Four years after pet food contaminated by poisonous melamine killed and sickened tens of thousands of cats and dogs in North America, a court opinion issued today may open the door at last to payment of claims by owners of affected pets.

The opinion by Judge Noel Hillman in U.S. District Court in New Jersey was the last piece of court action required to put to rest appeals of a $24-million pet food settlement approved by Hillman in October 2008.

“I am hopeful that we can begin processing claims shortly,” said Lisa Rodriguez, liaison counsel for the multiple class-action suits covered by the settlement.

According to court documents, 24,344 claims were submitted by the Nov. 24, 2008, deadline. Of those, 20,550 have been deemed payable. The average claim is about $1,283. Allowed expenses included medical attention, lost wages, property damage and the price of replacement pets. The settlement covers claims by owners in the United States and Canada.

You’ll find the rest here.

It’s to be noted, too, that VIN posted the news even before PetFoodSettlement.com, the website set up to notify pet owners about the progress of the court case.

OK, I can’t, but William Helton at the University of Canterbury can. His findings suggest you can be strong, or you can be fast, but probably not both. From Discovery News:

“In the real world, it would be hard to be both fast and efficient at running, and to be extremely strong in combat at the same time,” author William Helton told Discovery News. “Nature does not allow unlimited budgets and the trade-offs are often physical constraints.”

Helton, a senior lecturer in the University of Canterbury’s Department of Psychology, studied how well 217 dogs performed during International Weight Pulling Association sporting events for canines.

Brachycephalic, or broad-headed, dogs that participated included American Pit-Bull Terriers, American Bulldogs and Bernese Mountain Dogs. Dolichocephalic, or more narrow-headed, breeds consisted of Samoyeds, Siberian Huskies and Alaskan Malamutes.

None of the studied breeds included the extremes of each condition. Pugs, for example, have incredibly broad heads, while Borzois are the polar opposite.

Excuse me, I need to go find my tape measure.

A Dog’s Breakfast: One of the most controversial –  and important –  documentaries on the pet food industry will finally premiere on U.S. television. “A Dog’s Breakfast” aired on Canadian TV in 2008. The story of what gave rise to the 2007 pet food recall will air a week from today, Thursday, Feb.10 at 10 p.m. on CNBC. It will repeat Friday at 1 a.m., then again on Sunday, Feb. 13 at 10 p.m. (Hat tip to Mary Cvetan)
Note: Ingrid King informed us that “A Dog’s Breakfast” has been pulled from the broadcast schedule without explanation. Stay tuned for updates if it returns.

Performance depends on the handler’s beliefs: Interesting piece in Science Daily about a study out of UC Davis’ Department of Neurology. How a drug or explosive-sniffing dog does in their duties can be swayed by what their handler believes.

The study, published in the January issue of the journal Animal Cognition, found that detection-dog/handler teams erroneously “alerted,” or identified a scent, when there was no scent present more than 200 times — particularly when the handler believed that there was scent present.

“…There are cognitive factors affecting the interaction between a dog and a handler that can impact the dog’s performance,” said Lisa Lit, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Neurology and the study’s lead author.

“These might be as important — or even more important — than the sensitivity of a dog’s nose.”

Stuffed things? I love stuffed things! Remember Pets.com? I still have a Pets.com sock puppet around here somewhere. Even though they went belly up more than10 years ago, the idea is being resurrected by a new startup. SF Gate says PetFlow has learned the lesson from Pets.com, and intends to remain profitable.

“They sold product for below cost,” PetFlow co-founder Alex Zhardanovsky says of Pets.com. “You can’t get a customer to buy a product for half price and then later charge them twice the price. It makes no sense.”

PetFlow might not offer insanely low prices, but they’re making a profit on each order they ship and are projecting to break even by the end of the year. In January, PetFlow has shipped out 7,000 different orders resulting in $600,000 of revenue for the month.

Whereas Pets.com offered free shipping even on heavy bags of food, PetFlow charges a consistent $4.95 shipping fee per order. They also have an exclusive deal with FedEx that reduces their shipping costs even more – similar to the shipping deal Zappos has in place with UPS.

I just want them to have really good television ads.

They won’t catch us. We’re on a mission from Dog. My buddy Nancy Freedman-Smith at GoodDogz Blog wins the prize for this week’s best blog story.

Go Pack Go! Feel free to watch the Super Bowl this Sunday, but I have it on good authority the Green Bay Packers will win. How do I know? Veterinary Pet Insurance says so (full disclosure – a Pet Connection sponsor). Their inside information? Dogs’ names. Don’t laugh. Last year, they successfully picked the New Orleans Saints, and the year before, they said the Steelers would beat the Cardinals. This year, if the Packers win, that’s three in a row.

Cat movie: I’ve seen literally hundreds of videos about cats. However, Cat Diaries is different. It’s sponsored by Friskies, but from the cat’s point of view. (Thanks, Patti S.)

