Thoughts About Poisoned Pet Food.

The recent revelation that some canned and moist pouch pet foods have apparently caused kidney failure in dogs and cats has hit pet owners like a lightening bolt out of a clear blue sky. It is heartbreaking when someone who has been trying to feed their pets the best possible food learns they may have been poisoning them. For current information about this important topic pet owners should monitor newspapers, TV and radio news programs, and Internet sources, including the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (www.ACVIM.org) and the pet food manufacturers' website at www.menufoods.com/recall. You can also call the Menu Foods hotline at 1-866-895-2708 for information and how to identify food suspected of contamination.

My column is not published until nearly a week after I write it, so it is not a good source for the latest information about a fast developing situation like this. But I will discuss some things pet owners should keep in mind.

1. Symptoms, like increased water consumption, vomiting, and lethargy, can be caused by kidney failure, but they can also be caused by several other diseases, and the pet could have kidney failure without showing any of these symptoms. Symptoms are a starting point. Your veterinarian should ask you several important questions, do a good physical examination on your pet, and if warranted, do some laboratory tests. The initial list of "things it could be" is narrowed down to "what it probably is."

2. Renal failure is common in older pets and many things can cause renal failure in pets of all ages. So far they haven't discovered what is wrong with the pet food that is causing renal failure, and there is no test that will indicate whether or not renal failure in a particular pet was caused by the food. We may never know. If you have a young or middle-aged pet that developed renal failure after eating the suspect food, the food may well be to blame. If you have an old dog that has been drinking a lot of water and losing weight for the last 6 or 8 months, and lately began vomiting, and now won't eat very much, it may be hard to pin that on contaminated food.

3. I didn't realize that so many different brands of dog food were manufactured by one company. We already have a lot of eggs in one basket since we feed our pets the same dog food or cat food day in and day out. A consistent dietary formulation can ensure a balanced and adequate diet, but if there is something wrong with that formulation, whether a toxin is present or critical ingredient is lacking, catastrophe can result. We minimize this risk in our diets by getting a variety of foods from a variety of sources but it is very difficult to make sure home made diets provide safe nutrition for pets. Like humans, dogs and cats given a choice don't always eat what's good for them. And changing a pets' diet often leads to a temporary upset stomach and diarrhea.

4. I have to question how much value there is in some premium pet foods if so many brands are made by same huge factory. On the other hand, if a small manufacturer had some contaminated lots of food, and the same percentage of dogs or cats were dying of renal failure, it may well have gone completely unnoticed.

I don't have good answers to these last two questions. As for the current problem, keep up with the news and Internet to keep yourself educated and if your dog or cat has eaten some of the contaminated food and seems sick, call your veterinarian.