Until the recent Menu Foods recall of over 60 million cans and packages of pet food, Canadians were ignorant to the many dark secrets about our pet food industry. Since March 16, 2007, a host of other pet food manufacturers have joined in recalling their products when they discovered their wet or dry pet foods contained the contaminant melamine. Royal Canin has recently been called to task for overdosing our pets with Vitamin D. What will we trusting pet owners be poisoning our pets with next?

There is NO regulation over the manufacture and sale of pet food in Canada.

Canadians need to band together and stand firm in our demand that the pet food industry in Canada is regulated once and for all. We need to make sure not one more pet becomes ill or dies from tainted pet food. We need to know for certain the food we feed our pets lives up to the claims that its ingredients are as nutritionally balanced as the pet food companies say they are.

Now is the time for action. Please take a few minutes to send a letter to your local MP, and to the leaders of our country to let them know that Canadians are calling for the pet food industry to be regulated.

Sample letters are provided in the link to the right of the page, below the flag. Simply follow the link then save the file to your computer. Links are also provided with contact information for various elected officials. Feel free to personalize the sample letters or write your own. Send letters to as many people as possible. We need to get the word out there and let the government know that we mean business!

The moderators of this site – who we are:

Carol:After my cat was diagnosed with diabetes, I learned that the 'prescription' dry food I had been feeding him had likely caused the disease. I changed his diet and he is now nearly off insulin after a few short months. I have joined the campaign for pet food regulation because I believe that our precious pets should be provided with safe, high quality nutrition.

Linda: My cat became severely ill after eating one of the foods manufactured by Menu Foods. Fortunately, after four intensive days of care, my cat is now in good health. Thousands of others were not so lucky. I joined the campaign for pet food regulation because I want to make sure that pet owners and their beloved pets never have to go through this kind of crisis again.

Mel: Since having one of my cats diagnosed with diabetes and the other with inflammatory bowel disease in the past year, both which likely would have been preventable with proper diet, I have become passionate about feline nutrition and the need for regulation of the pet food industry.

In addition, there are many more working behind the scenes who are involved with doing research, providing information, campaigning and getting the word out there.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Hearing on Pet Food Safety

On April 12, the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations held a hearing on Pet Food Safety. This is of interest to Canadians because much of our pet food is manufactured and tested to current US standards only. Of note, according to this story on ctv.ca, Menu Foods was asked to attend the hearing, but they requested that the Pet Food Institute, an industry trade association, appear instead.

For a limited time, the 2 hour hearing can be seen here (requires RealPlayer)

Transcribed testimony of all the participants can be found here.

Of particular interest was the testimony of Duane Ekedahl, of the Pet Food Institute. A clip of his testimony can be found on here

In addition, the Pet Food Institute issued a statement following the hearing. The statement, along with a rebuttal by Dr. Hodgkins can be found in the post below. A must-read for anyone feeding commercial foods. She also submitted supplemental testimony, which can be found on howl911.com
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