Nature’s Variety Expands Nationwide Voluntary Recall to Include All Raw Frozen Chicken Diets with Any ‘Best If Used By’ Date On or Before 2/5/11

Posted March 11, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: PRNewswire.com, Mar 8, 2010

Nature’s Variety has expanded its voluntary recall of Chicken Formula Raw Frozen Diets for dogs and cats to include the “Best If Used By” dates of 10/29/10 and 11/9/10 because these products may be contaminated with Salmonella.  Salmonella can affect animals and there is risk to humans from handling contaminated pet products. People handling pet food can become infected with Salmonella, especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with the product or any surfaces exposed to these products.

Healthy people infected with Salmonella should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. Rarely, Salmonella can result in more serious ailments, including arterial infections, endocarditis, arthritis, muscle pain, eye irritation, and urinary tract symptoms. Consumers exhibiting these signs after having contact with this product should contact their healthcare providers.

Pets with Salmonella infections may become lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever, or vomiting. Some pets may experience only a decreased appetite, fever, or abdominal pain. If your pet has consumed any of the affected products and is experiencing any of these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian.

The recall includes the following products with a “Best If Used By” date of 10/29/10 or 11/9/10:

  • UPC#7 69949 60131 9 – Chicken Formula 0.75 lb trial sized medallions
  • UPC#7 69949 60130 2 – Chicken Formula 3 lb medallions
  • UPC#7 69949 60120 3 – Chicken Formula 6 lb patties
  • UPC#7 69949 60121 0 – Chicken Formula 2 lb single chubs

In an abundance of caution, Nature’s Variety has also chosen to expand this voluntary recall to include all Chicken Formula and Organic Chicken Formula Raw Frozen Diets for dogs and cats with any “Best If Used By” date on or before 2/5/11.  Nature’s Variety has elected to clear the market of raw frozen chicken diets as it implements a state-of-the-art new food safety process called High Pressure Pasteurization for use on all Nature’s Variety Raw Frozen Diets.

The products included in the expanded recall are any Chicken Formula or Organic Chicken Formula Raw Frozen Diet with a “Best If Used By” date on or before 2/5/11, including:

  • UPC#7 69949 60131 9 – Chicken Formula 0.75 lb trial sized medallions
  • UPC#7 69949 60130 2 – Chicken Formula 3 lb medallions
  • UPC#7 69949 60120 3 – Chicken Formula 6 lb patties
  • UPC#7 69949 60121 0 – Chicken Formula 2 lb single chubs
  • UPC#7 69949 50121 3 – Chicken Formula 12 lb case of chubs
  • UPC#7 69949 60137 1 – Organic Chicken Formula 3 lb medallions
  • UPC#7 69949 60127 2 – Organic Chicken Formula 6 lb patties

The “Best If Used By” date is located on the back of the package above the safe handling instructions.  The affected product was distributed through retail stores and internet sales in the United States and Canada.

No other Raw Frozen Diets are involved in this expansion other than chicken, and no other Nature’s Variety products are involved.

Nature’s Variety now uses High Pressure Pasteurization on their Raw Frozen Diets as a unique process to kill pathogenic bacteria through high-pressure, water-based technology.  Having incorporated this state-of-the-art technology on a portion of their raw product offerings in late 2009, Nature’s Variety was able to confidently implement the process universally on all Raw Frozen Diets after the 2/11/10 recall in order to enhance food safety.  Nature’s Variety also utilizes a test and hold protocol to ensure that all High Pressure Pasteurized Raw Frozen Diets test negative for harmful bacteria before being released for sale.

“Nature’s Variety believes replacing all raw frozen chicken products on the market with new raw frozen chicken products that use High Pressure Pasteurization is an important and responsible step in order to reinforce consumer confidence and trust,” stated Reed Howlett, CEO of Nature’s Variety.  ”By recalling all raw frozen chicken products with ‘Best If Used By’ dates on or before 2/5/11, we can provide our pet parents with new raw frozen chicken products that have been processed through High Pressure Pasteurization. Adopting High Pressure Pasteurization is an important step to ensure that our products meet the strictest quality and food safety standards.”

