Comments on: Pet-food recall: USA Today reporting melamine found in rice protein

By: Christie Keith

Christie Keith — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:31:20 +0000

Tinyurls expire. Sometimes within a few weeks.

Not according to their site… they say they NEVER expire:

Welcome to TinyURL!™

Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? Then you’ve come to the right place. By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires.

http://www.tinyurl.com

By: VJ

VJ — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:29:23 +0000

Comment from Joyce 1:28pm

Regarding vitamins…have you considered Missing Link. It’s powdered form. Had to go through old notes that I refer to often from illnesses of pets that have passed on. Come in handy often. Sorry I just threw my copy of Foster & Smith away last week so I can’t tell you ingredients.

By: auntie

auntie — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:28:51 +0000

Linda: When I spoke with the people at Wellness today, they told me this (It’s up to us whether we believe it or not). They do not use Rice Protein in any of their cat foods. I asked about the dog allergy formulas and the treats you mention because I saw that Brown Rice Protein in their ingredients and the Woman at Wellness told me that they do not use the same supplier that was contaminated. It is so hard to figure out what to believe and not to be worried.

By: Linda

Linda — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:22:27 +0000

Thank you Linda. I was wondering if the Yogurt and Apples etc treats also had the rice protein in it.

I used to feed my dogs these quite often and they really loved them too.

Linda MS

By: Linda

Linda — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:15:54 +0000

To all who are reading please be cautious about feeding your dogs Wellness Wellbars with Yogurt, Apples & Bananas as one of the ingredients are Brown Rice Protein Concentrate!
My lab just recently consumed a full box of these treats. Sure hope that she will not be affected by this contaminated rice protein concentrate.

By: Katie

Katie — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 01:00:35 +0000

Thanks for clarifying, Gina. As a Firefox user, I appreciate that.

By: Gina Spadafori

Gina Spadafori — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:28:26 +0000

The problem with long URLs is not one of ‘Netiquette. They blow our layout apart and make the blog hard to read in Firefox.

By: Katie

Katie — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:17:39 +0000

I hope this won’t come across as negative or rude. I just think people here are doing such a great job of sleuthing and digging up great info, I would hate for it all to be lost again due to relying only on TinyURLs.

Tinyurls expire. Sometimes within a few weeks. And when they do, no one will have any idea what you were pointing to. With a “real” address, even if the actual page no longer exists, or has changed, it is still possible to search for an old copy in the Google (or other search engine) cache. With a dead Tinyurl, you have nothing to go on.

Tinyurls are hardly ever necessary. If you’re trying to post a very long URL and the website cuts off part of it, then Tinyurl might be the best option. Even then, it’s a good idea to post the entire address in addition, even if it doesn’t come out as a clickable link, unless you’re pretty sure it’s something no one will care about a month from now.

Don’t worry about posting longish URLs - it’s not bad Netiquette at all and as long as the info is there and people can find what you’re pointing to, it’s fine.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:40:39 +0000

I called Wilbur-Ellis, they haven’t taken their phone number off their website yet. They took my name, number, and email address. When I asked if Purina was one of the unnamed pet food companies they would not confirm or deny it. I’ve been feeding my cat their “naturals” dry kibble since avoiding products with wheat gluten. She is also eating wet food from Hill’s sold to me by my vet. On their website they issued a statement saying which of their products contain that ingredient and that it came from a different supplier. They also say they have tested the ingredients for melamine. I have more faith in the companies that seem to be proactive and not afraid to talk to consumers. My cat has already lost 20% of her body weight from being jerked around between commercial products and homemade food. I don’t know what to do. All I know is Purina is not answering their customer hotline anymore.

By: Joyce

Joyce — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 19:28:25 +0000

So, here is another dilemma I am facing. I went to buy pet vitamins to add to the homemade food for the dog. i had 2 choices for canine multivitamins. One was made by Wellness, and since I have taken a solemn vow not to purchase any products from pet food companies who do business with Menu, Wellness is out. The other multivitamin had…you guess it, wheat gluten! I left the pet store without buying anything. I then bought organic childrens gummi chewables, and thought I could feed them to Rupert like treats. He spit it out. So now I am back to square one. Any ideas?
I sent a rather strongly worded but civil email to NB at 2 am this morning. I will post any response I get.
Oh, and BTW, I called Menu Foods for the 4th time yesterday. I initially reported my dogs illness on day two of the recall, still no call back. I’m sure I’m not the only one who isn’t surprised.