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There is a summary at the bottom of the page should you want the condensed version.
ABOUT THE 2008
DOG FOOD RECALLS:
April 2008 brought many deaths to the doorsteps
of pet owners who spoiled their dogs with canned dog foods. And April 2008 brought many headaches to dog food producers as
they pulled tons of tainted dog food from the market.
Some of the public became aware that a large manufacturing
company made almost all the "wet" dog foods, but did they realize the large manufacturing company made
almost all of the dry foods also? It became a problem when in 2008 a large, across-the-U.S. recall caused almost all the wet dog
foods along with some biscuits and dry dog foods to be pulled from the shelves, leaving people to switch dog foods overnight--if
they could find any comporable brand. The shelves were almost completely bare of dog foods and almost every single dog
food supplier was effected by the tainted foods.
A toxic chemical called "melamine" as well as trace
amounts of rat poisoning were introduced into the wheat gluten and rice protein used to thicken the canned gravies and
used in some dog biscuits and dog food. Now my business mind begins to reason, having worked for several CFO's and Administrators,...Isn't
it the job of CEO's, COO's and CFO's to troubleshoot various scenarios such as this and circumvent them before
they happen? I
am bothered that this problem wasn't side-skirted prior to the event. Diamond Dog Foods had a similar problem in
2005 and 2007, but came up with a 100+ check and balance system to assure it NEVER happened again. And when the
2008 toxins were found in other dog foods, Diamond Dog Foods were clear, though they pulled their dog food from the 2008's
shelves any way.
Think about it...almost all major dog food companies having their dog foods (wet as
well as dry) being made from a single major manufacturing company, all sharing the same container of, say, wheat gluten or
rice protein, and if a product was contaminated, then all those dog foods would be toxic! Ugh.
I want my dog food to be made by a private
company which has placed proper checks-and-balances in place to catch the toxins. I like my dogs. I want
to keep them around.
Almost all dog foods have wheat, soy or corn in their dog food. If a dog has an allergy,
it is usually because of one of these three items found in the dog food. So when I actually found a company which checks ingredients
before they go into the dog food mixing bin; which doesn't have corn, wheat or soy; which had a broad base of ingredients
instead of a few; and was relatively inexpensive, I lept at the chance to change. Being a practical girl at heart,
I am a firm believer that you can get good nutrition without busting the budget!
There are several QUITE over-priced
dog foods which fit my criteria of non-corn, non-wheat and non-soy food. These quite over-priced foods have carrots and peas
and green beans and spinach and apples. Some dog foods claim to use human-grade foods. All that's great, if you have one
or two dogs and you can afford such expenses.
Diamond responded humbly to their 1995 corn fungus toxin,
creating a 151 check system to keep any future contaminants away from their product lines, which, by the way, was sufficient
to catch the rice protein contaminant of April 2008 BEFORE the contaminant went into any Diamond dog food.
This
humble company pulled their "wet" products from the shelves, and tested them for contaminants even though they had
already checked the product before it entered their door. There were no contaminants with the first test of their dog
foods, yet their products were pulled from store shelves anyway. I appreciate the way their CEO's and CFO's
think. Their 151 check system worked in April 2008 and that's enough to make me take a serious look at Diamond!
As I'm purchasing a corn-free, wheat-free and soy-free dog food (and now, rice protein-free too), I don't
expect any future contaminants to grace my doorstep!
Diamond currently makes a "Naturals
Brand" of dog food which I like. You wont see green beans nor peas sticking out of the Naturals Brand dog food, but they
use the basics in their Naturals Puppy Food...chicken, chicken meal, cracked pearled barley, egg product, whole grain brown
rice, beet pulp, fish meal, flaxseed, fish meal,... ((See complete list below, taken from their web page.))
Diamond
Naturals is an inexpensive, more-holistic dog food than regular Diamond dog food, and I can get it around 85 cents a pound.
I can always add cut apples (for joints) and carrots (for eyes and anti-oxidants) and peas, if I really wanted to, and
still keep the budget in check. Besides, a fresh carrot to chew on is much better than a dried carrot stuck in the dog food
and dried any number of times at excessively high temperatures.
Diamond makes a Diamond Naturals,
Small Breed Adult Dog Lamb & Rice which contains this partial list...Lamb, lamb meal, cracked pearled barley, whole grain
brown rice, egg product, millet, beet pulp, potatoes, flaxseed, fish meal.
