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THE PET FOOD INDUSTRY AND ITS QUESTIONABLE PRACTICES THE PET FOOD INDUSTRY AND QUESTIONABLE PRACTICES ITS The pet food industry must be regulated to ensure that foods destined for our pets are safe, contain only ingredients fit for human consumption, and involve no animal experimentation. anuary 1990 was when my research and investigation began into the commercial pet food industry. Prior to 1990 I had always fed my pets—dogs and cats—a commer- cial pet food. This changed when after feeding my two dogs, a Saint Bernard and a Newfoundland, a well-known brand of dog food—a brand that I had fed them for a few years—both dogs became ill with vomiting and excessive thirst. Our veterinarian, an English gentleman, advised me to put them on a home-made diet for a few days. Both dogs did very well on this diet of cooked hamburger, brown rice and grated vegetables. Two days later I switched them back to the commercial diet and encountered the same problems. Both the veterinarian and I were convinced there was something in the food that was causing the problem. A private lab showed that the food contained excess levels of zinc at 1120 parts per mil- lion (ppm) —a level that would have caused the symptoms the dogs displayed—and over 20 other heavy metals. The pet food company chose to take the position that it was not responsible. It was then that I contacted the Canadian Ministry of Agriculture and found that this is a virtually unregulated industry. Governments in the USA and Canada regulate the labelling of the food, the name and address of the company, the weight of the product, and whether it is made for a dog or cat—nothing more. So what else was going into these foods that we, the pet owners, were not aware of? RENDERING COMPANION ANIMALS A friend, a veterinarian in California, had advised me that euthanised dogs and cats from veterinary clinics and shelters were routinely rendered and used as sources of protein in pet food. As a Canadian, I never thought it would happen in Ontario, the province where I live. Wrong! I was to discover that almost every veterinarian clinic in the city was using a dead-stock removal company that picked up the pets and sold them to a bro- ker who then sold them to rendering plants in the province of Quebec. The rendering plant that was paying the highest amount at that time, Sanimal Group, was the party that usually purchased the dead animals. The Minister of Agriculture in Quebec advised that dogs and cats were cooked along with other material. This material, as I later learned, contained the remains of so-called "4-D" (dead, diseased, dying and disabled) animals, slaughterhouse waste, roadkill, garbage from restaurants and grocery stores, and even zoo animals. The use of such ingredients is perfectly legal. Because well over 90% of the pet food sold in Canada is imported from the USA, I began my investigation into the industry in that country. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed what the Canadian Ministry had advised, that this industry is self-regulated. The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), a non-governmental body, oversees labelling text and provides a list of ingredients which can be used in livestock and pet food. Some of the ingredients listed include: hydrolysed hair, dehydrated garbage and even manure, swine waste, ruminant waste, poultry waste, and what is described as "undried processed animal waste products". Undried waste products are excreta from any animal except humans. The Food and Drug Administration Center for Veterinary Medicine (FDA/CVM) over- sees vitamins and mineral supplements as well as drugs such as antibiotics used in the food but, again, it has no input as to the sources of ingredients. As with AAFCO, the only input as far as ingredients are concerned relates to the labelling. If the label states that the product contains 24% protein, it must contain 24% protein—but the source of the protein Web page: http://www.newsagepress.com/ foodpetsdiefor.html#author NEXUS ¢ 11 by Ann N. Martin © 2003 AUGUST — SEPTEMBER 2003 www.nexusmagazine.com