leave in your pet’s cage, and consider whether there is anything in or on them that your pet might consume inappropriately.Pay attention to your pet’s bedding. Several types of bedding that are labeled as “safe,” such as corn cob or walnut shells, are actually consumed by many exotic pets and ultimately can lead to gastrointestinal obstruction. Bedding made from paper or recycled paper products is digestible if consumed and is therefore safe.Learn to recognize potential signs of foreign object ingestion in your pet’s particular species. For example, rabbits cannot physically vomit. Therefore, if you own a rabbit, you would not rely on vomiting as an indicator of whether your pet has ingested foreign material. And while ferrets can vomit, they often will not, showing only signs of diarrhea, even when they have swallowed something they shouldn’t have.Have a plan: talk to your vet before you have an actual emergency situation, so that if your exotic pet consumes foreign material and starts to act sick, you will know what to do and where to go even if it’s the middle of the night.

While we may not be able to prevent every exotic pet from inappropriately consuming all foreign materials, awareness of this problem and vigilance to prevent it can certainly save many animals lives.

Photo credit: ookaboo.com, toykeeper.net

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Animal control agencies slamming door on public scrutiny

What the heck is wrong with all these animal control agencies, acting like doing the people’s work on the people’s dime means they don’t have to answer to the people?

First, of course, we have the Memphis city attorney going after blogger Shirley Thistlewaite, who has been covering abuses at the Memphis city pound for more than a year now. He cited, amazingly, a South Carolina state law — Memphis being, of course, in Tennessee — and issued a threat that looks an awful lot like a SLAPP to an awful lot of people, including Thistelwaite herself, who has asked the Tennessee attorney general to investigate whether her civil rights were violated.

Then in California, we have the Central California SPCA shutting the doors to its board meetings, using a tiny loophole in California’s open meetings law, the Brown Act. They hold the Fresno animal control contract, but won’t let the people of Fresno into their board meetings anymore — because they don’t have to. They even got an attorney to write a lawyer letter to a local shelter reform group, FixFresno.org, letting them know they’d no longer be allowed to attend the meetings. And that same lawyer met them at the door at the CCSPCA’s most recent meeting, barring them from coming in.

On the other coast, New York City’s Department of Health, which runs the city pounds, scheduled its board meeting in a room that holds fewer than 50 people, despite on-going, high-profile allegations of mismanagement, including animal neglect and cruelty, at their facilities. They had to turn away at least 100 people.

The Village Voice — whose reporter was among those who couldn’t get in — wrote:

In an email today, NYCAC&C responded to activists’ furor over yesterday’s meeting: “Our board meetings have been held in the same location for years and, as always, members of the public were permitted entrance to watch the board meeting. The public was also given a percentage of time for public comment. The public was allowed in on a first-come, first-serve basis and the room was filled to capacity.”

What does New York’s open meetings law have to say about that? As of April 14 of  last year (bolded text is mine):

Effective immediately, §103 of the Open Meetings Law requires that public bodies make reasonable efforts to hold meetings in rooms that can “adequately accommodate” members of the public who wish to attend.  The intent of the amendment, as expressed in the accompanying legislative memorandum, is for public bodies to hold meetings in rooms that can reasonably accommodate the number of people that can reasonably be expected to attend.  For example, if a typical board meeting attracts 20 attendees, and meetings are held in a meeting room which accommodates approximately 30 people, there is adequate room for all to attend, listen and observe.  But in the event that there is a contentious issue on the agenda and there are indications of substantial public interest, numerous letters to the editor, phone calls or emails regarding the topic, or perhaps a petition asking officials to take action, the new provision would require the public body to consider the number of people who might attend the meeting and take appropriate action to hold the meeting at a location that would accommodate those interested in attending, such as a school facility, a fire hall or other site.

Is this front page story in the New York Post “contentious” enough to trigger that provision? How about this in the New York Daily News? Or this… or this… or this?

I have calls in to officials involved with each of these incidents, for a story I’m writing. From where I sit now, it sure does seem like it’s getting awfully hot in those animal control kitchens. The answer to that isn’t to shut the place up tighter; it’s to open up the doors and windows and let the fresh air and sunshine in.

Oh… and still think we don’t need a law?

Photo: Max, an 8-month-old dog scheduled to die today at New York City Animal Care and Control.

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10 Reasons to Take Your Dog to Work

Today is Take Your Dog to Work Day, a day when savvy companies allow employees to bring their best furry pals to the office. Most people bring their dogs because it’s fun, and because they like not having to leave their dogs behind when heading to the salt mines. But this special day has been taking place in the US every year since 1999, and those reasons are pretty obvious by now. So we at the Dogster dog blog have come up with our own unique list of 10 reasons to take your dog to work today.

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10. Your dog just gets too distracted working at home, and never meets deadlines

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9. Your cat will be very, very grateful

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8. It’s Potluck Friday, and someone has to eat Edna’s tuna casserole

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7. You need to see at least one smiling face today

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6. Your dog’s mere presence will keep The Annoying Guy Who Doesn’t Much Like Dogs away from your desk

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5. Your dog’s frequent leg-lift breaks = Your end-of-week sanity

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4. He needs to see just how hard you work to make the money to pay for his kibble

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3. He’s the perfect excuse for getting out of the same old Friday Happy Hour

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2. He’s the perfect magnet for meeting someone great at Friday Happy Hour, if your coworkers find a Happy Hour that allows dogs

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1. The biggest reason for bringing your dog to work today: Because your dog is way more awesome than anyone else’s dog at your office, paws down

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Photo credits: 10. Flickr photostream of danieru, 9. Flickr photostream of Buzznights, 8. Flickr photostream of AlisonLOL, 7. Flickr photostream of acermate433, 6. Flickr photostream of Mouthy, 5. Flickr photostream of ShellVergel, 4. Flickr photostream of slworking2, 3. Flickr photostream of Henchman Mike 2. Flickr photostream of Richard Prescott, 1.Flickr photostream of JKoshi

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Friday Foto Fun #2

In honor of the Royal Wedding, Alfie choose this week’s challenge as “LOVE“.  Hmmmmm Time to look through my photo archives and see what I can find.

Come and join in the fun here and get busy snapping…

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Scooterrific Dogs!

I don’t know about you, but I’m cheering for the team on the left. (I think the driver might be a little annoyed by being bonked by the “gas pedal” so much.)

If you think that was fun, check out these other scooterrific dogs.

Here’s Ruger (the same dog in the above video, I’m pretty sure) and his passenger, the oddly calm kitty.

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And here’s Ruger helping a dog named Jake learn to ride a scooter.

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Finally, to show that very big dogs can scooter with the rest of them, we have Norman, the Briard.

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Go dogs, go!

(Photo credit: Fun With Pup and Jane)

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