Diamond makes a Diamond
Naturals, Small Breed Adult Dog Chicken & Rice which contains this partial list...Chicken, chicken meal, cracked
pearled barley, whole grain brown rice, egg product, millet, beet pulp, potatoes, flaxseed, fish meal.
INGREDIENTS LIST FOR
DIAMOND NATURALS SMALL BREED LAMB &
RICE ADULT
DIAMOND NATURALS SMALL BREED CHICKEN & RICE ADULT
DIAMOND
NATURALS SMALL BREED PUPPY
Diamond Naturals, Small Breed Puppy Formula:
Chicken, chicken meal, cracked pearled barley, chicken
fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), egg product, whole grain brown rice, beet pulp, fish meal, flaxseed, natural chicken
flavor, fish meal, salmon oil (a source of DHA), potassium chloride, salt, choline chloride, yucca schidigera extract, vitamin
E supplement, iron proteinate, zinc proteinate, copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium
iodide, thiamine mononitrate, manganese proteinate, manganous oxide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A supplement, biotin, calcium
pantothenate, manganese sulfate, sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin,
vitamin D supplement, folic acid.
Diamond Naturals, Small Breed Adult Dog Lamb & Rice:
Lamb, lamb meal, cracked pearled barley, whole grain brown rice, egg product, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols),
millet, beet pulp, potatoes, flaxseed, natural flavor, fish meal, potassium chloride, choline chloride, dried chicory root,
yucca schidigera extract, vitamin E supplement, iron proteinate, zinc proteinate, copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc
sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium iodide, thiamine mononitrate, manganese proteinate, manganous oxide, ascorbic acid, vitamin
A supplement, L-carnitine, biotin, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, sodium selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin
B6), vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin,vitamin D supplement, folic acid.
Small Breed Adult
Dog Chicken & Rice:
Chicken, chicken meal, cracked pearled barley, whole grain brown rice, egg product, chicken
fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), millet, beet pulp, potatoes, flaxseed, natural chicken flavor, fish meal, potassium
chloride, choline chloride, dried chicory root, yucca schidigera extract, vitamin E supplement, iron proteinate, zinc proteinate,
copper proteinate, ferrous sulfate, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate, potassium iodide, thiamine mononitrate, manganese proteinate,
manganous oxide, ascorbic acid, vitamin A supplement, L-carnitine, biotin, calcium pantothenate, manganese sulfate, sodium
selenite, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), vitamin B12 supplement, riboflavin, vitamin D supplement, folic acid.
DOG FOOD COMPANIES OFFERING
NON-CORN, NON-WHEAT AND NON-SOY DOG
FOODS
AND IN MOST CASES, NON-RICE PROTEIN FOODS
You may visit the Diamond web site at
http://www.diamondpet.com/products/diamond_naturals/dogs/dry_food/
to check out information on the NATURALS dog food I use. Compare the information I gave you today to the below
dog food companies, all of which, I THINK, are privately producing their own dry dog foods, though I do not know if they are
producing their own wet foods.
Here are names of dog food companies you should compare for corn-,
wheat- and soy-free foods. I THINK all of them are privately owned, though I just discovered some of them have other companies
make their wet foods.
Merrick, Wellness, Innova, California Naturals, Canidae, Diamond, Eagle Pack.
Pet Supplies Plus:
Pet
Supplies Plus was very kind and very quick to respond to my request to keep Diamond in stock for my customers. The company
itself, as well as its' employees, were quite cooperative and kind in dealing with me, and always have been. I am
sure they will continue to do so, apparently being the kind of company which is "kind" from corporate on down to
its' stores. And that's the type of store I choose to support.
Clarksburg / Bridgeport:
(304) 624-3911, 478 Emily Drive, Clarksburg, WV 26301
Pittsburgh:
(412) 831-8986, 5229 Library Road, Bethel Park, PA 15102
Uniontown:
(724) 437-7538, 120 Walnut Hill Road, Uniontown, PA 15401
PetCo:
Morgantown:
(304) 599-0670, 4101 University Town Center Drive, M'town, WV 26501
Washington: 70 Trinity Point Drive, Washington, PA
Wheeling: 525 Cabela
Drive, Triadelphia, WV
Greensburg: 1810 Greengate Centre Circle, Greensburg, PA
Tractor
Feed Supply:
Tractor Feed Supply
regularly carries some Diamond Naturals, usually Small Breed.
