Do you know WHO is in your pet’s food?

If you are a loving pet owner, you undoubtedly intend to feed your pet the best you can afford. After all, he or she is a member of your family.  And it stands to reason, that you will pay in the long run– in veterinary bills– for a dog or cat who eats bad food.  Same with you. Garbage in, garbage out. I’m not going to keep you in suspense.

If you feed your dog or cat run-of-the mill kibble– even if it says “premium”– there’s a very good chance you are feeding your dog or cat the ground-up, rendered remains of other dogs and cats who were euthanized in animal shelters!!!

Unless the brand of kibble you feed your pet is made by a small mom and pop organic kibble maker, there is a very good chance your pets are eating their own kind– and all the lethal chemicals that went into killing them. Read on and I’ll tell you more of this grisly story as well as show you a passage from our very own EPA that verifies this shocking information.

If you read the labels on your pet’s food– and I heartily recommend that you do– you will see that grains are right at the top of the list.  And that corn is the most prevalent form of grain in most of the kibble you are buying.  And, I might add, the corn they’re getting is all genetically modified.  All in all a very unnatural food to give your carnivorous pet.  But that’s not the worst of it and it’s not the subject of this post.

In the title I wrote “WHO is in your pet’s food?”   I wasn’t talking about corn.  I was talking about ground up dogs and cats who have been euthanized by kill shelters and sold to rendering plants, only to end up back in your pets bowl– and products as diverse at shampoo and crayons.  This is shocking and appalling.  Not only will your pet be a cannibal, but they will be consuming the lethal poison used to euthanize the rendered dogs and cats.  And this poison does NOT break down in processing.

At the end of this post is a video that should make you furious and should convince you to read your pet food label and “digest” what you read.  If you see ANY of the following ingredients on the label, please don’t feed it to your furry family member:

“Pet foods and treats that contain the ingredients by-product meal, meat meal (not a specific meat meal such as chicken meal), meat and bone meal, animal fat, and animal digest (emphasis mine) could contain a euthanized dog or cat.  This is fact, not speculation.   It has to stop.  Do not purchase pet foods and treats that contain these ingredients; tell a friend.  Friends don’t let friends’ pets eat euthanized animals.”Truth About Petfood

The pet food industry has done a fantastic PR job convincing pet owners that only they (the pet food scientists/industrialists) know what’s best for your pet to eat. That, combined with busy lives, means that most pet owners are feeding their pets highly processed industrialized by-products, toxic ingredients and often-dangerous preservatives — all masquerading as kibble.

There is a whole spectrum of extruded dry kibble– some decent and others downright dangerous.  Some are labeled “Premium” and “Super Premium” and contain wholesome ingredients, thoughtfully combined.  Others– the kind commonly bought in the supermarket and the low-end products in pet stores– shouldn’t be eaten by anyone.

Here’s a link to the video:

“A warning before you watch.  The first part of the video consists of interviews with heart broken pet owners from the 2007 pet food recall.  The second part of the video shows graphic hidden camera images from a rendering plant and ‘pick up’ of raw materials.  The raw materials shown are mostly dead dogs and cats.  It is very disturbing.  It will ruin your day.  It will probably haunt your dreams.  However, it is a reality that needs to become public.” Truth About Petfood

For my own dogs I have decided that a dried, highly-processed, extruded kibble is not real food. I realize it is very convenient. But it’s not real food. I don’t eat manufactured food and I don’t want to feed it to my loved ones either. I have been home-preparing my dog’s food for the last 20 odd years. Some of that time I have been feeding raw. It takes time and preparation, but at least I know what she’s eating. Roxie, my current dog, has a very sensitive digestive system and has suffered from pancreatitis and needs to eat low fat. Whereas she tolerates her meat raw (served with veggies), she does better when it is very lightly seared. I would love to feed her raw meaty bones, but her own particular body doesn’t react well to the bones. So I do the best I can to provide the calcium the bones would contribute to her diet in other ways (ground bonemeal or eggshell) and I supplement her diet with a mixture of digestive enzymes, kelp/alfalfa, a dog multi-vitamin/mineral tablet and wild salmon oil. I recently switched her from a diet of skinless chicken breasts/brown rice/veggies to one of chicken breasts/white & sweet organic potatoes/veggies because she was gaseous. As soon as I withdrew the grain, she stopped being flatulent. I am increasingly convinced that grains are not a readily-digested food for dogs (or cats) to eat and that many of the allergic reactions so common in pets would stop if grains were withdrawn from the diet.

How you feed your pets– or yourself and your family, for that matter– is up to you. But please read the labels and learn what you can about the “mystery” ingredients (animal, meat by-products, etc) that make up the composition of your pet’s food. It will benefit you and your pets in the long run if you become an aware consumer. The large, corporate pet food manufacturers don’t have your pet’s welfare at heart. Only their bottom line.

Now, here is what the EPA says, buried deep in a document:

“Meat rendering plants process animal by-product materials for the production of tallow, grease, and high-protein meat and bone meal. Plants that operate in conjunction with animal slaughterhouses or poultry processing plants are called integrated rendering plants. Plants that collect their raw materials from a variety of offsite sources are called independent rendering plants. Independent plants obtain animal by-product materials, including grease, blood, feathers, offal, and entire animal carcasses, from the following sources: butcher shops, supermarkets, restaurants, fast-food chains, poultry processors, slaughterhouses, farms, ranches, feedlots, and animal shelters.”
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch09/final/c9s05-3.pdf ‘Emissions Factors and Policy Applications Center, Chapter 9: Food and Agricultural Industries, Section 9.5 Introduction to Animal & Meat Products Preparation’ is the section 9.5.3 Meat Rendering Plants.