Midnight madness: Thanks to Lisa in Toronto for this wonderful ad from the Winnipeg Humane Society.
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I always like to hear from readers, especially if you have tips, and links for interesting stories.  Give me a shout in the comments, or better yet, send me an e-mail

Photo credit: Borzoi, Flickr Creative Commons (Llima)

He’s a country boy, a dairy-farmer’s son, married for 30-plus years to the love of his life, Teresa. They are parents of two, grandparents of one, love to travel, are neat and organized people who keep a beautiful home. They’re common-sense Christians  living in extreme north rural Idaho, a state so “red” it bleeds off the map. He’s sensible and business-minded, thoughtfully sends hand-written thank-you notes  for everything and cards to his wife and children every day he’s on the road. He genuinely loves every new person and animal he meets.  He’s draws energy from a crowd. He’s a veterinarian, a healer, who loves his patients and their owners.

I’m a city kid, daughter of man who swore he never saw a horse without a jockey or member of the San Francisco PD aboard until he was in his 30s. I’m a never-married very liberal native of very “blue” California. I never wanted children, am a recovering never-again-will-I-be Catholic and a progressive Christian, have traveled pretty much only when I had to (which is lots) for work and would generally rather stay home with my animals, my garden and a good book. I’m neither neat nor organized, in any way. If I send a thank-you at all, it’s likely to be in a text message. I’m not very business-minded, and I’m often broke because I generally can’t be bothered to watch where my money goes (but at this, I’m getting better and will soon be completely debt-free). I never accept anything or anyone on face value. My house is in a state of constant deferred maintenance. I’m a journalist, asking questions and getting answers from people who often don’t want to talk to me. Crowds drain me of my energy.

He loves puns and silly jokes; I don’t. He loves Christmas; I ignore it. I love afternoon naps; he can’t imagine sleeping in daylight — there’s work to do! He’s an optimist; I’m a cynic.

He sees the best in everyone. I … well you get the idea.

And yes, as odd a business partnership as we are, it works. We get along famously; we rarely disagree. We love each other, and we consider each other family. His daughter, Mikkel, is like a niece to me. His wife, Teresa, is a source of courage, faith, inspiration and Snickerdoodles. I actually go a little ga-ga over their granddaughter, despite my general belief that infants are about an interesting as cabbage until they’re a year old or so.

That’s all the personal stuff. On the business front, in four years we’ve written so many books I have to pause to count them — 10? 12? — covered conferences and trade shows, written hundreds of articles and blog posts. And really, we’re just hitting our stride.

Sometimes I wonder how this all happened. After all, I’d known Marty for more than a decade before he called out of the blue to propose us doing a book together. “Why Do Dogs Drink Out of the Toilet?” was a New York Times best-seller, but even more important, it made us realize we loved working together, and so we joined forces, folding his syndicated column into mine and going forward with more … everything. He  stood by Christie and me when we broke open the 2007 pet-food recall story, even though we were reporting on industries run by people he often knew on a first-name basis, people he considered — and still considers — his friends.

But Dr. Becker always does the right thing. Always.

So why am I writing all this now? Because yesterday he did one of those “right things,” adopting a 2-year-old pit-Lab mix named Gracie who’d spent almost her entire life in the shelter. And because watching the video clip of him telling the shelter director of his decision just made me bawl as much as she did.

Go ahead: See if you can watch it an not do the same.

This is why I love having this man as my business partner. He’s the real deal.
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That distinction disappeared for me this year. The seemingly endless recalls of commercially prepared pet foods both “natural” and “not so natural” (i.e., those touted “holistic” and others more traditional), made me realize that we still have serious problems with pet food, three years after the melamine tragedy. No matter what the label claims as to its health benefits, the food can still be tainted, or the vitamins in the package present in excess or deficient amounts.

This past October, Vitamin D toxicity in “all natural,” “healthy,” and “holistic” dog food led to canine health problems across the country. In June, 2010, Iams recalled ProActive Health Cat and Kitten Food due to insufficient levels of vitamin B1, or thiamine. Thiamine deficiency, as I discuss later, can lead to serious neurologic impairment and weight loss.

No wonder we’re scared.

Then, there’s the veterinary dogma about not feeding table scraps. I cringe when I hear colleagues insist that the foods their clinic sells constitute the only safe options. I have further unease with their insistence that providing freshly prepared “human” food is sinful and detrimental. I refuse to regard my clients as incapable of setting limits on the types and amount of food they feed their dog or cat from the dinner table. I resent the paternalistic stance and belief that, left any latitude, clients will cause their companion pancreatitis or obesity. Doctoring includes teaching, and with that comes dialogue and assessment of caregivers’ capacity to follow instructions and guidelines. Some of my most-well educated clients prefer to feed their dog from a bag or can. That’s OK; I do as well. But I’m not against adding medically appropriate human food in reasonable quantities. At least when consumers cook their own food for a canine companion, they can track its source and freshness to a greater degree than the unidentifiable mixture contained in a can or bag.

In fact, if human-grade food is so detrimental, and a diversity of foodstuffs so dangerous, why is a mainstream manufacturer now advertising their “natural” diet, replete with whole grains, fruits, and veggies? I’m accustomed to seeing this panoply on “holistic” labels, but not an industry giant’s.

Home cooking offers the benefits of selecting high-quality meats and vegetables while destroying organisms that might otherwise pollute our households. Home-prepared meals, however, usually require supplementation in order to compensate for potentially missing nutrients. On the other hand, hypervitaminosis (i.e., vitamins in excess) is not good, either. Both can cause serious metabolic, orthopedic and neurologic problems.

