pet connection

Happy 40th Birthday to the Winn Feline Foundation. This important charitable foundation supports medical research that has saved the lives of millions of cats. As pet-care columnist Steve Dale writes:

To say cats have benefited from Winn’s funding is an understatement. Some examples are pretty dramatic. In the 1980s, cats were increasingly suffering serious health affects and many dying due to a form of heart disease called dilated cardiomypathy. In 1987, veterinary cardiologist Dr. Paul Pion, of the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, approached Winn for funding to prove his theory that manufactured cat foods were missing an essential amino acid called taurine. It turned out he was right and taurine was immediately added to all cat food diets. The result is that dilated cardiomypathy is rarely seen today.

That connection, which wouldn’t have been proven without Winn’s support, is responsible for saving the lives of  tens of thousands of cats every year. The peer-reviewed article that triggered the reformulation of the world’s cat foods appeared on the cover of the prestigious journal Science. It was the most important discovery in veterinary medicine in decades.

Dr. Paul Pion, of course, later went on to be a co-founder of the Veterinary Information Network, which is an important and independent voice for veterinary medicine and animal health. Some 20 years after his taurine discovery, Dr. Pion was again courageous in his work to find the truth, confirming with a survey of VIN veterinarians what we at the PetConnection were hearing through our database reports: That thousands of pets had been sickened or killed by tainted imported pet-food ingredients.

When there is truth to be told, Dr. Pion always tells it.

(I must admit to being more than a little in awe of Dr. Pion, who is also my friend, my former boss (I worked briefly at VIN between book projects), and my co-author on “Cats For Dummies,” a book that shows his keen and continued interest in improving feline health.)

But back to the Winn Feline Foundation: A donation to Winn is an excellent way to honor or memorialize any cat-lover or cat. Their blog has been in our “worth a click” list for some time now. Check it out.

I have a lot of odds and ends to post, and I’ll try to get to them over the weekend. In the meantime, watch this space. Christie is wrapping up a post on the BBC documentary on purebred dogs. And of course, we’ll be keeping an eye on the games at the California statehouse, with regard to the pet-killing proposal that is (currently) AB 1634.