salmonella tainted dog kibble

Last year, March of 2007, when we were unwittingly poisoning our pets with Chinese gluten products, I studied dog food, and blogged, and chatted, and felt pretty up-to-date on dog nutrition. I thought I was current on the dangers of feeding commercial dog food to my babies. I thought I knew enough about dog nutrition and what’s available on the market to make informed decisions about my dogs’ diet. I felt confident that I could protect them with my great big smart brain by being informed.
Being a busy person, I soon forgot to stay in regular touch with my new online pals; people who were grieving because they had poisoned their pet when they thought they were giving them a treat. Or worse, when Fluffy and Rover didn’t want to eat the regular pet food they figured Fluffy and Rover were spoiled and left it down and encouraged them to eat it anyway.
How hard is it to deal with guilt like that? Bringing poison right into your home and encouraging your loved ones to eat it. Pretty damn hard to recover from that kind of thing. Folks were really tore up about it, as you can imagine, and we formed some pretty close alliances, trying to help each other understand the madness.
Today I went back on some of those feeds and rooms for old times’ sake, just to see what the haps, you know, and GEEZ, it’s not over, I guess. Today I discovered the pet food salmonella bacteria poisonings of March 2007 that were finally reported in August 2007, and revisited the euthanized pet rendering issue.
I didn’t know dogs could get salmonella, so I went online http://www.mountaindogfood.com/HealthCare/Salmonella.htm
and found that they cannot, because dogs are built to eat meats and greens.
The problem seems to have been humans contracting salmonella poisoning through contact with the kibble. All across the country, people who didn’t wash their hands after they fed their dogs got sick. There was one reported case (I read it on the internet, so it has to be true) of a child getting sick from being in the same room as an open bag of kibble. So the net was buzzing. Uproars of indignation for our horrible petfood industry safety standards.
Still a lot of nagative buzz around the salmonella thing. And it’s true that we shouldn’t have to worry that something we feed our pets is dangerous to handle, at least without warning labels. But who doesn’t wash their hands after feeding the pets?
Hand washing is the number one line of defense against food-borne illness. And then there is hand washing again, since it’s the most important! and finally washing the counter top, utensils, etc. Washing the dog dishes with soap and water was mentioned, but my dogs don’t get that kind of pampering every time. My hands do, they get soap and water after handling money, dirty dishes, dog food, the scummy tennis ball that happens to be today’s favorite in the back yard. Lucky hands.