Nutrient needs vary with species and state of health. Not all vitamins essential for humans are needed by other species. For example, aside from primates, guinea pigs and some fish, vitamin C is not essential to add into the diet for most other species, as they can make their own. However, animals facing certain disease states may require additional vitamin C, rendering the nutrient “conditionally essential.” Physiologic changes during illness, pregnancy, or lactation alter requirements. Anyone considering home-prepared meals for their dog or cat should work in conjunction with their veterinarian and/or a board-certified veterinary nutritionist to ensure that the foods meet muster.

Becoming acquainted with the signs of vitamin deficiency and excess can help us identify contributors to chronic ailments in our companions. We can then “consider the source” of vitamins and then add foods rich in daily requirements that might otherwise be missing from the diet.

Vitamin A

What It Does: Vitamin A provides chemical components necessary for vision, reproduction, and normal development of skin, bone, and muscle. Pregnancy and lactation increase vitamin A needs.

Sources: Vitamin A levels vary in foods; processing and storage can destroy it. Liver, fish oil, egg, and dairy products contain high amounts of pre-formed vitamin A. While dogs can transform beta-carotene from vegetable sources into vitamin A, cats cannot. As such, they require it pre-formed, from animal sources.

Deficiency: Prolonged deficiency of vitamin A causes dry eye, night blindness, retinal degeneration, weight loss, poor skin and hair coat, kidney and reproductive problems, bone changes, and immune deficiency. A recent report linked vitamin A deficiency to epilepsy in calves.

Toxicity: Cats fed home-made diets of raw pork liver may develop hypervitaminosis A, or vitamin A toxicity. The bones in their neck and elsewhere deform or fracture, compressing nerves and the spinal cord. They experience neck pain and loose teeth. Hypervitaminosis A can also cause appetite depression, skin thickening, internal bleeding, conjunctivitis, and impaired liver and kidney function.

B vitamins

Syndromes associated with deficiency of the various vitamins B overlap. If a veterinarian suspects a B vitamin deficiency, they ordinarily treat with vitamin B-complex. B vitamins balance immune function. Vitamin B-complex given along with vaccinations may improve protection against canine distemper infection in dogs. Since B vitamins are water soluble, they rarely accumulate in toxic amounts.

Vitamin B1 (Thiamine)

What It Does: Thiamine participates in a number of metabolic pathways. Without it, a brain problem called “progressive encephalopathy” takes hold.

Sources: Foods high in thiamine include whole grains, yeast, and liver, especially pig liver. While raw meat supplies significant amounts of thiamine, cooking, ionizing radiation, oxidation, and alkaline conditions all destroy it. Therefore, food manufacturers must replace thiamine after cooking kibble.

Deficiency: Thiamine deficiency arises from two possible causes – either inadequate intake or too high an ingestion of thiamine antagonists. One thiamine antagonist (a “thiaminase”) is an enzyme that restructures the vitamin, rendering it inactive. Another group of antagonists include chemicals such as tannins that likewise disturb thiamine function. Raw fish, shellfish, and microorganisms such as yeast, bacteria, and fungi contain high concentrations of thiaminase. Cooking fish destroys thiaminase.

Without thiamine, young animals fail to grow correctly. Their muscles weaken and their nervous system functions poorly. Dogs can develop cardiac hypertrophy (i.e., an enlarged heart) and incoordination.

Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)

What It Does: Riboflavin metabolites produce energy for metabolism.

Sources: Since riboflavin does not accumulate in the body, animals must ingest it daily. Dairy products, organ and muscle meats, eggs, and green plant matter offer abundant supplies. Yeast also contains riboflavin.

Deficiency: Though uncommon, dogs and cats lacking sufficient riboflavin exhibit skin eruptions, weight loss, impaired reproduction, neurologic changes, cataracts, and poor appetite.

Vitamin B3 (Niacin)

What It Does: Niacin provides chemical factors critical for proper cell function, energy production, and metabolism.

Sources: Foods highest in niacin include yeast, meats and fish, cereals, legumes, and oily seeds. The body utilizes the amino acid tryptophan to form niacin.

Deficiency: Niacin deficiency manifests as the “4D”: dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia, and death. Cats are more likely to develop deficiency than dogs if insufficient amounts are present in the diet.

Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic acid)

What It Does: Pantothenic acid is crucial for metabolism and energy production from food components, including fat, glucose, and amino acids.

Sources: Most foods contain pantothenic acid, though the highest amounts appear in liver, heart, rice, wheat bran, yeast, and peanuts.

Deficiency: Dogs and cats lacking pantothenic acid develop fatty livers and poor appetites. Their immune system becomes depressed and they may fall into a coma in later stages of deficiency.

Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine)

What It Does: Pyridoxine participates in the synthesis of a number of important neurotransmitters, including serotonin, norepinephrine, epinephrine, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). It assists in forming histamine and helps create niacin from tryptophan. Pyridoxine is involved in synthesizing taurine from the amino acid cysteine as well as in making carnitine from lysine.

Sources: Pyridoxine is found in most foods, but meats, whole-grains, nuts, and vegetables contain an abundant quantity. Cooking destroys as much as 70% of the vitamin B6 found in animal products.

Deficiency: Signs of pyridoxine deficiency include seizures, anemia, irreversible kidney disease, muscle weakness, growth impairment, and loss of appetite. Pyridoxine-deficient cats can form oxalate crystals in their urine.

