Dog Tidbits

Is This Treat Contaminated with Salmonella?

Over the past month, the number of pet food recalls has been increasing. Just yesterday Dancing Dog Blog reported the latest: On July 2nd Merrick Pet Care recalled its Beef Fillet Squares — for the second time in six months. The problem is that the FDA hasn’t reported the recall yet and Merrick buried the information on its website.

I’ve always liked Merrick’s dog food. But I find it disturbing — and disillusioning — that Merrick didn’t publicize the recall better. I also find it disturbing that this is the second recall of the same food in half a year.

According to the post in Dancing Dog Blog, Merrick waited two weeks after the FDA notified them of the test results before notifying the general public. That is, the Merrick marketers waited fourteen days before they let the people who buy their Beef Fillet Squares know that the food might endanger the lives of their dogs because of Salmonella contamination.

And now Merrick buried the second recall where most people will never see it.

Trust is an important part of building a brand. Once that trust between manufacturer and buyer is broken, it’s hard to repair. Just look at the problems with Toyota!

I hope the marketers at Merrick will begin acting in a more open manner. Otherwise they might end up losing loyal customers.

Is Our Pet Food at Risk?

The Merrick pet food recall, though, is just one part of the problem with pet food today. Within the past month, the FDA has issued four pet food recalls:

• Feline’s Pride recalled its Natural Chicken Formula Cat Food because of Salmonella contamination (July 1).
• United Pet Group recalled its Pro-Pet Adult Daily Vitamin Supplement because of possible Salmonella contamination (June 22).
• Natural Balance Pet Foods, Inc. recalled its Natural Balance Sweet Potato & Dry Chicken Dry Dog Food because it had “the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella” (June 18).
• P&G recalled specific canned cat food because the food didn’t have enough B-1 (that is, thiamine) in it (June 9).

The list doesn’t include the Merrick Beef Fillet Squares recall because, as of now, the FDA hasn’t reported it.

But let’s add Merrick to the list — which means that four of the five pet food recalls involved actual Salmonella contamination or possible Salmonella contamination.

Just what do the four pet food recalls signify? It might signify that — like the food we humans eat — the food we serve our dogs and cats might be at increasing risk because of inadequate processing standards or inspection standards.

Unlike some pet food manufacturers, Merrick prides itself in knowing where each ingredient that makes up its food comes from. But even that doesn’t seem to be enough to guard against Salmonella.

So what can we as guardians of our four-footed companions do? For one thing, we can vote with our feet by not buying brands that continually endanger our companions’ health.

For another, we can begin a grass-roots effort to demand that the FDA pay more attention to how pet food is processed and inspected and how the public — that’s you and me –  are notified about possible problems.

For still another,  we can demand that pet food manufacturers notify us about pet food recalls quickly and publicly. After all, few people go to the FDA web site periodically to keep up with the latest recalls.

We also can take a more drastic measure. We can prepare meals for our companions ourselves. Doing that would be time consuming and would require some research, but at least we’d know what our dog or cat is eating.

Tags: Merrick, pet food recalls, Salmonella