FDA inspection on Diamond Pet Foods plant

So, apparently, from April 12 to April 20, there was an FDA inspection of the Diamond Pet Foods plant. April 10 is when I'd posted about their initial 2012 recall, and said that I "applaudeded" them for doing it voluntarily. With the information that I have now, including dates (and the fact that they'd had recalls in what, 2007? So, before I ever got Elka), I really think that they knew exactly what they were doing. Timing is everything, right? Well, apparently Diamond was notified as of April 2 that Salmonella had been detected in random testing of one of their foods.

May 4 is when I posted about the recall expansion (still voluntary), that included Elka's food.

And hey, you know what? Apparently the plant started operations again. On April 30.

But, here's the FDA report on the plant. Not only is there no place for employees to do basic things like wash their hands, but it also seems as though there are ingredients present that aren't actually on the ingredients lists of the dog foods produced there. Animal digest? No, I don't think Taste of the Wild has that.

So, why am I (and others) paying for premium food, if weird stuff like that is apparently included in the processing? Who's cutting the corners here? I can't help but think of a statement I made while talking about chicken jerky sickening animals: if this was baby food, people would be losing their shit. But it's only dogs, right?

Well. Handling contaminated dog food, and interacting with dogs who have consumed contaminated food can spread the infection to humans. According to the CDC, at least 14 humans have become sickened with salmonella from this food. I still haven't seen any official announcement that dogs have gotten sick, though people have been perfectly willing to snark at me in comments on other peoples' blogs about it. If it isn't reported, by you or your vet, than people don't know. I have finally seen an article about Salmonella confirmed in 2 dogs, in one of the homes in which a human had been sickened as well.



Information for Pet owners: on the CDC web site.

(Not So) Tasty Tuesday March 6 2012

A lot of serious stuff lately....Heidi the Doberman, the fundraiser for the Doberman Assistance Network, and poor lost Blue in South Carolina. Today is another one: the FDA warning on chicken jerky treats.

This isn't a new warning, the chicken jerky thing, but somebody on Doberman Talk linked to an article on Dogs Naturally Magazine that included testimonials of "Waggin' Train Victims", and I thought it would be important enough to talk about. I used to buy Waggin' Train jerky for Elka, so this feels like a near miss for me. Not every dog gets sick from it, but it's still a serious deal. I stopped buying jerky products for Elka because I noticed that most of them are treated by irradiation, which kind of freaks me out. I'm sure it's technically safe, or that's what everybody wants us to think, and I'm not a scientist, just a paranoid consumer, and choose not to purchase such things.