July pictures Manu and Makena

Okay you cat photo gallery fans here are a couple of the latest pics. See how healthy kitties on a natural raw meat diet look?
Great fur, shiny and soft. Strong and muscular. Active and alert -- these kitties are no couch potatoes.

Makena can jump up to 6 feet in the air and also jump 13 steps in a single bound. They usually get active around 9 pm -- hunting time -- and chase each other up and down the stairs vigorously. They do get fresh air every day -- supervised of course -- in a safe location where they get to watch the birds and squirrels in the trees.

Makena and Manu's gourmet dining

Rabbit is the number one favourite for Makena and Manu. It's always a special treat. I rotate the food I give my kitties to ensure that they are getting a good variety. Cats of course, being natural gourmets, appreciate that. It's also so they don't get tired of their food -- would you want to eat the same thing every day? Well neither do they.

In the summer I find they eat less. Feeding a natural raw meat diet with minimal supplementation to them costs me no more than it did to feed species-inappropiate, corporate multinational expensive vet kibble.

At the moment, my cats eat a total of 3.2 ounces a day of food, divided between 2 meals.

When you first start to feed cats real food, they will eat a bit more initially, anywhere from 6-8 ounces divided between two meals. After a while, which is different for every cat, it will then level off.

I do also give them treats almost every day too, such as dehyrated chicken hearts or bits of lamb and goat with bone.

Makena's name means "happy one". Yes she is a happy kitty. Happy that she lives in a home that will never, ever feed her commercial cereal and additive-laden vet (or even supermarket) kibble.

Eat Wild

For those of you looking to deal directly with a farmer who doesn't use hormones, antibiotics or chemicals in your kitty's food supply, here's a great link:

http://www.eatwild.com/

There's a directory of farms across Canada and the US here -- http://www.eatwild.com/

University of Guelph accepts funds from Hills

http://news.guelphmercury.com/News/article/343627

Twice already this year -- The University of Guelph gets the Poison Kibble award.

The University of Guelph just can't get enough of the pet food companies -- their money, that is. They've just accepted $5 million dollars for a "new primary health centre" to be built on campus. That's right, directly on the campus.

"Skills like communicating with clients and proper pet nutrition will be the new focus of the primary care centre." Like training vets in how to sell and prescribe untested and unregulated pet food products?

Once again, the University's Dean, Dr. Elizabeth Stone, insists that "we will retain academic freedom to teach the same way we do now."

Well I would venture to point out that that is the very problem. There is no academic freedom when a major multinational company gives this kind of money to a publicly-funded institution. Again, the University of Guelph is allowing their silence to be bought. Teach the same way they do now? Again, that's the problem -- vets prescribing and selling species-inappropriate, unregulated and untested pet food.

How is it that they are not seriously considering the major class action lawsuit launched by Maltzman Foreman in the US against Hills for misleading advertising? This lawsuit is currently headed to court. How can the university accept such a large donation when a company like this is being sued? Have they just chosen to ignore all these lawsuits and take the side of the pet food industry?

It's scandalous and the public should be outraged that their tax dollars are miseducating vets to be perpetual kibble pushers.

What many people are choosing to do is change vet clinics -- and send their vet a letter when they leave, letting them know that they will only be entrusting the care of their beloved pets to vets who do NOT sell these species-inappropriate, misleading advertising, prescription diet formulas.

Update on Florida class action lawsuit

In the many daily email updates I receive on the pet food issue, this one stands out:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202422055276

The impact of this particular lawsuit will have major implications for the industry. The PFI has already attempted to have this case dismissed, but thankfully the judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit.

With Menu Foods settling, could it possibly be that this sets a precedent for the other class action lawsuits? It seems we now have what are called "cross border" settlements with respect to different jurisdictions in North America for dealing with these kinds of class actions. Another curious by-product of globalization.

"The defense claims the allegations in the lawsuit castigating the entire pet food industry are culled from the Internet."

What? Like all the blogs, discussion forums and websites talking about the illnesses caused by long term feeding of untested and unregulated commercial pet food products? And what, exactly, is their point?

That the public is talking about this openly on the internet? Well mainstream media certainly isn't covering the topic anymore, are they?

Mainstream media serves to only air all those glossy high production value ads claiming that pet food products are now being "reformulated." In these ads, the PFI are still blathering on about their formulations being "healthy and balanced" despite the fact that there are only short term acute toxicity studies, at best, being done on these products.

Mainstream media has dropped the story from the crawlers (which incidentially, seems to be the only form of reporting breaking news these days on cable news networks).

Is the defense claiming that the information "culled from the internet" means, in some way, that the issues being raised are not credible? That people's pets have not gotten sick from commercial pet food? That dry food isn't causing feline diabetes, chronic renal disease, cancer, inflammatory bowel syndrome, and urinary tract infections in cats? That people are learning that no cat should eat any form of dry food?

As people start to understand this, as they are on the blogs and discussion forums, dry food will start collecting dust on the shelves of health food stores, veterinarian clinics and supermarkets.

U.S. District Court Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga says in this article:

"Defendants do not assert that the FDA or any other regulatory body has specifically approved the advertisement or statements at issue in this action, and nothing in the AAFCO standards authorizes defendants to engage in false advertising," Altonaga wrote in her order.

Keep it kicking, judge. It would be fabulous if this case would set a precedent.