Excess: Over-supplementation of pyridoxine can induce toxicity, in contrast to most other B vitamins. However, signs of excess pyridoxine resemble those of deficiency, including incoordination and muscle weakness, confusing the picture.

Vitamin B12 (Cobalamin)

What It Does: Cobalamin is critical for folic acid metabolism, and as such participates in the synthesis of many biochemicals vital for life, including neurotransmitters and nucleotides (i.e., the molecules that make up the structural components of DNA and RNA).

Sources: Organ meats, milk products, microbes, and yeast contain cobalamin. Plants do not make cobalamin; as such, carnivores placed on a vegan diet risk becoming deficient.

Deficiency: Low vitamin B12 levels lead to poor growth, nerve damage, and a specific type of anemia.

Vitamin C

What It Does: Vitamin C assists in the formation of collagen, a vital element of tissue repair. Vitamin C, an antioxidant, protects against free-radical damage. It may help prevent cancer as well as gum and periodontal disease.

Sources: Exogenous sources of vitamin C include fruits, vegetables, and organ meats. While nonhuman species that manufacture their own vitamin C rely less on dietary sources, research indicates that their capacity to do so falls far short of previous assumptions. Aging liver cells lose some of their ability to synthesize and recycle vitamin C, making this a conditionally essential nutrient for geriatric dogs and cats. Health status may further influence vitamin C requirements. For example, dogs with lymphoma had significantly lower levels of vitamin C in their system after chemotherapy, suggesting a possible need for post-chemotherapy supplementation with this and other antioxidants.

Deficiency: Insufficient vitamin C causes delayed tissue healing and increased susceptibility to disease.

Excess: In too great quantities, vitamin C can lead to diarrhea and flatulence.

Vitamin D

What It Does: Metabolites of vitamin D regulate calcium and phosphorus absorption from the intestines and assist in the distribution and mobilization of these minerals throughout the body. As bones form and repair, their needs for calcium and phosphorus change. Vitamin D allows the body to adapt to these variations.

Sources: Fatty fishes provide the richest natural sources of vitamin D. Additional sources include fresh water fish, egg yolk, beef, liver, and dairy products. In the wild, carnivores obtain vitamin D by consuming the body fat, blood, and liver of their prey.

Deficiency: Depending on the contents of homemade diets, dogs and cats may not be receiving enough vitamin D. They cannot meet their needs simply through sun exposure, as dogs and cats lack the ability to cutaneously synthesize D3 in adequate amounts. Growing puppies and kittens receiving inadequate vitamin D or calcium exhibit soft bones that may bend and fracture Problems such as “rubber jaw syndrome”, or secondary hyperparathyroidism, have arisen in young dogs. Cats may become paralyzed due to injury of the spinal cord. Adults can experience weakening of the bone and osteoporosis. Humans with low vitamin D experience disturbed muscle function. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a host of chronic conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), certain types of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and even multiple sclerosis in humans.

Excess: Overnutrition with supplemented vitamin D, calcium, and calories in puppy diets has been linked to predisposition for canine elbow dysplasia. Like its fat-soluble counterpart vitamin A, excessive administration of vitamin D may result in serious negative consequences. Hypervitaminosis D produces high circulating calcium levels, calcification of soft tissues, and even death. Be wary of those advocating megadoses of both vitamin A and D for pets with cancer.

Vitamin E

What It Does: Vitamin E functions as an antioxidant. In so doing, it is one of the first lines of defense against oxidative stress, protecting cells and their membranes from the damaging impact of free radicals. Dogs with chronic liver disease may benefit by vitamin E supplementation (along with other supplements) to prevent further oxidant damage to their liver.

Vitamin E actually comprises eight subtypes, including four tocopherols and four tocotrienols.  Attention is turning to this latter group, the formerly neglected half of the natural vitamin E family. Tocotrienols confer neuroprotective benefits and possibly more antioxidant properties than α-tocopherol. Tocotrienols distribute more widely throughout the fatty layers of cell membranes and tocotrienol, not tocopherol, suppressed growth of human breast cancer cells.

Sources: Tocopherols are found in highest concentrations in green, leafy vegetables. Tocotrienols come from the bran and germ portions of some plants. Since only plants synthesize vitamin E in nature, this argues in favor of including plant products and certain cereal grains and seeds in foods made for dogs and cats.

Deficiency: Lacking sufficient vitamin E, veterinary patients develop membrane dysfunction and cell breakdown. Clinically, this translates in dogs to muscle deterioration, sterility in males, and intestinal dysfunction. Cats can develop heart, muscle, and liver problems, as well as a condition known as pansteatitis (“yellow fat disease”), a problem identified in cats fed mainly fish (especially red tuna) or fish by-products. Cats suffering from pansteatitis develop lethargy and progressive abdominal enlargement, along with blood chemistry changes. Unbalanced home-made diets have been shown to cause this condition, which can mimic feline infectious peritonitis, perhaps spelling diagnostic confusion and inappropriate treatment.

Excess: Vitamin E toxicity rarely develops, as both human and non-human animals tolerate large quantities without negative effects.

To supplement or not? Clearly, questions remain about whether or not a given pet food regimen has adequate, balanced vitamins, even if it claims to do so on the label, given the recent recalls. If your animal companion is suffering from any of the medical conditions noted above, ask your veterinarian if a vitamin imbalance could be contributing to the problem. Ask about adding home-made veggies and meats that might boost the intake of specific nutrients. Before giving any vitamins or supplements, check with your vet. Then check the recall list, because multivitamins for pets have been recalled, too.

