It would be wrong of me to not preface this update with a genuine Warning that what I am sharing is something very upsetting about kill shelter dogs and dog food. Please read at your own risk. I hope this helps people decide to Save pets from shelters rather than purchase pets. For those currently with pets, you should be aware of what in is pet food and how this information may impact your pets as well. Yesterday, while discussing dogs (like we often do) I asked Sid if he knew what happens to the euthanized animals. He wasnt sure. Landfill, he guessed. Statistics about euthanasia rates are very high. It seemed like a lot of dogs and cats week after week. The shelter Piper came from euthanizes as often as every two weeks. It was a morbid question but I was curious about where these poor souls end up. Today I did some research and I learned that in many cases, these euthanized companion animals are being sent to rendering facilities along with other animal carcasses and they are used as protein sources for Pet Food. This means if your dog food label lists some generic form of Meat, Bone Meal or Meat by products, etc it may also contain the rendered remains of the dogs and cats that were never fortunate enough to be placed in a loving home. (Other products are also produced from these rendering like cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, etc.). Wikipedia Animal Euthanasia and look at the links to resources if you must. It may be true that in other countries, dog is considered a suitable food source. An argument is made that it would be wasteful to not use this readily available protein source in some useful way, thereby reserving higher quality protein sources for human consumption as people are starving in many places….But I just cant accept those arguments even if the pet food industry does. And if this is not mortifying enough, people should also know that the many chemical, medications, and even the sodium phenobarbital used to euthanize animals is not rendered away and remains behind tainting food. It has been found in pet food tested by the FDA, but in small amounts. Pet food is not regulated like Human Food and this is why this can happen. The Pet Food Industry may try to deny that dog food contains the remains of unwanted or euthanized pets, but if you look for it, there is a very old statement on Dog Food Advisor by a former president of The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) floating around where he reports that Pet Food with generic meat sources on labels can be from euthanized pets. Nothing has changed to stop this from happening since that statement was made. Finally here is something published by Slate that explains all this: slate/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/04/what_is_in_pet_food_zoo_animals_sick_livestock_dogs_and_cats_from_shelters.html I spent half of today reading readily available resources that simply confirm this is all true. I was appalled. I want to share to encourage more people to rescue dogs and cats from shelters and not purchase them. I also feel that we need to be a voice for the companion animals we consider our family and demand higher quality food. Regulations need to be changed, but in the mean time people can purchase pet food that is not made from rendered animals not fit for human consumption. When I dont cook something specifically for the dogs, I feed Enzo and Piper commercial dog food that is deemed fit for human consumption (Orijens). However, tonight we are going to have baked salmon and mashed potatoes. It may be extreme to feed my dogs like I feed myself (I am lucky I can do this), but it makes me happy to know that they are eating healthy clean food. Feel free to share this post.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 22:16:53 +0000
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