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Pet food safety tips to ensure a safe diet

In order to keep pets safe from tainted food, we have included several pet food safety tips that pet owners can take:

• Check all of the pet foods that you buy at the store against an updated and comprehensive list of recalled pet food products.
• Discard pet foods that you find on the list. You can ask about proper methods for disposing of the product from the pet food manufacturer. The FDA found melamine in the wheat gluten that was used as one of the ingredients in pet food.
• Be sure to be aware of symptoms that your pet may exhibit. If your pet has eaten contaminated food, then  the symptoms to look for are loss of appetite, diarrhea and vomiting. Due to the pet food recall this past spring, the melamine caused the kidneys to malfunction. Some of the symptoms of kidney failure include increased urination, lethargy, drinking excessive water and dehydration. Any one of these symptoms is enough of a reason for you to contact your veterinarian.

Even if you don't happen to notice any of these symptoms, if your pet has consumed any of the pet foods that are on the recall list, it is advised that you take your animal to a veterinarian so that your pet may have its kidney function checked.

How about homemade?

An additional pet food safety tip as a good alternative in lieu of purchasing pet food is to make homemade pet food. This isn't as simple as just cooking up a little hamburger for your puppy. Because animals do well on consistent diets, any changes you make in your pet’s diet should be done slowly and with caution. You do not want to keep changing from one diet to another because this could be very upsetting to your pet’s digestive system. A homemade diet does not seem to meet an animal’s nutritional needs, and what is good for a cat may not necessarily be good for a puppy. If you are thinking about making your own food for your pet, then by all means consult your veterinarian or a pet nutritionist for additional pet food safety tips.

You must realize that what a 10-year-old senior dog eats will be different from what a puppy eats. Pets with particular diseases and various health problems have different nutritional needs. Some human foods such as lean meats, carrots and brown rice are all right to serve to pet. However, you should avoid giving your pet junk food or sweets. Some foods such as raisins, grapes, mushrooms and chocolate are toxic to both cats and dogs.

Scrutinizing pet food labels

If you want to put your pet on a holistic diet, then here is some advice for buying healthy, quality pet food. When you read labels, you should not have to stumble through a lot of words that you cannot pronounce. You also want to avoid anything that is called a digest or a byproduct such as beef or fish digest.

You also want to avoid foods that contain such additives as  BHA, BHT and food coloring. You should try to find brands that contain olive oil or canola oil rather than just plain animal fat. The FDA does not think that BHT, ethoxyquin and BHA pose any kind of a pet food safety threat to pets. However, the FDA has asked the pet food companies to lower the amount of ethoxyquin that they used in their products. For now, this will be done on a voluntary basis.

Our last pet food safety tip is to be certain to check pet food labels, ingredients have to be listed by weight in descending order. Be sure to look carefully at the label. Many pet foods have fillers such as corn, wheat or soy as the first ingredient. However, if the pet food is a protein product, then the protein source should be the first ingredient that is listed.