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Note from Gina: Blogs aren’t really made for footnotes, but the references on Dr. Robinson’s post are so valuable I have added a Word version complete with references. Click here to access. (Gina again: There’s a problem with this file at our end. Bear with me while I figure it out and then I’ll re-post the link.)

Christie and I have been friends and co-workers for 15 years or so, going all the way back to running the Pet Care Forum on AOL, when the Veterinary Information Network provided the content.

I’ve known Dr. B about as long, but we really connected over coffee about five years ago at Global Pet Expo. Dr. B called me with a book idea a few months later — our first New York Times best-seller, “Why Do Dogs Drink Out of the Toilet?” — and we discovered that we LOVED working together. Christie and I had long before become a 2-for-1 writer-editor package after working together on so many projects, and fortunately, Christie and Dr. B also hit it off right away.

Our trial by fire was the pet-food recall of 2007, but we all made it through. Thousands of blog posts, hundreds of thousands of blog comments, a couple million site visitors, 13 books,  a couple hundred articles and I don’t even know how many TV segments and media appearances later … and we just couldn’t love each other more, or the work we do together. And we’ve brought some of our favorite people into the mix, with more on the way. (Yes, it’s a teaser: You’ll have to wait!)

By the way: Dr. Becker and I have another article in PARADE magazine this morning, on pet heart conditions. Here it is.

We spent the day, most appropriately, meeting in the conference room at my own veterinary hospital, the VCA Sacramento Veterinary Referral Center. VCA regional manager Diana Stetson is based there, and she has long been generous in letting us use the room. It just seems appropriate to meet in such a fantastic facility, where we can pop out and get puppy kisses and kitty purrs on a break.

Our web guru, Mike Linville of Black Dog Studios, came in for part of the day, as well, as we have some cool things we’ll be unveiling on the site soon.

After we dropped Dr. B at the airport for the flight home, Christie and I grabbed some coffee with Jennifer Fearing of the HSUS. She’s fostering a pair of 7-week-old puppies, and we got to snuggle them while we visited. The sleeping puppy is already spoken for, but the one shown with Christie is looking for a great home. She’s a smart little girl, and we could see her learning things as Christie worked with her — and she never stopped wagging her puppy tail for people walking by.

She’s a lucky pup to have landed a great foster home, but the real lucky ones will be the family who adopts her after the socialization and early puppy education she’s getting in the hands of a very loving foster mom.

The compromise doesn’t address Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) desire for the new law to ban bisphenol-A (BPA) from food and beverage containers, nor does it exempt small farmers and those who sell at farmers’  markets from its provisions as sought by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.).

It does, however, include mandatory recall authority for the FDA as well as increased ability to inspect facilities where food is handled and the records of food manufacturers.

And, presumably thanks to the thousands of pets sickened and killed by the 2007 melamine contamination of dog and cat food, the AP reports it would also ” require importers to verify the safety of their foreign suppliers and would require businesses that manufacture and process food to have in place plans to prevent adulteration.”

From TheHill.com:

The compromise was worked out between six senators who have been working on the issue: Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and ranking member Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.); food-safety bill authors Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H.); and lead co-sponsors Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.).

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“Any 100-year-old-plus structure — like our nation’s food safety system — needs improvements,” the six lawmakers said in a statement.

“With this announcement today, we aim to not just patch and mend our fragmented food safety system, we hope to reinforce the infrastructure, close the gaps and create a systematic, risk-based and balanced approach to food safety in the United States.

“The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act will place more emphasis on prevention of food-borne illness and will provide new tools to respond to food-safety problems. We look forward to working with our respective leaderships to take up this bipartisan legislation as soon as possible.”

Some additional background here from Pet Connection BFF Marion Nestle.

Menu Foods Income Fund (the “Fund”) and Simmons Pet Food, Inc. (“Simmons Pet Food”), an affiliate of Simmons Foods, Inc., announced today that the Fund has entered into a definitive agreement with Simmons Pet Food providing for the acquisition by Simmons Pet Food of Menu Foods Limited, the Fund’s operating subsidiary. Under the agreement, Simmons Pet Food will acquire Menu Foods Limited for approximately $239 million, including assumption of existing debt. Immediately after the disposition of the Fund’s assets, the units of the Fund will be redeemed for $4.80 per unit in cash. That value represents a 65.5% premium to the March 15, 2010 closing price of $2.90, the last trading day prior to the Fund’s announcement that it would undertake a strategic review process, and a 46.8% premium to the closing price of $3.27 on August 6, 2010.

I’d say more, but I’m restraining myself. Although who want to bet the corporate officers and execs all got platinum parachutes and nice bonuses? Anyone?

After four days and I don’t know how many seminars I’ve eagerly sat in on during the American Veterinary Medical Association‘s annual conference, this year’s version here in Atlanta, I have to admit to feeling a little like a tick myself, sitting in my hotel room now utterly engorged with enough information to drop off and lay thousands upon thousands little eggs of blog posts, articles, backgrounders and book chapters.

I do also have to admit to feeling more than a little awed by the flying fingers of PetConnection colleagues Kim Campbell Thornton and Christie Keith, who performed amazing feats of real-time coverage of most of the seminars where they were over the weekend, at the No-Kill conference in D.C.