ABOUT HUMAN ((((AND THEREFORE, ABOUT DOG))))) NUTRITION
We hear a lot of information about nutrition
everyday, seemingly from every side about every topic, and much of it contradictory. And people will tell you that dog food
is not the same as human food so they can't be thought of as the same. But it's in my nature to question, especially
when I don't seem to be getting the "why" behind the issue at hand!
Of course there are differences
in nutritional needs between humans and dogs, but an apple still offers joint relief, barley removes fat floating in the blood
system, and corn is a pig and cow fattener! So WHY do we feed our dogs corn-based foods??? To fatten them??? Corn offers a
"wonderful protein", they say. OK. But there are many, many products with protein including potatoes.
My German Shepherd and I have come to a meeting of the minds. He sneaks potatoes out of the potato bag and I allow him.
And he will chew on a carrot or apple any time we give it to him. As dogs have lived so long in the wild eating somewhat similar
to humans, though I must admit, they never roasted a rabbit over an open fire, then WHY can't they follow some of the
same dietary rules we follow? He just loves it when I go to the refrigerator and drag out some "morsel" from the
crisper bin, though he complains when I give him a biscuit treat. Hummmm.
Do you know that a chicken with 1/4
of it's feed changed to barley will have 1/4 of its cholesterol reduced in both the chicken and the egg? And I bet if
somebody were to look at the charts and graphs stored in our libraries, they would see a parallel between the increase of
cholesterol in eggs to the switch of "corn" as the main feed of livestock of all kinds.
Barley has always
been considered a "lesser grain", but barley actually gloms onto floating fat in the blood system (as it was described
to me) and actually removes that fat out the human digestive system and straight into the "dross". That means, barley,
the lesser grain, should be in our foods daily or at least several times a week.
Humans can place 1/4 cup barley
flour into any bread recipe in your automatic bread machine and eat it for breakfast or dinner. It is, BY FAR, better for
you than that aluminum-ladened, pre-shaped breakfast cereal you eat! I can't imagine having to add a few basic vitamins
to cereal to be touted as "good for you" when a couple cups of flour and liquids could make bread overnight each
night!
Nutrition isn't complicated!
Pre-1920's farmers used a blend of grains for livestock
and family because they could only hand-plant and hand-harvest a few acres of each grain at a time without machinery. Fall-planted
Rye, early spring planted wheat, frost-date-planted corn and summer-long plantings of millet. So pre-1920 farmers used a variety
of grains for their livestock which made healthier, leaner cuts of meats.
Today, hundreds of acres of one crop
is planted and harvested, purchased, blended with a few other grains and re-sold to the livestock grower. It isn't easy
to get a proper balance of grains because they aren't mixed as such.
Nutrition doesn't have to be complicated.
Balance and moderation are still the keys in both human and dog foods. And what's good for the cow (as fatteners) might
not be good for the dog!
And, before the 1920's, farmers raised their food on their own garden by collecting
manure and manured-hay from their barns and fields and tilling that into the garden. It was a LOT of work, but the farmer
didn't use the soil up.
The microscopic bacteria reproduced wildly, using the manure to break down the hay
and turn it all into highly bacteria-ladened soil with loads of nutrients ready for easy absorption into the plants. The plants
absorbed those nutrients and the farmers family ate micronutrients; all because the farmer used manure and hay in his garden.
People were hardworking and healthier if they ate their own food, though we needed machines to make it less labor-intensive.
After progress happened, farmers were able to till more land but didn't have enough manure to shovel into
larger pieces of ground, so they used chemical fertilizers. These chemical fertilizers locked up the micronutrients, didn't
allow the soil to be enhanced, they simply placed three nutrients (phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium) into the plant roots
for quick absorption. People were getting pretty food but without the balance of nutrients. Small farms closed as larger farms
produced more and more; but the balance of nutrients wasn't there.
As nutritionists, we now have to go elsewhere
to get the most basic nutrients. We began adding this, that and a little MSG to the over-processed foods, calling it "good".
Now everybody calls their products good and often it's because MSG (monosodiumglutimate) was added to the food.
If water kills some nutrients, and various heat temperatures will kill others, then how nutritious could our dry dog foods
be if they are high-heat processed AT least once, and, in some cases, three times?????
