This week’s news that millions of containers of cat and dog food sold throughout North America may be deadly is horrible news for pet owners. Reportedly, there have been about 10 pet deaths after eating the affected pet food and an unknown number of cats and dogs that have suffered kidney failure. No doubt that “10″ is low since most pet owners and even veterinarians might not have linked the pet’s death with the food they were eating. At least not until now. 

Ontario-based Menu Foods is recalling 46 brands of dog food and 37 brands of cat food. Those brands include Iams, Eukanuba and Nutro. I feed my two cats the Iams products that are on the recall list.

The food is distributed through major retailers throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. Those retailers include Wal-Mart, Safeway, Kroger and specialty stores such as Petsmart. The recall affects Menu Foods’ “cuts and gravy” style food sold in cans and small foil pouches. I have both cans and pouches of the affected food in my pantry.

 A complete list of the recalled products with product codes, descriptions and production dates is at Menu Foods’ web site: http://www.menufoods.com/recall or by phone at (866) 463-6738.

I went to the website and the majority of links go directly to the specific products affected. However, a few of the brands link down into the specific brand’s website and the recall information is a few links down in the site.

• Recall list for Cats:  http://www.menufoods.com/recall/product_cat.html
• Recall list for Dogs: http://www.menufoods.com/recall/product_dog.html
• Iams  http://us.iams.com/iams/en_US/data_root/html/product_article/ProductRecallList.htm
• Eukanuba  http://us.eukanuba.com/eukanuba/en_US/jsp/Euk_Page.jsp?pageID=MC&newsArticleID=22&intcmp=HM_PRR
• Science Diet http://www.hillspet.com/menu_foods/Menu_Foods_en_US.htm

What struck me as I looked through the various brands is that some are very high end, others are store brands such as Publix, Winn Dixie, and Sav-A-Lot. Does this mean that the same product in the Iams can or pouch I’m paying top dollar for is sold as a store brand for significantly less?