Me? I’m a little old school in my reporting style, and I don’t do the liveblog thing. What I have instead is notepads full of quotes, a laptop with all the proceedings (all the dreaded PowerPoints as well as the beloved journal citations and contact information) along with another full notebook’s worth of to-do’s based on the endless rounds of drinks, talks, and contacts made over the course of this massive veterinary extravaganza.

The most fun I had — I’m a reporter, I have to admit it — was causing a momentary heart flutter in the chest of the very knowledgeable but reserved FDA veterinarian Dr. Christopher Melluso when he realized the question I’d asked from the audience at his seminar on the FDA’s improvements to the food-safety system wasn’t the sort of thing a veterinarian would ask.

Credit due, he recovered with hardly a blink and answered me openly and honestly — something I got from both him and his colleague Dr. Carmela Stamper every time I needed something more from them. Dr. Stamper, it turns out, is undoubtedly a relative a mine, since she revealed seconds after meeting me that her maiden name is Spadafora, something I hope won’t be stalling her career at the FDA. That’s her on the right, and I’ll be damned if we don’t look related, sorry about that, Dr. Stamper.

But of all the seminars, all the talks, all the button-holing in hallways, meet-and-greet and sales jobs on the conference floor by eager folks selling everything from surgical steel to avian earirngs, the time I enjoyed the most was hearing about a topic I enjoy the least:

Ticks.

That’s because no one loves the subject of his research more than Dr. Michael Dryden of Kansas State University, known fondly in veterinary and academic circles as “Dr. Flea.” And no one shares his passion more entertainingly, dropping in such anecdotal gems as his dragging for ticks in Malibu Beach State Park while on vacation in California, because, yes, he always travels with his equipment, the better to study his beloved blood-suckers, all 10 or so North American species of them.

He reeled off the names of them all without consulting his notes — both Latin and common names — and then cautioned us all that what we mostly think of as the “deer tick” is in fact the black-legged tick, and the real deer tick is the Lone Star tick, but it really doesn’t matter since they’re all happy to attach themselves to deer first and foremost, except the the brown dog tick, which is just as happy to attack to a black dog or a spotted one, and yes, a veterinarian really asked him once if the brown dog tick only jumped on brown dogs.

“I’d have asked him where he went to school,” said Dr. Dryden. “But I would have been afraid it was K State.”

He was so funny I immediately regretted that I hadn’t caught his act on heartworms, and would only catch part of it on fleas.

Still, it’s pretty amazing to me that anyone can be such a spellbinder on the subject of ticks, weaving in a vivid history lesson on market hunters, the early 20th century conservation movement, the restoration of forests and, even more successfully, of deer, once hunted to near zero population in many states and to fewer than 300,000 head in all of the United States and Canada until The Lacey Act of 1900 put an end to wholesale hunting and started deer and wild turkey (which juvenile ticks love) back from the brink of extinction. Nearly 28 million deer roam the United State alone today, and Dr. Dryden notes that they are not alone by any means — they are all loaded with ticks.

“When I started studying ticks, I didn’t know I needed to study deer,” Dr. Dryden said. “But where there are deer, there are ticks. When I was growing up, we used to stop and stare in amazement when we saw a deer. Now, you only stop if you hit one.”

What that means is if you were hoping for good news on ticks you aren’t going to get any. Ticks are indeed getting worse every year, but it’s not because of resistance, said Dr. Dryden.

“It’s a numbers games,” he said, and the ticks are winning. “There’s no way to develop resistance in a parasite with three hosts. If you think there is, let me know the next time you put Frontline on a wild turkey.”

In some parts of the country, a dog can pick up a tick a minute on a simple walk, and even if a spot-on product eliminates all but a couple of them, the pet’s owner will consider it a failure.

“Tick control isn’t like flea control,” he said. “People want to have ticks eliminated and repelled, and that’s just not possible.”

Still, he says, some products seem to do better in different regions against different tick populations, making it worthwhile to ask your veterinarian which product works best in your area.  (Frontline generally works better in California, he says, while K9 Advantix works better in other parts of the country.) For the ticks that remain – and there will always be ticks, ticks and more ticks as long as there are deer, deer and more deer – picking them off with tweezers or a tick-removal tool immediately after a walk remains the best defense against the parasites. On your property, keep grasses cut low, leaf piles cleaned up and spray under shrubs and along the fence lines, where ticks are waiting for you and your pets, their nasty little legs extended and ready.

For a dog who’s covered with ticks, Dr. Dryden recommended to the veterinarians attending his seminar that they spray the pet with Frontline, then wait two weeks to put the animal safely on a topical monthly, such as Frontline Plus or K9 Advantix, whichever appears to be working best against the regional blend of tick species.

The only other advice? Avoiding the areas where ticks are heaviest from spring through fall.

“Sometimes they only thing I can advise is that you can’t take your dog where you’ve been taking your dog,” said Dr. Dryden.

Yep, it’s a ticks’ world, and we’re just a convenient host. And my mother wonders why I carry a tick key on my key ring.

Thus was highlighted yet another broadside against home feeders, “Do raw food diets make you want to BARF?,” that promised to counter all the claptrap on Teh Webs and get pet-owners safely back in the commercial pet-food fold. I passed on that one, having pretty much heard it at every veterinary conference in the last 10 years and, yo, see Christie’s response to “The horror of raw diets” blah blah at an earlier veterinary conference.

