WARNING - PLEASE READ - FOREIGN OBJECTS FOUND IN DOG FOOD!

Last night when I was feeding my dogs, I found a piece of glass in one of my dog’s food bowls. It wasn’t a sliver but a small hunk of glass. I was so upset because if I didn’t see that, my dog could be laying on a table at the vet’s office right now. I checked the other dog’s bowls of food and I didn’t find any other pieces of glass. I just got off the phone with the company (Diamond) and I will send them the piece of glass for their quality control people to review. I've asked that their quality control people call me.

I know that I’ve occasionally found suspicious things in human food as well. But I’ve never found anything that could really be considered dangerous to my health. Just things that may have been unappetizing. I think we’ve all been to a restaurant and may have found a bug in our food and sent it back. This happened to me at a Chinese restaurant one time and although they offered me another plate of food, my appetite was severely diminished at this point. So I went back to work without having had lunch that day.

We have all read about the disgusting things that can be put in dog food by the rendering plants (beaks, hoofs, feathers, road kill, etc.). However yucky those things appear to us, I don’t know how many dogs lives have been immediately compromised by those unsavory ingredients, but long term health issues is what every dog owner has to question. But to find something like a piece of glass is something that I can’t take lightly. How did something like this happen? Have any of you ever found some dangerous things in your dog’s food? Oh I’ve heard even of a dead mouse in dog food before. That would make me sick, but at least I would be able to see it. I was very lucky to have seen this piece of glass at all. My eye sight isn’t the greatest, so I thank God that I did see this!

The government runs the pet food industry which is known as AAFCO. It is this industry that determines what our animals eat. They actually allow a certain amount of contaminants in dog’s food. This may include waste matter, dirt, foreign objects such as bedding, decomposed matter, etc. This is safe for our dogs? They wouldn’t put it in our food, so why are they allowed to put it in our dog’s food?

It’s bad enough that we have to worry about our animals foods being contaminated because of the rendered meat meals and by-product meals. These are frequently highly contaminated with bacteria because their source is not always slaughtered animals. Animals that have died because of disease, injury or natural caused are a source of meat for meat meal. The dead animal might not be rendered until days after its death. So by this time the carcass is often contaminated with bacteria such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli. Dangerous E. coli bacteria are estimated to contaminate more than 50% of meat meals. While the cooking process may kill bacteria, it does not eliminate the endotoxins some bacteria produce during their growth and are released when they die. These toxins can cause sickness and disease. Pet food manufacturers do not test their product for endotoxins.

Now to make this incident about the glass in my dog’s food even scarier is the fact that I just told a breeder friend of mine whose wife is an x-ray technician about this. He told me that my dog could have died and I would never have known why. He told me that an x-ray would not have revealed the piece of glass. So my vets would have never found it on an x-ray. This is horrifying!

So please check your dog’s food when you feed him. I’ve never experienced this before and hopefully this will be the last time that I do. But all it takes is one time, one piece of glass or something else that has a sharp edge to puncture our animal’s intestines. I shudder at thinking what could have happen had I not detected this in my dog’s food. I’m still shaking about this incident. Has it come to the point where we need to check everything we pour into our dog’s food dish with a magnifying glass? With all the recalls on animal foods that we have to worry about, we can now add this to the list as well.


From the book: "DOG OWNER'S HOME VETERINARY HANDBOOK".......Open the front cover and the first two pages you see contain the Index of Signs and Symptoms, from Abdomen (painful, swollen, distended, and tucked up) to Weight loss, Wheezing, and Whining (continual). There's a comprehensive index in back, of course, running the gamut from Abortion to Zinc-Responsive Dermatosis, which is all very useful, but when your pooch is in pain, it's great to be able to turn, with the minimum of folderol, to the page that says to relax, it's nothing a bit of extra grooming won't fix, or alternatively to hightail it over to the vet hospital. It's a wonderful reference for any dog owner, with chapters on emergencies (such as burns, dehydration, and poisoning), as well as worms, infectious diseases, skin care, and canine eyes, ears, and nose. There are chapters on the digestive, respiratory, and circulatory systems, the nervous, musculoskeletal, and urinary systems, plus dog sex, whelping, puppy pediatrics, geriatrics, and chapters on cancers and medications. In short, it covers every health dimension a dog owner might want to know more about, identifies the possible causes, helps you determine the severity of the condition, and indicates what treatments or actions to take to best insure your dog's good health.


My rating: Dog Food industry: (1 - 4)