Howlett stated, “Our commitment to consumers in the future is the same as it’s been in the past – to offer Raw Frozen Diets made from the highest quality ingredients, made in our own plant in the Midwest, by people who care deeply about pet nutrition, health, and happiness.”

If you are a consumer and have purchased one of these products, please return the unopened product to your retailer for a full refund or replacement.  If your package has been opened, please dispose of the raw food in a safe manner by securing it in a covered trash receptacle.  Then, bring your receipt (or the empty package in a sealed bag) to your local retailer for a full refund or replacement.

Consumers with additional questions can call the Nature’s Variety dedicated Customer Care line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 800-374-3142.  For additional resources about High Pressure Pasteurization or other Nature’s Variety food safety protocols, visit www.naturesvariety.com.

About Nature’s Variety

Nature’s Variety specializes in natural, holistic dog and cat food.  The line of premium products was developed by families who have been practicing sustainable agriculture for more than 140 years, raising quality livestock and growing crops in America’s heartland.  Nature’s Variety offers the purest forms of pet nutrition – including a wide variety of protein choices in every pet food form (raw frozen diets, dry kibble diets, canned diets, and treats).  For more information about Nature’s Variety, visit www.naturesvariety.com.

Categories: Feeding, Health, Natural/Healthy Pet Foods, Pet Food Recalls, Raw Food, Recent News
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Queens Woman Charged With Beating Dog With Snow Shovel

Posted March 8, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: wpix.com, Mar 7, 2010

A Queens woman was caught on video beating her 11-month-old English bull dog with a snow shovel.

Maria Aguilar, 36, allegedly crippled the dog with her months of abuse. She was arrested and charged with animal cruelty and criminal possession of a weapon.

The dog, named Spike, suffered a hip fracture, a broken leg, three broken teeth and injuries to his ears. Doctors also say he’s virtually blind in his right eye as a result of his injuries.

The ASPCA visited Aguilar’s home last month after reports of a dog continuously crying. One neighborhood used a camera phone to tape the abuse.

Aguilar initially denied the abuse, but once the ASPCA showed her the video, she confessed to throwing Spike to the ground and then slamming him with a snow shovel.

According to reports, Aguilar’s husband had taken Spike to the vet 12 times in the last seven months.

ASPCA officials say Spike will likely suffer pain and lameness for the rest of his life in light of his injuries.

Categories: Abuse/Neglect, Legal, Recent News
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Dog and cheetah make quite the odd couple, OR

Posted March 7, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: KomoNews.com, Mar 4, 2010

Wildlife Safari in Winston has rare animals from across the globe – like rhinos, lions and even an Anatolian Shepherd.

And the rare thing about the Anatolian Shepherd female at Wildlife Safari is not her breed, but her roommate – who just happens to be the fastest predator on earth.

“It’s a very popular question of why we have a dog and a cheetah out there and it’s a common practice that a lot of institutions across the United States are doing right now in an effort to tell this very conservation story,” said Dan Brands, Curator at Wildlife Safari.

As a single birth cheetah cub, Sanurra was abandoned by her mother, which opened the door for these two to be brought together.

“Rather than let Sanurra grow up alone we were able to bring in a dog as a sibling, basically like her sister, and they have been together ever since,” said Sarah Roy, cheetah supervisor at Wildlife Safari.

This odd pairing was no accident, as an Anatolian Shepard is very protective and that natural instinct could be the key to saving the wild cheetah population.

“Anatolians will be like that no matter how they are raised, whether it’s with goats or whether it’s cattle. So the farmers get these dogs as puppies and a big barking dog is plenty to keep a cheetah away from their livestock. And in turn, farmers are shooting less cheetahs because right now they are a shoot-on-sight animal,” said Roy.

While these roommates may be considered the odd couple at Wildlife Safari, caretakers says it’s like nothing they’ve ever seen.

“When we take the dog for her daily walk, the cheetah sits on her house and waits for the dog to come back and if we take Sanurra down to the village for the day, Ellie cries and whines for her cheetah to come back, so they do miss each other,” said Roy.

That type of bond could change the road ahead for cheetahs in Africa.