Before I go further, let me say, once again, that I am not trying to push anyone towards a home-prepared diet, and frankly, your pet — most pets — will do just fine on commercial. But I have so completely had it with veterinarians packing a room to hear how to talk their clients out of home-prepared diets without looking at the fact that processed foods aren’t exactly safe, either, reference the thousands of pets killed by commercial diets in 2007…not to mention so many recalls of human foods I’ve lost count.

So let’s just stipulate: Whether you combine the ingredients or a company does it for you, food is a perishable item that can never, ever be made risk-free, only risk-minimized. That’s why government needs to be able to oversee the production (and raw feeders, that included the slaughterhouses), manufacturing and distribution, and be able to force companies to be responsible, whether they want to be or not. Most are, but that’s besides the point. We need to be protected from those that aren’t.

In any case, I passed on the obligatory and well-attended “raw feeders are cultish whackjobs” lecture/pep talk and scanned the program of all seminars. And lo, after three pages of companion animal seminars, in the third of a page of “Food Animal/Equine” columns, there was this little gem: “Melamine Contamination,” followed by “Pet Food Surveillance/Notification.”

I hiked the entire length of the Georgia World Congress Center, away from the crowds packing the seminars on child-directed aggression in dogs and causes of pruritus, past the seminars for veterinary technicians, past the practice-management seminars, walking, walking, walking and finally into a small room at the end of the hall, long past any open food stands or crowds, where less than 20 chairs had butts in them and the scanner to give CE credit hadn’t yet arrived.

There stood the FDA’s Dr. Christopher Melluso of the Center for Veterinary Medicine, and if he looked disappointed in the poor showing for a talk on regulatory matters with regards to pet foods, he was polite enough not to show it.

After an hour of listening to him talk and a couple of follow-up questions (one mine on Salmonella, and more on that in a later post), three points are pretty clear:

– The FDA has improved and will continue to improve its monitoring of pet-food companies, with a series of initiatives directly related to the 2007 pet-food deaths;

– The pet-food companies will continue to have the upper hand, since the federal government still has no legal authority to force a recall; and

– Better surveillance, reporting and arm-twisting mean the FDA is more likely to know there’s a problem, and more able to push pet food companies into “voluntary” recalls. (I gathered the FDA’s “suggestion” of the necessity of a “voluntary” recall can be pretty strong)

Key to the process, of course, is the system for getting information on a sick animal to the FDA, and that’s why the turn-out in the little room is so, well, depressing. Dr. Melluso noted that an animal who gets sick is often treated for symptoms, and if the symptoms abate, there’s no diagnosis. Even if there is a suspicion, without a direct link to the food and a veterinarian’s assistance, a consumer complaint can be easily dismissed by a company — “the pet ate something else outside when the owner wasn’t looking,” etc.

But when a veterinarian is able to establish a link, with laboratory results, then it’s relatively easy for the FDA to take that to a company and get the food pulled. That happened earlier this year, when a veterinarian made a diagnosis pointing to a thiamine deficiency in a cat food that ended up being recalled.

Immediately, of course, the problem becomes apparent: Who pays for the diagnostics? Pet-owners are generally happy to have a pet restored to health, and unless the treatment doesn’t relieve those symptoms, they’re unlikely to pay for additional diagnostics that may or may not point to a pet-food as a culprit. They just want their pet better, and that’s reasonable. And should the pet die, they’re unlikely to pay for a post-mortem that might establish a link. It’s not fair for the veterinarian to bear the cost burden, either, of course, and while it makes sense to argue that such testing should be part of the public health system — since, as we’ve so often pointed out, there’s just one food supply system, and pets and people share it — you can just imagine the fun some anti-government crusader can make out of a government-funded system to pinpoint problems pet foods.

If at this point you’re a little gloomy, well, so am I.

But Dr. Melluso pointed out that in one area of regulatory law, there has been a shift that helps a great deal: After the 2007 recalls, the FDA regulations were changed to mandate that companies with a problem report it to the FDA. That wasn’t the case previously, he said, noting that Menu Foods was under no legal obligation to tell the FDA of the problems it knew it had in 2007, and that “until they ‘fessed up,” according the  FDA veterinarian, the FDA was struggling to figure out what was killing pets. (And no, they still don’t really know how many pets died, and it’s likely that the Veterinary Information Network’s survey of veterinarians, coupled with the Pet Connection’s self-reporting dabatabase and extrapolations of reports from state veterinarians still suggest thousands of pets died and tens of thousands were made ill. From the FDA, all you can say for sure is that complaints about pet food went from less than 200 ‘in the two years prior to the recall, jumped to more than 12,000 in 2007 and have run about 600 a year since.)

Because pet food companies are much more likely to take action based on clinical data coordinated by a veterinarian, the FDA has put an emphasis on improving the ability of individual veterinarians to report suspicious illness and death, and expanded the ability of the FDA to coordinate information with such organizations as the AVMA, the Veterinary Information Network and state veterinarians. That last one is particularly important, notes Dr. Melluso.

“If you’re a state veterinarian and you have one dog sick, that doesn’t mean much, he said. “But if you see that there are 30 dogs sick in other states, you’d know there was a problem.” The other benefit: Some states have given their regulatory agencies powers the federal government doesn’t have in the area of food safety, and those states can do more to get food off the shelf.

