Meandering Starre

The recent pet food recalls have scared probably thousands of pet owners across the nation. After the first recall I carefully when through the lists and sites and happily noted the two types of cat food we give our gray long-haired Psyche are not on the list. Ya! I did find it ironic that we never fed our cat canned cat food until recently, at the vet’s suggestion. Our cat had lost weight and needed to put on some weight, so the vet suggested canned cat food that has been microwaved for a second or two (to increase the scent and thus be more appealing to cats, I nuke the refrigerated stuff for longer). It would have been far too ironic if the stuff we gave her to plump her up caused health problems.

After this quick check I then spent 10 days away at a conference and visit and then I had a bunch of catch up work to do. The outside world vanished. I learned only recently that there has been another pet food recall and now dry cat food was on the list. I also heard that wheat gluten was the problem. So I went home and checked. The canned food had it, but the dry didn’t. Fine. I checked the canned online and it seemed fine. So I went about my life.

Well today I read some more about it and did some research. I was doing this from my office at work. I found a great site with recently updated info: Petconnection.com . From this site I found likes to these helpful sites:

- The Pet Food List, with a list of the brands not being recalled

-The Pet Food Tracker with a pdf list of food that have been recalled. This list is great because it is more up-to-date (apparently) than the FDA, which a bit slower about updating.

I checked the pet food list and found the canned stuff was on it—so we were safe there. I then checked the dry food, Science Diet, and…

It wasn’t on the list! So it has been recalled!! AHHHHHHH!

I then went to the list of recalls and low and behold…

THERE WAS SCIENCE DIET! ACK!

At this point I am in a near panic. The pdf is a huge table so I was trying to scroll up to see what the columns were and them scroll back to see what was marked. Not fun. At this point a grad student stuck her head in to my office and wanted to ask me a few questions. So here I am thinking I am killing my cat and I can’t fully confirm this. I then panic the grad student by finding the brand she uses on the list. Fun!

Luckily when she left I had time to check and see that it was the canned and pouch form of both our brands that was on the list and not the dry! So, we are both being good cat mommys! I did caught her in the hall and let her know she was safe to.

One can only hope this mess leads to better people and pet food regulations. But I am likely living in a dream world.