Categories: Recent News, behavior
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California Considers Tracking Animal Abusers Like Sex Offenders

By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: FoxNews.com, mar 5, 2010

The California state Legislature is considering a new proposal to establish a registry of names — similar to widely used sex offender databases — to track and make public the identities of people convicted of felony animal abuse.

Animal abusers would be tracked like sex offenders if California lawmakers have their way.

The state Legislature is considering a new proposal to establish a registry of names — similar to widely used sex offender databases — to track and make public the identities of people convicted of felony animal abuse.

The registry, which under the law would be posted on the Internet, wouldn’t just include names. The bill calls for photographs, home addresses, physical descriptions, criminal histories, known aliases and other details to be made public.

Supporters say it’s a way to notify communities and local police that animal abusers are living among them and to warn shelters to watch out for them if they try to adopt.

“In part, it’s an attempt to give law enforcement a heads up when people like this are in their communities, so they can cut off problems at the pass,” said Lisa Franzetta, spokeswoman for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, which is leading a national campaign to get states to establish the registries.

California Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, who introduced the bill last month, was the first to take a crack at it, though Tennessee has considered something similar. Franzetta said lawmakers from six states have contacted the group to express interest in launching animal abuser databases.

Florez said the bill, which if passed would be the first of its kind, falls in line with other animal protection bills California has pursued. He said the registry is aimed at helping animal control officers do their jobs and animal shelters make sure abusers “don’t walk out with an animal they can torture.”

But not everybody in California, which also maintains a database of arsonists, thinks a brand new public database of unsavory persons is what the state needs, particularly given its budget troubles.

The tool is estimated to cost between $500,000 and $1 million to launch, and to pay for it, the bill calls for both fines on animal abusers and a new tax on pet food — in the neighborhood of a few cents per pound. That doesn’t sit well with the pet food lobby, since it argues the tax punishes the very people who are trying to help, not hurt, their animal friends.

“We generally don’t think that this is a very good proposal,” said Ed Rod, vice president of government affairs for the American Pet Products Associations, though he called the idea a worthy goal.

“Making one group of people, the pet owners, pay for something that’s going to benefit everyone doesn’t seem fair,” Rod said. “It’s not pet owners in general who are abusing the animals. They’re trying to take care of the animals.”

The Fresno Bee published an editorial in opposition to the bill Friday, saying the new “state bureaucracy” would be funded by an “unfair tax” on pet owners.

“We also question the registry’s effectiveness. We would rather see the penalties and fines substantially increased on those convicted of animal cruelty,” the paper wrote. “We have no problem with private groups creating registries. … But we oppose another state bureaucracy.”

Florez, though, said that once launched, the registry would probably only have one employee attached to it and an annual cost of $60,000 to $70,000.

“We don’t see this moving into some kind of large bureaucracy,” he said.

Franzetta said that the database would only be to flag the worst offenders, like people who hoard hundreds of animals under poor conditions or “sadistic animal torturers” who pick up their prey at shelters. She said recidivism for felony offenders is high and that animal abuse can be a gateway to more egregious crimes — she said communities should know “who’s living among them” just like they can with sex offenders.

“The same logic applies,” she said.

Categories: Abuse/Neglect, Legal, Recent News
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Author Exposes The Abuse and Suffering at Puppy Mills in New Book

By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: kfbb.com, Mar 6, 2010

Imagine forcing your dog to live his or her entire life in a small wire cage, with no toys or comfort and little hope of survival. Believe it or not, that is what life is like for dogs that live in puppy mills across our nation and right here in Montana.

It is the topic of a new book written by one local woman. Dozens of people gathered at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Great Falls Saturday, to attend a book signing with local author, Carol Bradley. Her new book, “Saving Gracie” is a true story about her dog’s rescue from a puppy mill in Pennsylvania.

The book follows Gracie, a cavalier king charles spaniel, who is worn out from bearing puppies at a puppy mill and her journey into a loving new family. Gracie’s story explores the disturbing world of large volume kennels but also takes a look at the generous people who helped her along with way.

Bradley says, “The book kind of peels back the curtain on puppy mills. These dogs suffer from a variety of diseases. They often live in dark barns filled with rats and venom. They sometimes are starved. It’s incredible the ways the dogs are treated considering how expensive the puppies wind up being.”