Still, the basic problems remain as they were in 2007: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates, well, food and drugs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is concerned with animal health only in regards to the economic impact of illness and death on industry. The deaths of animals fall into a black hole that in human medicine is handled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and there’s nothing in sight to correct the situation.

As it stands, the reporting of problems is as voluntary as the recalls those reports might trigger, and although with increased surveillance, mandatory reporting of problems by companies and faster response by the FDA to start the arm-twisting means food gets pulled faster than before. there are no doubt going the continue to be problems with a regulatory system that’s still demonstrably and, literally, fatally flawed.

Considering the human health ramifications of contaminated pet-food — Dr. Melluso noted that some of the Salmonella recalls have been triggered by reports of human illness — it’s not a stretch to suggest the CDC should be expanded to do for food-borne illness in animals what it already does for people in the same area. But in the current economic situation, it’s also unlikely that’s going to happen.

That means the onus for safety still falls on the consumer, and comes back to: wash your hands, dishes and countertops after handling food, human or pet, homemade or commercial.

The fact remains that despite the desire shown at veterinary conferences by major pet food players to push all pet-owners back to commercial products, food — all food — should all be handled with safety first and foremost in mind, and the risks, which remain relatively small, kept in perspective.

And if you suspect a problem with a food, get your pet to the veterinarian and report that illness to the FDA. If you and your veterinarian can establish a link, you may be saving lives, human and animal both. And even if you can’t, the FDA can investigate and possible make that link itself.

Bulldog and pug owners, beware: Short-snouted breeds accounted for roughly half the purebred dog deaths on airplanes in the past five years, government data released Friday shows. That comes as no surprise to the owner of the University of Georgia’s famous mascot, Uga, who gets the dog a special procedure before he flies.

Actually, the real “procedure” to do with  University of Georgia’s famous mascot is to replace them when they drop dead. But no, that’s not the procedure that’s referred to:

Sonny Seiler of Savannah, Ga., who owns the University of Georgia’s mascot, Uga the bulldog, said people who fly English bulldogs are taking a risk. Seiler said that’s why he takes precautions before flying his dogs. Before each Uga is a year old and flies for the first time, Seiler has a procedure done at the University of Georgia veterinary school to enlarge the dog’s airways.

[...]

Uga routinely flies to the football team’s away games, often in the team’s charter plane or the university’s smaller plane, and is in the cabin or an air-conditioned cargo hold, said Seiler, who is now searching for the eighth Uga. The seventh died last football season, and his half-brother Russ, the backup, is the acting Uga during the quest for No. 8.

“It’s just business as usual with us,” Seiler said of Uga’s air travel. “He goes with the team.”

What’s business as usual is breeding dogs with defects that are not compatible with the usual business of breathing … or being alive, for that matter. The College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia should put its academic foot down and quit being a co-dependent to breeding canine defects.

Here’s the AP story. I have a feeling that the numbers of English bulldog deaths — while they are indeed related to the faulty build of the breed — are also related to the fact that some of these dogs may have been part of the trade in bulldogs born in Eastern European puppy mills. (Case in point, here.)

In any case, the fact remains: If you really want one of these dogs, you’d better be prepared for a lot of health-care costs and a short lifespan. And don’t fly with them, unless the flight is short and they’re small enough to go with you in the passenger compartment.

Better yet,  choose a healthier breed. Yes, they’re cute. But I can tell you from personal experience that chronic breathing trouble is no fun.

Oh, and for the love of doG, don’t support puppy-mills, here or abroad.

***

Home page recall FAILs: Since the massive pet-food recalls of 2007, we have been all over pet food companies that don’t put much effort into letting customers know about a recall. We understand that food is a tricky thing to make and there will be problems. But a good, responsible company uses all its communications channels to get the word out when there IS a problem.

Companies that have established an online presence and social media channels (Facebook, Twitter) to promote their products but don’t/won’t use those resources to broadcast recall news come in for special criticism.

OK, but wait …

Today the FDA issued a warning about stolen asthma inhalers:

The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use inhalers stolen from a Virginia warehouse after some of the pilfered medicine turned up in some pharmacies.

The stolen Advair Diskus inhalers (fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder) were found recently—the first batch known to have hit the supply chain since the August 2009 theft. As the investigation continues, FDA officials warned the public that more of the stolen inhalers could still be on the market.

The lot numbers are at the FDA site, and there’s a reason why this caught my attention and why I’m writing about it: This drug saved my life, or rather, made an active life with asthma possible when it wasn’t that possible before. I checked my meds, and the lot number are fine.

But here’s the interesting part: I decided to check the website put up for the drug by its manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline.

This is a human medication. And a damn serious one, too, with the FDA’s so-called “black box” warning on the packaging because people die using this medication, especially if they’re not using it exactly as prescribed.

Given all that: Human medication, black box warning and so on, wouldn’t you think there’s be a notice about the stolen inhalers on the GlaxoSmithKline website, Advair.com?

I’d sure think there would be.  But there isn’t. Don’t you find that just a little astonishing? I sure do.

When are we going to stop letting these companies hide their bad news, give the FDA/USDA some teeth and make them use them to protect us, not corporate profits?

Image: The late Uga VII.