All of these lawsuits demonstrate a desperate need for genuine accountability in the industry. But maybe if that happened, they wouldn't be able to continue to dump massive quantities of corn and wheat to produce grain-based kibble, which is the main "species inappropriate" ingredient in commercial pet food.

The PFI should not be regulating themselves. Governments in both Canada and the US need to be able to issue product recalls. FDA reform will be one of the factors critical to re-shaping the industry over the next two years, as decisions resulting from these lawsuits emerge.

Then again, people can make other choices -- like refusing to purchase any commercial pet food product.

If you need proof of how healthy a cat can be NOT eating commercial food, and only eating a raw meat with ground bone (and minimal supplementation) diet, take a look at Makena, who is now one year old.

Now, isn't she a gorgeous picture of health and happiness? Wouldn't you want any cat guardian you know to have the same kind of healthy kitty?

Royal Canin's spin

http://news.guelphmercury.com/News/article/331960

Take a look at this article, published in the local Guelph paper. Royal Canin, owned by the multinational Mars candy bar company, has targeted Ontario as its base of operations for North America. It's building a brand new factory in the same town as the University of Guelph. Coincidence?

Royal Canin maintains that they will have "quality control" infra-red technology in place to spot contaminants. But this doesn't address the fact that all dry food is made with grains and cats cannot digest grains. Are they going to test products made of grains for grains? How useful is quality control for species-inappropriate ingredients?

You can see how ridiculous this discussion becomes. Is RC going to re-formulate their entire product line to be grain free and not made by the process of cooking and extrusion? And even if they did, the very existence of kibble products are like being told by your medical doctor to eat only diet bars for your entire lifetime. Or sugar frosted flakes. Yes, there is nothing good to be said about kibble.

What really needs to happen is that these products need to be removed from the market entirely. These products are untested and unregulated. There isn't even an iota of oversight into the pet food industry -- even Big Pharma has to engage in a more extensive testing process to allow new pharmaceuticals to enter the market. With pet food there is nothing in place. True, we know that even if regulatory changes are implemented, the PFI will continue to cheat.

Who in their right mind would believe that any living being can be healthy eating a lifetime of meat-flavoured cookies? Who would think they could live a long and healthy life without fresh food? Well the pet food companies claim that--- by saying that cats should only eat commercial kibble for their entire lifetime.

It's predictable that the industry would now start to talk about "quality control" measures, but it's really just their way to try create spin to get the public believe that their products are "healthy and balanced".

What is even more offensive is that RC is claiming that they are "victims" of the tainted gluten suppliers. That's hardly a credible or responsible position. It shows a total lack of accountability on behalf of this huge and secretive multinational corporation, which is owned by the Mars candy bar company.

So exactly what kind of research will this Royal Canin Research chair, at the University of Guelph veterinarian school, be engaged with involving feline and canine nutrition? How to continue to brainwash future generations of veterinarians into "prescribing" untested and unregulated kibble? Validating RC claims that it's okay to feed designer kibble with antioxidants, inculcating them into the false ideology of nutritionism?

"Prescription diets" -- are they a food or a drug? If they are being prescribed shouldn't they require a prescription and thus be regulated as such? If they are a food -- well, how is it that so many of these product lines are sold only in veterinarian clinics?

Would people continue to buy RC products if they knew their cat food was made by a candy bar company? Healthy and balanced? Hello?

I see Royal Canin talking about the problems the recalls caused them -- but I don't see a single word in the story about Royal Canin being sorry for all the pain and suffering they have caused. Or apologizing.

Menu Foods Canada-US cross border settlement

So Menu Foods has settled for $24 million dollars. Better than nothing, I suppose, but what will that change? Cat and dog guardians will not receive any money for pain and suffering under this proposed settlement, to be signed by the judge May 30, 2008.

Here's the link for the US and Canadian settlement. The documents for the US settlement are all there; the Canadian ones have yet to be approved by the courts but will be posted here when they are.
http://www.petfoodsettlement.com/

The court dockets for the United States can be found here:
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-njdce/case_no-1:2007cv02867/case_id-203642/

And, once posted, on this site for the Canadian court dockets.
http://www.canlii.org/

Like many others, I want to read the fine print to see precisely what the terms of settlement are.

The industry will undoubtedly try to say that they now have new "quality control" technologies in place to spot contaminants. But will they detect species-inappropriate grains, which form the basis of these products?

Doubtful, since these products are primarily composed of grain, which cats, as obligate carnivores cannot tolerate. Grains, an ingredient which sounds benign to the average consumer, are the source of many of the difficult to diagnose health problems in cats. This is why there are so many reports of cats who continuously vomit dry food -- it is indigestible for them.

Plus, none of these reports address the issues of veterinarians selling these species-inappropriate formulations in their clinics. For vets to be selling commercial pet food is like a medical doctor selling cigarettes or diet bars.

The pet food battle has just begun. The emperor has proven he has no clothes and it is up to the public to keep the pressure on, not to "make kibble safer" as some people might want us to believe, but to have these unsafe, species-inappropriate products stripped of their American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) labelling and removed from the market.

These products are often untested (all manufacturers need to do is submit a "nutrient profile") and as we saw from the recalls, unregulated. The claims of "healthy and balanced" over the long term feeding of cat or dog cannot be substantiated on the basis of short-term AAFCO feeding trials.

There is no form of dry food that is safe or healthy for a cat to eat. Period.