U.S. Consumers Asked to Return Dog Food

Yahoo!/Reuters ^ | 05/27/2003 | Staff

[B Knotts]

WASHINGTON - U.S. consumers are being asked to return dog food that may have come from a Canadian cow that tested positive for mad cow disease.

Pet Pantry International of Carson City, Nev., which issued the request Monday, said customers should search for two products: "Maintenance Diet" with a "use by" date of "17FEB04" and "Beef with Barley" with a date of "05MAR04.

If found, the food should be held for pickup. The company's products are purchased by phone or e-mail and delivered by franchises to consumers' homes.

There is no known risk to dogs and no evidence that dogs could transmit the disease to humans, the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) said. The voluntary return is a precaution to prevent discarded dog food from getting mixed with feed for cattle, goats or sheep.

Customers who purchased dog food since February should check their supplies and, if found, should call the company at 1-800-381-7387. Pet Pantry also is using sales records to contact consumers.

The suspect food, in 50 pound bags, was produced in Canada by Champion Pet Food of Morinville, Alberta.

The Canadian government already has prevented meat from the single diseased cow to be processed for human food.

Test results have cleared all other cattle in the original herd linked to North America's first mad cow case in a decade, Canadian officials said Sunday.

[B Knotts]

As I said in a thread last week, this is how TSE will spread into the U.S.: through dog food. The contaminated food will be given to livestock dogs, and the ruminants will eat some of it.

There is no labeling program to remind people that they must keep dog food away from ruminants for this reason. It shouldn't be necessary, but it probably is.

[B Knotts]

I said "TSE," when I meant "BSE." There are already TSEs here, like scrapie.

[mewzilla]

Evidently Cretin hates our dogs, too.

[B Knotts]

Except French Poodles...he likes those. He probably kicks other dogs.

[mr.pink]

U.S. Consumers Asked to Return Dog Food

Darnit!...mom just hates cat food.

[B Knotts]

ROFL...forgot about that...remember when the Democrats were giving speeches all the time, claiming that Republicans wanted everyone's grandma to eat dog food?

[blackdog]

You beat me to it. I was about to ask what Dick Gephardt was going to feed his mother now?

[blackdog]

Scrapie is brutal. The soil your animals grazed on needs to be removed. I have not introduced an animal from outside my flock other than tested rams. Scrapie can be walked, driven, or carried onto your farm too.

I used to be all worried about OPP, but it's scrapie that brings economic ruin.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Mmmmm, dogfood. (Posted by Daphne, LL's dog).