Chicken byproduct is heat
processed to reduce water and increase the end result...protein. Read the web pages from the dog food companies I listed herein.
I've chosen to use a holistic vitamin for me....www.DrCherry.com from Natural Alternatives, and I have, sincerely,
had great success at $60.00 per month, even though I don't take them twice a day (I take it at 1/2
the dose and feel tremendously great! Sometimes I skip ordering for a while and restart later, and I always feel better
within days).
When I begin the vitamins, I have an increase of energy, not because of a chemical being
added to my body, but because of properly processed vitamins being utilized in my blood system. Dr. Cherry also offers menopause
support, digestive help, immunity support, sleep support, and any number of other holistic products touted to be processed
at the optimum for best vitamin results.
And I frequently feed my dogs holistic supplements whenever I see or
feel the need https://www.nuvetlabs.com/order/default.asp?sponsorid=15972
You simply CAN'T get the nutrition
for your dog the way you want to when you place pre-dried, ground up food into a liquid base and cook it at ultra high temperatures.
It doesn't work well with human foods and it doesn't work well with dogs!
If you dry human foods, they
frequently turn into starch, a fattening agent when consumed in large enough quantities. I'm sure it's the same with
dogs. Wouldn't you think so?
I don't support eating like a rabbit, I can't stand all those "fresh"
veggies! But I can eat larger quantities of (pre-frozen) cooked vegetables, fruits, and veggies like squash and sweet potatoes
along with whole grains and natural foods from a healthier state than pre-processed.
Deep grease-fried doughnut
treats shouldn't be a frequent item on our shelves; that's why they are called treats! So why do I give that grease-ladened
dog food to my dog? Because they won't eat the food unless the dog food companies purchase oils and top-dress the dog
foods.
I have heard that to cut financial corners, dog food companies purchase used fryer oil from restaurants
and factories, placing those oils on the dog foods. Problem is, oils fried at high temperatures for a short amount of time
create a toxin in the oil, which is harmful to the human body. Is that what your dog food places on the kernels in order to
get the dogs to eat it?
Do I need to purchase the highest priced food to avoid all these difficulties? No. But
look at the percentages. Human canned foods contain somewhere around 30 percent of the nutrients their fresh countermates
have. Human frozen food have somewhere around 80 percent. A fresh cut broccoli will quickly lose nutrients depending on shelf
life.
Let's say it's loss is 10% in 2 weeks. It took 1 week to cut the broccoli, re-sell it several times,
and get it to your store. It's now 2 weeks old but has been optimumly stored so we'll give it a 7 percent loss. If
you let it sit in your refrigerator another 2 weeks because you forgot it was there, then you will lose nutrient values.
Honestly, frozen broccoli would retain the same as that fresh by the time you use it, and in some cases, more. So
our house uses a lot of frozen vegetables without guilt.
There are lots of rules and lots of rule-breakers. And
there are no, REAL, simple answers. You have to choose the lesser of the evils and go with that, knowing the useages of your
own house. "It's the masters' eye that fattens the cattle" is an old, old saying which basically means,
the owner of the animal watches his animal closely to see if it is developing any problems.
If you switch to another
dog food, don't throw away your common sense. Switching away from the large manufacturing companies to a privately-operated
company makes sense because if they didn't catch this 2007 problem they probably don't have enough "controls"
to catch the next. Avoid corn, wheat and soy as they can cause allergies to develop. If wheat gluten and rice protein
are thickening agents and showed up in 2007 poisoning the product, consider choosing a product without these ingredients so
you don't have a repeated problem. Avoiding corn for the fungus-related problems is a great idea.
AND IF YOU'RE STILL APPREHENSIVE,
1) purchase dog foods from three different privately-operated
companies and blend them together into the same bowl. This way, IF one of those companies had a problem with a future
contaminant and you had your dog on that food, 2/3's of that food would be safe, leaving your dog with a higher chance
of survival. During April 2007's scare, I am using Diamond Naturals and Wellness Lamb SuperMix5; two different privately-operated
dog food companies. Merrick would be the third ingredient but I have not found it in my state.
2) educate yourself
on the points brought up in this communicae. For as long as I have been thinking about dog husbandry, these points were NEVER
the focus of the dog food conversations with other suppliers, breeders and vets, yet, they should have been! Conversations
always revolved around name brands with breeder "kick-backs" so the breeder gets a reward for selling the dog food
and occasionally covered corn as a common skin irritant.
