Category: Cats

Posts just about cats.

Posted on

Pet Safety & Protection Act

buckhounddogshrunk.jpg You can help make it illegal to sell lost or stolen pets to research labs. Representatives Mike Doyle(D-PA) and Phil English(R-PA) and Senator Daniel Akaka(D-HI) have introduced a bill (S. 714 & H.R. 1280) that would make it illegal for Class B dealers to sell “random source” animals to labs. The bill is named “Buck’s Bill” in honor of an abused and neglected dog named Buck who was rescued from C. C. Baird, a Class B dealer, only to die months later from the mistreatment he had endured.

These Class B dealers acquire cats and dogs from different sources (“free to good home” ads, shelters, breeders, theft) and sell the animals to labs and veterinary schools where they are used for testing, biomedical research, and educational purposes. Lost and stolen pets are often caught up in the animal dealing.

This bill would work to end that by:

  • Prohibiting Class B dealers and unlicensed individuals from selling dogs and cats to laboratories
  • Preventing stray animals, who may be lost family pets, from being sold to laboratories
  • Providing pet owners peace of mind that their animals will not be sold to a laboratory, should their animal be stolen or become lost

This bill won’t prevent Class A dealers from supplying animals to labs or prohibit research facilities from breeding animals and supplying them to other research facilities. It won’t prohibit individuals from donating their own
animals to labs for research purposes. And it won’t “supersede any state law pertaining to pound seizure.”

HBO’s Dealing Dogs investigated the business of Class B dealers by going undercover to document the horrors at Martin Creek Kennels, run by C. C. Baird, one of the most notorious Class B dealers.

This bill has been introduced before, but never passed. It has a better chance this time, thanks in part, to the documentary Dealing Dogs. Contact your Senators and your Representatives and urge them to support S. 714 & H.R. 1280.

Posted on

Pet Food Recall: Professors Seek Accurate Numbers

I’m glad to see more efforts being made to find out just how many animals have been harmed by tainted pet food. Professors Wilson Rumbeiha and Dalen Agnew of Michigan State University Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health are surveying veterinarians and lab workers to get accurate numbers on how many animals have been killed or sickened by contaminated pet food—including those affected before the pet food recalls began. the survey also seeks answers answers as to what specifically killed the animals. Your veterinarian can submit the survey here.

PetConnection has been taking self-reported incidents since early on and as of May 14th, they have 2,519 cats and 2,348 dogs killed (4,867 combined), with a total of 14,646 pets affected by contaminated pet food

If your pet has been affected, you should file a complaint with the FDA.

Posted on

Pet Food Recall: Two Arrests With Video

Chinese officials have detained two managers from the two companies that exported melamine contaminated wheat flour. (As mentioned previously, these companies were actually selling tainted wheat flour, but representing it as wheat gluten and rice protein concentrate.)

See video interview with one of the detainees, Tian Feng, manager of Binzhou Futian Biology Technology.

I hope this actually signals a change in China, but they have a long way to go. Spiking ingredients with melamine isn’t uncommon. In the news today, Chinese farmed catfish are being banned in Mississippi because they tested positive for two banned antibiotics—ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin.

You can find out much more on the recall on my Pet Food Recall Archive Page.

PlayPlay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Pet Food Recall: First Hogs, Then Chickens, Now Fish

salmon.jpgFirst it was tainted, salvage pet food being fed to hogs and chickens, now it’s fish farmed for human consumption being fed fish meal made with melamine tainted ingredients.

It’s also become clear that, the tainted “wheat gluten” and “rice protein concentrate” that has killed and sickened so many pets is actually just wheat flour. It’s pathetic.

ChemNutra, the U.S. company that supplied the melamine tainted materials to pet food companies, also sold contaminated material to the fish meal maker. When asked, ChemNutra said they chose not to include the shipment to the fish meal company in their April 2nd recall of materials sold to pet food companies because they “co-brokered” the deal and didn’t actually “sell” the tainted material.

You can find out much more on the recall on my Pet Food Recall Archive Page.

Proudly powered by WordPress