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I can’t believe I have to take to my keyboard again so soon on this issue, but here I am. More Salmonella-related recalls have been issued for dog food, and once again they’re from parent company Diamond Pet Foods.
This is all just getting so confusing and ridiculous. The problem is that several brands with different names are all manufactured at the same plant, so it’s hard to keep track of what’s safe and what might be infected.
Eleven different brands of pet food are all under a voluntary recall for potential Salmonella contamination. They are: Chicken Soup for the Pet/Dog Lover’s Soul, Country Value, Diamond, Diamond Naturals, Premium Edge, Professional, 4Health, Taste of the Wild, Apex, Kirkland Signature/Kirkland Signature Nature’s Domain, and Canidae.
Given the number of affected brands, I don’t have the space to list all of the specific recall information here. Certain batches of each of these brands produced between December 9, 2011 and April 7, 2012 might be affected. Visit the Diamond Pet Food recall website for details and production codes of the potentially tainted products.
The more I learn about this story the more upsetting it is. I know that sometimes accidents and mistakes happen, but Diamond Pet Foods didn’t notice anything for five months? That’s too long. Also, I briefly fed both my cats and dog Taste of the Wild pet food, so now it’s really hit home. However, it has been almost two months since I had any Taste of the Wild in my house, so if no one, including us humans, has gotten sick up until this point I know we’re safe.
I’ve also found out that, although no pets have suffered severe Salmonella infection as a result of Diamond Pet Foods, 14 people have gotten sick. This seems strange at first; the animals are actually eating the food, whereas humans are just coming into lesser contact with it. Let’s look at the facts, via an article on the recall from the Chicago Tribune.
Animals are more resistant to Salmonella than humans are; they’re not as likely to get sick from contamination, but if they’ve eaten tainted food they can still be carriers of the bacteria. That means that you could feed your pet tainted food and it doesn’t get sick, but you can, if you touched the food directly and did not wash your hands afterward. Or maybe your pet ate some of the food and then gave you a sloppy kiss right on the mouth, the Salmonella could transfer to you that way.
Before you panic, remember this: more humans are still sickened by Salmonella from undercooked foods than they are from pet food. If you want to be super safe, always wash your hands after handling pet food, particularly if you’re going to then touch a baby’s food. Just remember that most of the time we shouldn’t have to worry about Salmonella in pet food, because it’s not supposed to be in there.
The expanded Diamond Pet Foods Recall was announced mid last week. I waited until today to post about it because I wanted to hold off and make sure that even more foods weren’t once again added to the recall just a few days after that. So far we’re so good, and let’s hope that this is finally the end of the dog food Salmonella infection.
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Pet First Aid: Safe Household Treatments
Alternatives to Traditional Veterinary Surgery
*(This image by AlishaV is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