The book was inspired by the Camp Collie case that took place in Montana back in 2002. That is when a tractor trailer packed with neglected collies was discovered as it passed through the border station near Shelby. Local residents ended up caring for close to 200 collies until their owners were convicted of multiple counts of animal cruelty and the dogs were finally free to be adopted.

Saving Gracie is available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, or any web site where books are sold.

Carol Bradley is an award-winning former newspaper reporter who studied Animal Law as a 2004 Nieman Fellow at Harvard. She spent 26 years covering the U.S. Congress and state legislatures in Tennessee and New York, and writing features and investigative stories for the Great Falls Tribune.

Bradley has written about many aspects of animal welfare, including horse slaughtering, rodeos, animal hoarding, and animal cruelty. She grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee and lived in Nashville, Knoxville, New York and Washington D.C. before moving to Great Falls, where she now lives with her husband, Steve L’Heureux, and their two dogs. Saving Gracie is her first book.

Categories: Abuse/Neglect, Health, Puppy Mills, Recent News, Recommended Reading
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Dog covered in petrol and set alight in Liverpool

Posted March 5, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: BBCNews, March 5, 201

A dog has been tied to a fence, covered in petrol and set on fire on a football field in Liverpool.

Passers-by heard the cries of the female Staffordshire bull terrier-cross in Kirkdale, and tried to help, but the animal had to be put to sleep.

The one-year-old dog had been missing for a few days, the RSPCA said.

RSPCA chief inspector Simon Small: “The fact that someone could do this to a living creature is beyond comprehension.”

This dog suffered tremendously before she died. This was a deliberate act of extreme cruelty
Simon Small

The incident happened on Tuesday night on a sports pitch off Stanley Road.

“It doesn’t get worse than what happened here,” Mr Small said.

“I’ve never had to deal with an incident like this in my nine years with the society.

“This dog suffered tremendously before she died. This was a deliberate act of extreme cruelty of the type I hope never to see again.”

The RSPCA is urging anyone with information about the attack to come forward.

“This was a cowardly and cruel attack on a defenceless animal whose suffering was immense,” Mr Small said.

Categories: Abuse/Neglect, Recent News
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Dog survives 300ft jump off cliff, UK

Posted February 25, 2010 By aschae and has no comments yet.

Feb 24, 2010

A “remarkable” dog had a lucky escape after jumping off a 300ft cliff to chase a seagull and landing in the sea below.

Poppy the springer spaniel ran over the edge of the clifftop during a walk at a beauty spot in East Sussex.

She plunged into the water but survived and managed to swim to shore where she waited until a RNLI crew arrived.

The three-year-old’s owners – Kelly Ixer, 26, and Ben Markwick, 31, said they were “indebted” to the lifeboat team.

On the day of the accident, the couple – who have a three-week-old son, Henry – had suggested Mr Markwick’s sister Lia and her partner Stephen Winslade, who were staying with them in Ansty, West Sussex, should take Poppy out for some exercise.

Mr Winslade, 31, said: “She ran to the edge and just disappeared.

“She is really well trained and well behaved but I think she ran so fast there was no chance of her stopping.

“I threw myself down and looked over the edge and saw her paddling.

“I could see there was a beach she was heading for.”

Amid the panic, he raised the alarm on his mobile phone while Miss Markwick, 29, called down to Poppy.

Categories: Health, Recent News, Rescue
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Missing Dog Turns Up 600 Miles Away From Home in Florida

By aschae and has no comments yet.

Source: FoxNews.com, Feb 25, 2010

A Virginia couple has been reunited with their missing German shepherd, which somehow made its way to Florida.

Pamela Holt lives in Stuart, Va., and says she thought the phone call from an animal control officer in Florida was a “mean trick.” Then she realized the man really had found her missing pet, Deacon, hundreds of miles from home.

The dog hadn’t been seen since December. Holt and her husband eventually decided the dog must have died.

According to police reports, a convenience store clerk saw Deacon and another dog running in traffic last week in Deland, Fla. The clerk called authorities and the dogs were taken to a kennel.

Deacon had an implanted microchip, which helped track down the Holts. The Virginia couple have made the more than 600-mile trip to pick him up.

Categories: Human/Canine Bond, Lost Dog, Recent News
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