3) feed your dog healthy treats of apples (for
joints), carrots (for eyes and antioxidants), and other natural, human treats, and consider eliminating that box of "treats"
made with the same ingredients contaminated in 2007. Raw carrots are better for your dog than overly-expensive dog food with
twice-dried carrots and peas! And doesn't he follow you to the refrigerator for a human treat anyway?
4) Pray.
I can prove to you from my OWN life that prayer certainly DOES work, and that actual, radical miracles ARE prevalent all around
us, including in my own body and life! I prayed and Jesus healed me! Prayer does work! Prayer does work often!; you just have
to know the keys to getting those answers.
5) Think. God gave every human being common sense and
expects us to use that, too!
IN SUMMARY
If you pick a dog food from a company which
mass produces (90%) of the dog food for twenty-five (or so) different large companies, and if something goes wrong at that
mass production plant as it did in 2007, then all those dog foods could be effected. That could translate into large vet bills
and great pain for your dog.
Fortunately, the 2007 difficulty was limited to canned and a few dry products and
canned goods usually sit around the house a few days before they are opened.
But if you choose a self-manufacturing
private company to make your dog food, you have a greater chance of avoiding future dog food contaminants because the smaller
dog food companies have realized their need for strict quality controls.
You can mix two or 3 dog
foods from different private companies, then you have an even less chance of having an injured dog, should one of those
small companies (from the 10% of the dog foods made) encounter a problem.
That is, purchase from the 90% supplier
of all dog foods or purchase from the 10% (privately-owned) suppliers.
You can purchase a high buck dog food containing
carrots, apples, peas, and any number of unusual ingredients, or you can purchase lower-end products and give your dog a carrot
and apple now and then instead of a dry dog biscuit. They usually like human foods better, anyway.
Diamond NATURALS
Small Breed Adult and Diamond NATURALS Small Breed Puppy are lower cost foods without the fancy frills (whole green beans
and peas), made from a broader range of products than the traditional corn-based food. They are certainly better balanced
in nutrition than most of the dog foods available but are still at an affordable cost. You can find Diamond Naturals Small
Breed at around 85 cents per pound here in West Virginia at a price of $14.43 for 18 pound bags. And you can do as I do, skip
the biscuits and give them raw carrots, potatoes and apples, which they love much, much more.
There
are many, many dog foods your vet and your other friends will use and recommend, most of which are from those 90%'ers.
Contaminants in dog foods will most likely reoccur because the legal safeguards are not what they should be. If you switch
to the most popular dog foods, it will be readily accessible to you and your vet will probably give her approval to you. But
if that food comes from a company which didn't catch the problem in 2007 before the dogs lapped up the food, odds are
it will happen again, only to your dog. Large companies shipping to large companies without proper quality controls bothers
me.
Going against the main stream to purchase from a private company is probably healthier for the dog and a little
further drive for you. It's a safety measure worth the effort, in my mind.
The dog food I used several months
ago, gave breeders great kick-backs to use and recommend their foods, bringing the cost of the food to breeders down closer
to 50 cents per pound. I'm assuming the effected companies will have to change kick-backs to breeders to encourage breeders
to solicit their names.
Not I, says the little brown hen! I get no kickbacks for the dog food I recommended today.
I can purchase in bulk if I purchase a TON, and get a few pennies off per pound, but that isn't because I'm recommending
Diamond Naturals. So you can trust that I, sincerely, think Diamond Naturals is a good alternative rather than a sales pitch
to decrease my costs.
While everybody was looking at contaminated wheat gluten in 2007, Diamond Dog Food caught
the contaminated Rice Protein with their 151 check list BEFORE IT WENT INTO THE DOG FOOD. Diamond had already increased "quality
control" in their 1995 dog food recall so the contaminated 2007 batch was caught before it went into the food. They then
removed the dog food from the shelves even though they were quite sure the tainted Rice Protein was still in the original
packing crates. No contaminants were found in their dog foods because of their pre-testing controls.
A wide variety
of nutrients, a non-corn, non-wheat and non-soy food with a modest price are factors I am looking for in my dog food. I've
asked Exotic Jungle and Eastern Pet to carry that dog food for you, should you choose it. And I know what dog food I'll
use. The one with the best quality controls!
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